[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2210]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        AFRICAN AMERICAN POVERTY

  (Ms. LEE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, as chair of the Democratic Whip Task Force on 
Poverty, Income Inequality, and Opportunity, I rise to commemorate 
Black History Month and highlight the disproportionate impacts of 
poverty on the African American community.
  Sadly, our Nation has a long history of individual and institutional 
racism, from slavery and Jim Crow to redlining and overpolicing. This 
has locked many, many families out of opportunities, even with the 
enormous progress that we have made with our great civil rights leaders 
and foot soldiers whom we honored yesterday.
  These deplorable disparities and inequalities continue at every level 
of our society. For example, the African American poverty rate is 26 
percent, nearly triple the poverty rate of White Americans. One in 
three African American children lives in poverty.
  The unemployment rate in the African American community is more than 
8 percent, twice the unemployment rate of White Americans. The median 
wealth of White households is 13 times the median wealth of African 
American households, the widest gap since 1989.
  Poverty doesn't just hurt African American families. We know that 
communities of color are two times more likely to live in poverty and 
too many rural White and Native Americans have felt persistent poverty 
for generations.
  These statistics paint a clear and stark picture that Congress cannot 
ignore. We need to get serious about ending poverty and giving 
everyone, including African Americans and people of color, an 
opportunity to live the American Dream.

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