Biden highlights strides in closing racial wealth gap, potentially leading to increased property taxes

President Joe Biden plans to tout his progress on closing the “racial wealth gap” Friday in a speech at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network’s 2024 convention.

Biden is locked in a dead heat with former President Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 general election in November, and polling indicates that his popularity among black and Latino voters has slipped since entering office in 2021.

In his Friday speech, delivered remotely, the president will specifically point to new data published by the Federal Housing Finance Agency that show the “appraisal gap” shrinking by more than 40% since 2021. White House officials say that homes in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods were “undervalued” compared to majority-white neighborhoods and that closing or outright eliminating the appraisal gap would close the racial wealth gap by 16% when comparing black and white households and by 41% when comparing Latino and white households.

The president had previously announced at the centennial commemoration of the Tulsa race massacre the creation of the Interagency Task Force on Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity, arguing that lower appraisals make it harder for affected families to build wealth.

Nevertheless, higher appraisals will result in homeowners paying more in property taxes, as those taxes are calculated based on appraisals rather than the sale prices of properties.

Biden is also expected to highlight how his administration reached its goal of increasing federal contracts with “disadvantaged” businesses and continues to fight to eliminate student loan debt, which the president says negatively affects minority borrowers more than white borrowers.

Earlier in the day, the president unveiled an additional $7.4 billion in student loan forgiveness, affecting nearly 300,000 borrowers. In total, Biden has forgiven more than $153 billion in federal student loan debt for more than 4 million borrowers.

“While the President and Vice President continue working to close the racial wealth gap and create more opportunities for all Americans, 80% of Congressional Republicans are supporting a plan that would move the country backwards,” the White House added in a memo released ahead of Biden’s speech. “Their plan would defund the President’s executive orders on racial equity, while cutting Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, and Social Security — raising the Social Security retirement age in the process. Congressional Republicans would also roll back billions of dollars in investments and tax incentives that support small businesses as they shift to a clean economy.”

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The White House also said that the Republican plan will “also increase prescription drug, energy, and housing costs, while fighting for tax giveaways for the very rich and big corporations.”

You can watch Biden’s remarks in full here.