Senior Biden Admin Official Claims Racism Cost US Economy $16 Trillion

Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice listens during the White House Daily Briefing at the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington on March 21, 2014. Alex Wong/Getty Images

A senior Biden administration official has claimed that racism alone has caused a $16 trillion deficit in the U.S. economy over the past 20 years.

Susan Rice, director of the United States Domestic Policy Council, made the claim—which she said was specifically racial discrimination against black Americans—at the National Action Network convention on April 12.

“In the last 20 years, the U.S. had a GDP shortfall of $16 trillion due to discrimination against black Americans,” Rice said. “If we closed our racial gaps, we could add another $5 trillion to GDP over just the next five years. And in case you’re wondering, that’s not my math, that’s according to Citibank.”

The Citibank report (pdf) Rice referenced is titled, “Closing the Racial Inequality Gaps: The Economic Cost of Black Inequality in the U.S.,” and was published in September 2020.

According to that report, “closing the Black wage gap” could have added an additional $2.7 trillion in income available for consumption or investment, while providing “fair and equitable lending” to black entrepreneurs might have created an additional $13 trillion in business revenue over the last 20 years.

“This could have been used for investments in labor, technology, capital equipment, and structures and 6.1 million jobs might have been created per year,” the report states.

Harris Unveils New Grant Program

The report also claimed that improving access to housing credit could have added an additional 770,000 black homeowners over the last 20 years, with combined sales and expenditures adding another $218 billion to gross domestic product over that time.

Facilitating increased access to higher education for black students could have also bolstered lifetime incomes to an aggregate sum of $90 billion to $113 billion, the report states.

“We all benefit when every community has the chance to thrive,” Rice, who served as national security adviser from 2009 to 2017, said.

The senior Biden administration official’s comments come just days after Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled a new $1.7 billion grant program aimed at helping small businesses in underserved communities access the capital and financing services they need to recover from COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

Under that program, the billions of dollars will be granted to approximately 603 community lenders or banks that primarily serve “overlooked” and minority communities, such as Liberty Financial Services in Louisiana, which is part of Liberty Bank and one of the largest black-owned financial institutions in the country.

That institution is set to receive $6 million under the new program, while in Pennsylvania, Community First Fund, which lends mostly to businesses owned by minorities, will also receive $6 million.

Federal Budget Deficit Set to Soar

The grants, which will be paid by the Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI), do not need to be paid back.

The U.S. federal budget deficit has already exceeded $1 trillion in the first half of fiscal year 2023 and the Congressional Budget Office projects (pdf) a federal budget deficit of $1.4 trillion for 2023. The projected deficit amounts to 5.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) amid persistent inflation, increased spending on Medicare, and ongoing supply-side disruptions, among other issues.

Officials have warned that Biden’s planned student loan forgiveness program and large spending bills will further drive up the deficit.

In her speech, Rice also took aim at what she said was “black history being erased from our classrooms and textbooks,” in various states across the country.

States such as Florida and Arkansas have banned controversial critical race theory (CRT) from being taught in schools, arguing that the theory teaches students that America is fundamentally racist, promotes the idea that an individual’s skin color is their primary characteristic, and redefines human history as a struggle between the “oppressors”—typically considered to be white people—and the “oppressed”—other identity groups.

“Make no mistake those who are doing this are trying to tell us that we do not count, that we do not matter. And that perhaps we should not exist. Black history is American history,” Rice added. ”Truth is truth. We must fight to protect our history.”