#59 Inflation Hurts Latinos And BIPOC The Most

Episode Description:

Millions of minority households across the nation are facing distinct, serious financial problems during this period, including many who are being threatened with eviction and face unsafe conditions in their neighborhoods, with few options to help.

And when it comes to the Hispanic/Latino community, Latinos are substantially more likely than whites to report they are currently having serious financial problems. They are also more likely than whites to report not having enough emergency savings to cover at least one month of their expenses, more likely to have serious problems affording food, and having serious issues affording their mortgage or rent.

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Cold Opening: How inflation is defined – Inflation Hurts Latinos and BIPOC The Most

Simply put inflation is when you pay more but get less. Inflation devalues the dollar and it reduces your buying power. You end up paying more for things like gas and groceries, but the extra money that you’re paying doesn’t get you any additional goods or services.

Inflation doesn’t affect everyone the same. Inflation for people of color could mean having to choose between groceries and diapers for their little ones.

In fact, according to a study done by Harvard 56% of Latino households say they are facing serious financial problems because of inflation compared to 44% of white families, and 36% of Asian families.

In June grocery inflation or “food at home” inflation, reached 12.2% over the last year, the largest spike since 1979, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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What is going on everyone? This is the LEO podcast… where we talk about various educational topics… especially those impacting the Latin American community.

For today’s episode, we’ll be discussing inflation and the serious impacts it has on the Latino community.

I’m your host kevin muñoz, this is today’s free episode if you want early access to episodes and bonus episodes you can find that right now on our patreon.com/latinamericaneo and if not then enjoy this one!

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Topic 1: Inflation intro – Inflation Hurts Latinos and BIPOC The Most

Before the new inflation rate of 8.5% that was released on August 10th by the Labor Department, inflation was sitting at a four-decade peak in the U.S. of 9.1% and economists and business leaders alike are arguing about the likelihood of a recession on the horizon, if we’re not already in one.

And while high inflation numbers signify wide-ranging price increases across most consumer sectors, those increases are concentrated in essentials like food and energy, where inflation is most likely to cut into household budgets.

In June, grocery inflation, or “food at home” inflation, reached 12.2% over the last year followed by a 1.1% increase in July, the largest spike since 1979 according to the Bureau of Labor statistics.

Here’s how much prices have increased over the past year for certain household goods and services, according to the Labor Department: Gas: 44% Airline fares: 27.7% Electricity: 15.2% Food at home: 13.1% New vehicles: 10.4% Food away from home: 7.6% Used cars and trucks: 6.6% Shelter: 5.7% Apparel: 5.1% Beer: 4.6%

These price increases are hurting people of color the most.

Latinos specifically have been drivers of economic growth in America for years yet Latino businesses and consumers often are the ones that feel the pain of rising inflation the most when compared to other groups of Americans.

And to make matters worse, real wages are not keeping pace with this rising inflation, and in fact, are down 6.2% since January of 2021. There’s even research from the New York Federal Reserve that estimates that Latinos are experiencing a .6 percentage point higher inflation rate than average.

Latinos are taught to save cash, but the problem with cash is that its value stays the same while inflation increases. There are many financial vehicles out there that will make your money work for you versus you working hard for your money and then saving it under your mattress while it loses its value every year.

Many Latinos, in general, are already in an uncertain financial position due to many of them losing their jobs during this period. Looking at unemployment numbers overall, Latinos have been hit the hardest. If you just look at pre-pandemic levels, and the unemployment rate for Latinos today, it’s actually far and above that. And if we just look at it through gender, Latina women have actually suffered the most. According to the Bureau of Labor in 2021, Latinas made up the largest percentage of unemployment at almost 20%.

Today we’re going to focus on a poll titled “Personal Experiences of U.S. Racial/Ethnic Minorities in Today’s Difficult Times” conducted May 16 – June 13 of 2022 among 4,192 U.S. adults and was conducted by Harvard/NPR/ and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

This report details findings among the five largest racial/ethnic groups in the U.S.: 1,216 non-Hispanic white adults, 1,103 Black adults, 1,066 Hispanic/Latino adults, 552 Asian adults, and 180 Native American adults ages 18 and older.

What this report found was that millions of minority households across the nation are facing distinct, serious financial problems during this period, including many who are being threatened with eviction and face unsafe conditions in their neighborhoods, with few options to help.

And when it comes to the Hispanic/Latino community, Latinos are substantially more likely than whites to report they are currently having serious financial problems in this period specifically 48% vs 38%. They are also more likely than whites to report not having enough emergency savings to cover at least one month of their expenses, specifically 53% vs 36%. More likely to have serious problems affording food 30% vs 21%, and having serious issues affording their mortgage or rent 26% vs 14%.

And yes even though there are many programs out there aimed to help families with food costs like food banks, they are also feeling the squeeze of rising costs. In February, about 85% of the 200 food banks in the Feeding Americas network reported increased or sustained demand for food assistance compared to previous months. So while good banks hustle to serve the growing number of families in need, the skyrocketing prices limit their ability to meet elevated demand.

In fact, food banks are paying 40% more to purchase nearly the same amount of food acquired on 2021 and outside of food costs, food banks are also paying more for the costs of everything from fuel to vehicle maintenance. At the same time, 55% of Feeding America food banks have reported that food donations are down.

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Access to food is a serious problem that is being felt especially in the Hispanic/Latino community and an issue that is likely to have major immediate and longer-term health consequences for millions of families.

Unfortunately, food costs are not the only issue caused by inflation. During this period when medical care has been disrupted, nationally 19% of U.S. households with serious illnesses have also struggled to find timely health care for those illnesses. Among the U.S. households where anyone has been seriously ill in the past year, 18% of Latino households say they were unable to get medical care for serious illnesses when they needed it.

Additionally, housing affordability and crime are currently viewed as serious neighborhood problems by substantial shares of adults. 74% of Latinos say the lack of affordable housing to buy is a serious problem in their own neighborhoods. As for crime, substantial numbers of people in minority communities report neighborhood crime as a serious problem in today’s world. 35% of Latino adults say crime is currently a serious problem in their own neighborhoods.

Conclusion/Closing remarks: Inflation Hurts Latinos and BIPOC The Most

Inflation disproportionately affecting low-income households highlights pandemic financial trends: because these households are still suffering, their dollars are being stretched thinner by bloated food and energy prices.

There’s even a broad sense across all groups but especially Black and Latino adults that they are not on track in their life. For both groups, half of those polled say they are falling behind in terms of achieving life goals over the past year, compared to 40% of white Americans.

If you think about it, when compared to where we were at the beginning of the pandemic, there are so many people that are not better, they’re actually even worse off than they were 2 ½ years ago.

The poll that we covered in today’s episode makes it clear that racial and ethnic minorities are struggling to keep up while navigating this increasingly tenuous economic situation and the social impacts brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Inflation is a crisis for people of color who are disproportionately affected by it.

THE END

That’s all for today on the LEO podcast. I’m Kevin Muñoz and as always feel free to send me a message with your thoughts or with any interesting topic that you’d like to see covered.

and for those of you on Patreon, I’ll see you there.

Otherwise, I’ll see you all in next week’s episode!