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Lack of disaggregated data clouds economic recovery for Black communities

Yahoo Finance’s Kristin Myers and Brian Cheung discuss the impact of the lack of Black data in economic policy.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: I want to bring in Yahoo Finance's Brian Cheung now for a story he's been working on about the lack of data on the economic impact of the coronavirus on Black Americans. Hey, Brian.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Hey, Kristin. Well, we know about the lack of data and health outcomes. For example, we don't have data from every state about how vaccines are being distributed. But a similar issue is playing out with economic data. Consider, for example, the Paycheck Protection Program, which had line items for small business to fill out their race or ethnicity. But take a look at the statistics. 75% did not do so because it wasn't compulsory.

You're seeing a similar story play out in a number of other related stimulus measures. For example, the stimulus checks disbursed by the IRS, they did not detail those disbursements by race and ethnicity. And we know that many of the unbanked that simply didn't have a way to get those checks were oftentimes Black households who needed them the most.

And this is a big deal because the Philadelphia Fed has a survey detailing the importance of the second round of stimulus and how maybe it didn't do as good of a job targeting those people in need. You look at the statistics, 30% of Black respondents, combining the 24% and the 6%, said that the second relief package would help but not for long or not help at all because their situation was too dire. Compare that with 23% of overall respondents. So it does show that there could be a better effort to collect data and a better effort to target the stimulus, as that $1.9 trillion package continues to get negotiated down on Capitol Hill, Kristin.

KRISTIN MYERS: So what is the Biden Harris administration planning to do to tackle that problem? And once we get that data, what can be done with it?

BRIAN CHEUNG: Yeah, well, on that first point, the Biden administration signed something hours after inauguration, detailing the creation of an equitable data working group. And it's going to include stakeholders from the OMB, the Secretary of Commerce, the Council of Economic advisors that are going to be driving more granular, disaggregated data.

Now, of course, the question is always, is more data better? There are obviously concerns about data privacy. I spoke with someone at the Urban Institute that said, actually, this could be bad for private sector credit outcomes. You consider maybe malicious types of use of that data. It can actually further discriminate against Black communities. So things like data ethics and proper use of this data will definitely be in view as the Biden administration ramps up their priority on disaggregating this type of information.

KRISTIN MYERS: And of course, this very important story can be read on YahooFinance.com, where Brian is able to break down all of that information. Yahoo Finance's Brian Cheung, thanks so much for bringing us that.