The Economy is Us

“If we are truly at the precipice of a transformative moment, the most tragic of outcomes would be that the demand be too timid and the resolution too small.” - Nikole Hannah Jones

Battery Powered’s fall 2020 theme, Recovery & Resilience, kicked off with a dynamic virtual Expert Night. Our panel of experts shared insights on what we can do to support pandemic recovery for those most affected by the economic crisis while also rebuilding a more inclusive and resilient economy going forward. Here’s what we learned.

COVID Exploits Inequities

Elena Chávez Quezada of the San Francisco Foundation laid out the picture of how the pandemic has affected communities and nonprofits in the Bay Area. Key concerns include food insecurity, inability to make rent, potential for eviction, mental health, and layoffs of nonprofit staff. And as the data started coming in on case rates, it became quickly clear that Latinx communities were being hit the hardest (60% of all California COVID cases to date are among Latinx people) and that economic hardship was a driver of transmission. COVID didn’t cause the inequities, but as Elena said, “a pandemic dramatically exploits the already existing inequities we have in society.”

Reframe the Economy

Amid the pandemic, which is impacting those already suffering economic hardship the most, the stock market is doing well! But so many people are not doing well at all. Mia Birdsong suggested that we need to reframe how we decide whether or not the economy is doing well. A more inclusive and resilient economy would be one that was doing well when all people are doing well, not just those at the top of the wealth spectrum.

The economy is often seen as its own entity, but lost in that is the reality that the economy is a set of rules, narratives and mental models developed by people. WE make the economy and WE have the power to change the economy; “the economy is us” Jhumpa Bhattacharya of the Insight Center noted.  The panelists argued that the time is indeed ripe to make some changes.  

Wealth Inequity and its Long Racist History

When we think of economic insecurity, wealth is the key factor to consider.  Wealth allows people to make choices (e.g., whether to go into debt to attend college) and to live a life of dignity, noted Jhumpa. Wealth is what you pass on to your family and it accumulates over generations. So when we look at the vast wealth inequity that exists today, we need to go back to the very founding of our country to find its roots. 

Wealth in the United States was built on the backs of enslaved Black people, on land that was taken from indigenous people. The rules and structures of the economy were established predominantly by white men; they crea

ted “steps” for white men to gain wealth while creating “slides” that extracted wealth from people of color and women. Just one example: when Social Security was established as part of the New Deal, domestic workers and agricultural workers were excluded from access to benefits. These industries were (and remain) dominated by people of color and particularly women of color. Studies estimate that $43 billion was extracted from Black and brown people through this exclusion. 

Policies such as these are a powerful indicator of whom we see as deserving. Let us not forget that our founding fathers did not “count” Black people or women as full people. Likewise, only certain types of work are valued in our economy; if your primary work is caring for your own children or an elderly relative, your work is not valued in our current economy.

Today that translates into the average white family having ten times the wealth of the average Black family and seven times the wealth of a Latinx family.  And for women the picture is even more striking, with single women of color suffering the worst.

What’s the Story

Our panelists referred to the mental models and narratives of our economy frequently, so we had to ask them, what’s the story with narrative? The American Dream that anyone who works hard can make it in this country is widespread and ingrained in our collective culture. The story is so powerful that people the world over leave their homes and countries to pursue that dream. But this story is all about individual behavior and not about structures, which we learned earlier is the basis of wealth inequality today. 

But wait a minute. We have lots of examples that prove the American Dream right: Oprah Winfrey and Sonia Sotomayer to name just two. These examples are exceptions, Mia noted, and exceptions should not be the standard. “You should not have to be exceptional to meet your basic needs,” she said. You should not have to prove how hard you are willing to work to access healthcare, shelter, education and food. And yet that’s exactly what we ask poor people to do with the policies and programs we have set up that are based on that individualistic narrative of the American Dream.

Elena noted that these narratives are so entrenched and take such a toll that we must start at changing the narrative before we can craft policy that will make a dent. “Narrative eats policy for breakfast,” she noted!

Advice for Philanthropy

However much good policies like universal child care, eliminating student debt, and paid family leave will do, we must come to terms with the fact that there is no one policy or program that can disentangle hundreds of years of policy, structures, and narratives that have gotten us to this place of extreme inequality, largely along racial and gender lines. But our panelists did leave us with some top recommendations for how philanthropy can meet this moment.  

• Be bold - now is the time to take risks and bolster new ideas.  
• Invest in leaders who come from the communities being hurt by the current system, specifically leaders of color.
• Be patient - this recovery is going to take a long time and solutions need patient capital.
• Rethink how impact is assessed. Much of what is needed now, particularly around narrative change, cannot be neatly or easily measured but is critical if we are to rebuild a more inclusive and equitable economy.

Change to the economic status quo might feel scary to those who enjoy the benefits of the current model. But Elena reminded us that policies, structures, and systems initially designed to help one class of people often lift everyone.  For example, curb cuts were initially installed to support people in wheelchairs to be able to move about.  But they ended up helping parents with strollers, workers with heavy equipment, travelers with suitcases, the elderly with walkers.  Similarly, an inclusive and equitable economy is in everyone’s interest.

To learn more about our fall theme, check out the Issue Brief here. 

Our theme on Recovery & Resilience continues on October 13th with a virtual Organization Night. Our 12 finalists for a grant will be presenting about their work. You can RSVP here. 

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