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Vice President Kamala Harris touted a list of economic accomplishments that the Biden administration has delivered for Black Americans during her latest visit to metro Atlanta. But many Black Atlantans, feeling the lingering sting of inflation, say they’re still struggling financially.
The nation’s first Black woman vice president spent a lot of time during her April 29 Economic Opportunity Tour stop in College Park explaining how the Biden administration is helping minority-owned businesses grow in number and size by increasing their access to capital and aiding them in securing more federal contracts.
U.S. Census Bureau data released last fall shows the number of Black-owned employer firms in the Atlanta metro area grew by more than 23% between 2020 and 2021, the highest rate in three decades, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“When we first came in, we made a commitment that we are going to increase by 50% the number of federal contracts going to minority-owned businesses, and we’re on track to do that,” Harris said.
But the overwhelming majority of Black Americans and Black Georgians don’t own businesses. Experts say tackling inflation remains Black Georgia’s primary economic dilemma and the issue the White House needs to focus on the most if it wants to regain the level of Black voter support Biden received in 2020.
Ninety-two percent of Black registered voters engaged by the New Georgia Project Action Fund during door-to-door canvassing last fall said inflation and the overall cost of living should be among Democrats’ top priorities, along with increasing wages and jobs.
“These findings match what we are hearing today [at] the doors as we talk to thousands of voters across the state,” NGPAF Research Director Ranada Robinson told Capital B Atlanta on May 2.
The Stitch
Harris also highlighted how the Biden administration is working to deconstruct systemic barriers placed on Atlanta’s Black neighborhoods via infrastructure projects like The Stitch, a nearly 1-mile platform with 14 acres of urban greenspace set to be built between Ted Turner Drive and Piedmont Avenue.
The Stitch is designed to reconnect historically Black neighborhoods, like Sweet Auburn, with downtown Atlanta. Black neighborhoods on Atlanta’s south side were cut off from the city’s business corridors after Interstate highways 85 and 75 were constructed in the late 1950s and ’60s, Harris noted.
Congress has appropriated $158 million to build The Stitch via the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that Biden signed into law in 2021.
“It’s going to create about 13,000 jobs and also focus on affordable housing,” Harris said of The Stitch during her April 29 remarks, which drew applause from those in attendance.
Black voters weigh in
But none of the points the vice president raised struck a chord with Atlanta resident Beverly Lollis.
The 69-year-old retiree’s two-bedroom apartment sits in the shadow of I-85, less than a mile from the planned worksite for The Stitch, which Lollis learned about for the first time on May 2.
She said the project sounds “fine,” but she’s more concerned about her rising rent prices, her virtually stagnant social security checks and the increasing cost of the cooking oil and neck bones simmering on her kitchen stove.
Atlanta had the 11th highest rate of overall inflation in the nation year-over-year in March, according to a WalletHub analysis. Food prices in February were up 2.6% when compared to the same month a year ago. Black voters across Georgia have complained frequently in recent years about the elevated cost of groceries.
“Everything keeps going up, up, up and up,” Lollis told Capital B Atlanta on May 2. “You can’t catch up.”
Lollis said her social security payments aren’t keeping up with the cost of her bills. She wants Biden to push Congress to pass Bernie Sanders’ proposed Social Security Expansion Act, a measure that would revise the program’s cost-of-living adjustment calculations and which the Vermont senator says would extend its solvency for the next 75 years.
“Biden will be the president for the next 50 years if he can cut the head off of inflation,” Lollis said.
The rising cost of housing also remains a top concern for Campbellton Road neighborhood resident Sky Bella Marsh. Marsh is a registered nurse who says her income hasn’t increased since 2019, but her monthly rent has gone up by about $300 along with her car insurance, car note and grocery store tab.
Lowering costs by finding a cheaper place to live isn’t an option, she said..
“If you want to move somewhere nowadays, they want five times the rent,” Marsh said. “Who makes five times the rent when the jobs are barely paying you two?”
Black retail stores also hurting
Residential renters aren’t the only ones feeling the financial pinch from inflation, said Atlanta Black Chambers CEO Melvin Coleman. While the number of overall Black-owned businesses has increased largely due to e-commerce, the number of brick-and-mortar stores shuttering in majority-Black neighborhoods has been on the rise as well.
Coleman says some retail store owners’ rents have gone up 50% over a short period of time in recent years.
“I know of businesses that have had to close, have gone out of business, because they can’t afford to stay in business,” he said. “They don’t have the resources to sustain themselves. It’s always worse in the African American community.”
More calls for rent regulation
Advocating for putting caps on rent should be a policy priority for Biden during a second term if he wants to rein in housing and retail store prices, according to Kimberly A. Irvin-Lee, senior director of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development for the Urban League of Greater Atlanta.
Georgia has had a statewide ban on rent regulation since 1984 and legislation that would lift the ban has stalled in the state legislature for two consecutive years. Irvin-Lee said calling on the state to lift the ban could help Biden rally support from Black folks.
“If there’s not ever going to be a cap on [rent], I think that has a huge impact on the ability to make housing affordable,” Irvin-Lee said.
The rest of Biden’s economic resume
Biden’s economic record also includes 2.6 million jobs secured by Black workers, a 60% rise in overall Black wealth between 2019 and 2022, and more than $153 billion in student loan forgiveness delivered after the Supreme Court blocked his initial plan to forgive $430 billion in student loan debt, Harris pointed out during her April 29 visit.
The Howard University alum also highlighted the $260 million allocated to Georgia’s HBCUs via the American Rescue Plan Act that Biden signed into law. She challenged aspiring Black entrepreneurs to seek out the business development resources being created by the federal government, community development financial institutions, and other local lenders that specialize in dealing with underserved demographic groups.
“You are worthy of and entitled to receive an investment in your dream and your ambition,” Harris said.
Robinson noted that the Peach State has achieved record-low Black unemployment rate since Biden took office nearly four years ago, but also that wages in Georgia haven’t kept up with the rate of inflation.
“Even with record job growth under the Biden administration, especially here in Georgia, these voters — who helped elect President Biden to his first term — have yet to feel these changes,” she said. “The president has made strides on making his case for a second term to Black Georgia voters, but he needs to do more to show them that.”
