A significant amount of news coverage related to the protests and riots stemming from the death of George Floyd essentially involved news hosts asking leaders and regular people how do we stop the public backlash over this racial crime from getting out of hand, how do we stop the violence, the burning and looting of businesses that America is experiencing! The following are two suggestions I would recommend America's leaders implement! As has been extensively spoken of over the last view days the economic unfairness that African Americans experience across the country has a lot to do with the motivation behind these protests! A significant builder of wealth for American families is home ownership, homes are very high priced assets two-hundred to three hundred thousand dollar assets is not uncommon; when a person owns their own home instead of paying like two-thousand dollars a month in rent they pay that money as a mortgage payment and they financially get something back from that expenditure they build up their ownership in the principle of that property so later they are able to realize that increase in wealth by either selling that home or refinancing it. America's leaders can increase the wealth of the African American people by increasing home ownership in the African American community. This can be accomplished by increasing funding for those federal government programs that subsidize the construction of low -income housing and target a significant increase in funding specifically for African American communities across America and make this targeted increase in funding permanent. The Federal government can get the added benefit of helping minorities by in the adopting legislation condition that funding to only projects where at twenty-five percent of the subcontractors are minority owned or at least twenty-five percent of the workers on the project are minorities! The other suggestion that seems appropriate would help all Americans not just African Americans. A good way American families gain wealth is thru retirement savings even if a person dies before their retirement savings is used up they can pass on what is normally a significant chunk of money to their children thereby increasing the wealth of their children. Now for past generations of Americans their employer used to provide a defined pension where when that worker retired their employer would continue to pay them so much money per month, a pension, which would enable them to live. This was absolutely good and moral public policy because after a worker for many years gave their life and correspondingly their health to that employer in employee service at the end of their life when their health often diminishes and they cannot really work the employer acts fair and continues to compensate that worker for their past service thru a pension. Now the vast majority of employers discontinued or do not offer their workers' pensions because the cost is prohibitive; however, they still have that moral duty to help their worker when that worker can no longer work because of old age. These employers try to meet this moral duty thru 401K programs where an employee puts a portion of their wages in a retirement savings account during their work life and their employer on a yearly basis matches those savings up to a certain amount and as the years go by this retirement savings account grows tax free and when the worker retires he or she can draw from that retirement account to live and when that worker dies that worker can pass the balance in the account to that worker's heirs. One of the big shortcomings of this 401K plan idea is that many workers cannot afford to set aside much of their earnings in a retirement account because they need their earning to live. Now because the company match activity in a 401K program really is all about the company doing its moral and ethical duty to help provide for an employee when that employee retires why doesn't the Federal government stop this foolish and unfair conditioning of the employer's contribution to the 401K retirement account. The Federal government should mandate that on these 401K accounts whatever the maximum amount an employee could earn through a company match the company or employer shall contribute eighty percent of that amount into the employee's account on a yearly basis regardless of whether the employee contributes even one penny into their 401K account. The company match in a 401K program is a moral duty pension obligation people need to live on when they are old and retired and it is about time the Federal government recognized it as such. It is sufficient to require the mandate on the employer side be only eighty percent because it leaves a little incentive for employees to contribute. If the Federal government makes this change to the 401K law it would increase the wealth of ordinary Americans including African-Americans.
