Well to cap off Black History Month.

The Murphy administration on Friday released a long awaited report looking into wealth disparity in the state, outlining the root causes of economic gaps affecting black and Latino residents, along with recommended strategies to address them.

The report comes roughly five years after Governor Murphy first called for creating a wealth disparity task force and found many of the factors that have led to generational wealth gaps can be traced back to rules and laws during slavery.

For more, I'm joined by Cid Wilson, a member of the Task force and president and CEO of the Hispanic Association in Corporate Responsibility.

To talk to you.

A massive report here.

Obviously the work of a few years of looking into this.

What largely did this task force find is driving not just wealth disparities, but also poverty?

Well, thank you, Briana.

This work of the governor's wealth disparity task force was many years in.

The work is starting in 2021, when we had our first meeting led by the late governor Sheila Oliver, local telecom, Rochelle Oliver.

And and I'm one of the things that we did was really take a deep dive, not just on the structural disparities, but also what are some current policies that are in place that may unintentionally create disparities in New Jersey?

We know that if you're a white family, the average net worth is about $350,000 for black and Latinos.

It's only about 6 to 7000.

Wow.

It's a massive disparity.

Yeah, I mean, it was interesting in the way it was broken down.

It seemed to come back a lot.

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong to things like lack of access to capital, the inability to buy a home, and also health care practices and outcomes.

Why those three things in particular?

Why did they play such a large role here in creating these gaps and then allowing for them to persist?

Well, when we look at one of the majors, one of the biggest investors that everyone makes, which is buying a home, there were practices that were in place that were suppressing the ability for blacks, Latinos to buy a home.

And I really think Governor Murphy, for supporting initiative for first time homebuyers, for a down payment assistance, which is something that was in his 2023 budget proposals.

And but there were other practices ranging from disclosing your your down payment before someone even accepting an offer for you.

And and and and also the challenges of of not only having credit scores that are that have equity, which is why we talk about the importance of of how we can make sure that rent is being factored in to help strengthen credit our credit scores.

But also we you know, when we look at some of the challenges ranging from procurement in the states and health care, where by, for example, in Medicaid, there's a practice where they will try to claw back as part of a state planning when someone is deceased.

And then that leads to the challenge for wealth transfer.

Yeah, I know that there were a couple of dozen recommendations.

Can you talk to us quickly about what a couple of those are, what tangible recommendations maybe the legislature should pay attention to?

Well, they should pay attention to baby bonds.

I think that that's an opportunity.

Connecticut does that when we look at and at the challenges for social justice in New Jersey, which we know has is has not been equitable for people of color.

And that can, you know, can can lay an impact not only for those that are trying to seek jobs, but also, you know, what this means for families.

And then the fact that that many black and Latinos are part of the sandwich generation, taking care of both elderly parents and taking care of children and and initiatives that the state can do to address those disparities.

Cid Wilson is the president and CEO of the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility.

Cid Good to talk to you.

Thanks so much.

Thank you very much for having me.