Despite challenges, Black Americans positive about finances and want to help others

Many Black Americans are positive about their financial situation and want to help others succeed. That’s according to a U.S. Bank report, Building Black Wealth Insights. It highlighted the financial needs, goals and challenges of Black Americans with at least $25,000 in investable assets.

Six in 10 respondents feel better about their current financial situation than they did before the pandemic, compared to half of Hispanic, Asian and Caucasian participants. Nearly 70 percent, far more than other racial groups surveyed, feel a deep sense of responsibility to help their communities financially. They also are more committed to leaving a financial legacy for the next generation.

However, more than three-fourths of respondents believe the racial wealth gap will either increase or, in the best-case scenario, remain the same by 2030. Eight in 10 believe there still are institutional roadblocks impeding their ability to accumulate wealth. This number was even higher for Black female single head of household respondents (85 percent).

Among other survey results:

Black respondents are deeply committed to advancing the Black community through the “each one, teach one” concept — the idea of passing knowledge or learnings on to someone else.

Sixty percent of all Black respondents believe their community is at a disadvantage. By comparison, 37 percent of Hispanics, 17 percent of Asians and 7 percent of Caucasians feel this way about their respective communities in terms of wealth accumulation.

Black Americans want to see themselves reflected in the financial teams helping them. Nearly twice as many Black as Hispanic respondents say they have been treated differently by the financial services industry because of their race (23 percent vs. 13 percent) and nearly four times as many compared to white respondents (6 percent).

Black women are less likely than Black men to work with a financial advisor and believe the Black community is at more of a disadvantage for wealth accumulation. Fifty-seven percent of Black women surveyed work with an advisor vs. 66 percent of Black men.

Black consumers are committed to building wealth for the next generation. Twice as many Black respondents describe financial success as leaving a legacy compared to their white counterparts (20 percent vs. 10 percent).They also are more likely than white respondents to define success as being able to help the next generation (26 percent vs. 16 percent).

“We understand that, as advisors who work every day to help clients achieve better financial outco mes, our industry has an important role to play and much more work to do to reduce the racial wealth gap,” said Gunjan Kedia, vice chair of Wealth Management and Investment Services at U.S. Bank. “This research highlights many steps we can take as an industry to better serve the Black community.”