Come Together: Connecting Capital With Underserved Communities
On Oct. 30, The Dallas Morning News hosted a public gathering to discuss Dallas’ need to connect capital with underserved ZIP codes.
Mayor Mike Rawlings moderated a discussion, which featured a special appearance by Dallas Fed President and CEO Richard Fisher and included a panel of experts:
- Mike Casey, chairman of the Grand Bank of Texas
- John Martinez, president of the Regional Hispanic Contractors Association
- Susan Williams McElroy, associate professor of economics and education policy at the University of Texas at Dallas
- Michelle Singletary, author and nationally syndicated personal finance columnist
Panelists addressed cultural myths surrounding money and reasons for the lack of capital flow into certain Dallas communities, including disparities in wages and educational attainment.
Rawlings shared that he believes “wealth is one of Dallas’ greatest strengths, and at the same time it exposes one of its greatest vulnerabilities.” He continued, “We don’t discuss why some parts of our city are drowning in poverty and why capital is flowing to some ZIP codes and never gets close to others. We never talk about money and how it relates to race relations.”
Fisher discussed the Dallas area’s wage and education gaps. He shared that in Dallas County, Hispanics earn only 62 cents on the dollar when compared with non-Hispanic whites, and African Americans earn 76 cents on the dollar. The poverty rate of Hispanics and African Americans is roughly three times that of non-Hispanic whites. The differences in educational attainment are also stark: While 45 percent of non-Hispanic whites in Dallas County complete college, only 20 percent of African Americans and 9 percent of Hispanics earn a college degree.[1] View Fisher’s presentation.
Panelists Mike Casey, Michelle Singletary, Mayor Mike Rawlings, Susan Williams McElroy and John Martinez. Photo credit: The Dallas Morning News.
Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher. Photo credit: Ronald Nance.
To continue the conversation on capital disparities in Dallas, Rawlings and Fisher wrote opinion pieces for The Dallas Morning News.
- From Rawlings: “People want to work and add value to the world they live in. … Those who have capital must stop acting like anyone without capital is somehow lazy. … Capital, by itself, has no inherent morality. It is we, the stewards of capital, who must use our intelligence, wisdom and, yes, our morality to put systems in place that allow capital to work in the right way.”
- From Fisher: “The chances of getting and keeping a job, thus moving up the opportunity ladder, increase exponentially the higher up you go on the education-attainment front. Good jobs are the route not only to higher income but also to the respect and dignity that we all aspire to. The higher you move up the job and opportunity ladder, the better your chances of attaining what we all want for ourselves: access to capital, better use of that capital and a better future for our children.”
Visit The Dallas Morning News website to read more from Mayor Rawlings’ and President Fisher’s pieces and to see columns from panelists Michelle Singletary and Susan Williams McElroy. The links below provide additional information on this topic from The Dallas Morning News.
- “Getting capital into underserved parts of Dallas”
- “Dallas experts say education is key to closing economic gap”
- “Without access to capital and banking, there’s little hope for poor”
- “Next steps for ‘Connecting Capital with Underserved Communities’ in Dallas”
Notes
About the Author
Molly Hubbert Doyle is a community development specialist in the Community Development Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.