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TheGrio/KFF Survey of Black Votersfinds that the economy is the top-tier issue for Black voters as inflation numbers hit a 40-year high.

As the 2022 midterm elections approach in less than 30 days, a new TheGrio/KFF survey found that the economy is the top-tier issue for Black voters as inflation numbers hit a 40-year high of 8.2% in September.

The poll, a partnership between theGrio and KFF, a nonprofit organization focused on research and analysis of health and other national issues, interviewed 1,000 registered voters who identify as Black or African American from Aug. 24 to Sept. 5, 2022. Among some of the findings in the nationwide survey, 73% of Black voters name inflation and other economic issues as the biggest concern for them and their families when asked to state this in their own words.

Among voters concerned about the economy, 32% mentioned concerns about the prices of goods, such as food, the cost of living and gas. Another 21% expressed concern about poverty and personal financial hardships. Interest rates, the stock market, affordable housing, debt, wages, and health care costs were also among some of Black voters economic concerns.

These findings come as President Joe Biden recently told Jake Tapper on CNN that America could possibly see a very slight recession but that he doesnt anticipate it. However, experts are offering a different potential reality of an economic downturn.

Beyond economic concerns, Black voters also mentioned health concerns, including the pandemic (9%), crime, gun violence and safety (3%), and racism/racial disparities (2%) as major concerns for their families.

Whats more, about 8 in 10 Black voters in TheGrio/KFF survey say the U.S. political and economic systems are stacked against people like them. Large majorities say this regardless of age, gender, income, or education.

Dr. Alex Camardelle, director of workforce policy at The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, told theGrio there is a deepening economic inequality and basic needs insecurity as costs are increasing.

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She explained, Black workers are being left behind in the nations economic recovery. Black communities have the highest unemployment rates and are grappling with stubborn pay inequities.

Gas prices have been a national concern this year. The expectation is that things will get much worse as OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) has decided to cut the production of gasoline, which will cause problems with meeting demand and will push gas prices upward.

For months, the Biden administration has been releasing daily gasoline from the strategic oil reserves to bring down the price at the pump. However, when it comes to gas prices, even with the price drop recent weeks ago, there was a phenomenon the White House was concerned about.Gas prices dropped; however, the Black community did not witness the impact.

Al Sharpton told theGrio that his organization, National Action Network, has been informed that gas prices have not gone down in communities of color as they have in other areas of the country. He blamed the occurrence on the racial redlining of price manipulation.

He explained, they feel that where we have less gas stations, that they can keep the price up and go and do whatever they want to do.

Black financial expert Allen Boomer told theGrio that in the Black communities, we are feeling the impact of a 20% higher price at the pump than a year ago on top of higher prices at the grocery store. For anyone who has to rely on a car for transportation, higher gas prices feel like a tax.

TheGrio/KFF survey also found that among a range of economic challenges, 31% of Black voters would most like President Biden and Congress to address the cost of housing, followed by the cost of food (24%), the cost of health care (23%) student debt (12%) and the cost of gasoline (10%).

When asked by theGrio/KFF how important certain issues were in deciding who to vote for in this years midterm elections, 76% of Black voters said inflation, including gas prices, was very important, and 75% named the affordability of housing as very important.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge told theGrio that, access to good and affordable housing in the United States had been a problem for decades. Moreover, the Black homeownership rate is nearly as low as it was when the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968. And as far as renting, investors are buying up property and driving up costs, thereby reducing the availability of affordable rental units. The secretary says the country is short 1.5 million affordable housing units.

One of the culprits is gentrification, said Fudge. When you consider the fact that the average rent in this country today, the median is $2,000 a month. A person making minimum wage cannot afford to pay it, she said.

Senior citizens and those on fixed incomes cannot afford to paylow-income workers cannot afford to pay it. So they are the people who are most affected.

She continued: Housing is an issue for everybody in this country. So I think that when you consider the fact that when there is a national problem, the people who tend to be hurt worst are people of color and low-income people.

About the Survey

The Survey of Black Voters is the first partnership survey between theGrio and KFF, a nonprofit organization focused on research and analysis of health and other national issues. Teams from KFF and theGrio worked together to develop the questionnaire and analyze the data, and both organizations contributed financing for the survey. Each organization is solely responsible for its content.

The survey was conducted Aug. 24Sept. 5 with a nationally representative, probability-based sample of 1,000 adults who identify as Black or African American and are registered to vote. The sample includes all voters who identify as Black or African American, including those who also identify as Hispanic or multi-racial. The sampling design includes Black registered voters reached online through the SSRS Opinion Panel and the Ipsos KnowledgePanel; to reach Black voters who do not use the internet, additional interviews were conducted by calling back respondents who previously participated in an SSRS Omnibus poll and identified as Black and said they did not use the internet. The combined telephone and panel samples were weighted to match the samples demographics to the national U.S. population of Black voters using data from the Census Bureaus 2020 Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration supplement. Sampling, data collection, weighting and tabulation were managed by SSRS of Glen Mills, Pennsylvania in close collaboration with KFF researchers.

The results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points for results based on the full sample of Black voters. The full methodology and question-wording are available here.

April Ryan (AMG/theGrio)

April Ryan is also the Washington D.C Bureau Chief and Senior White House Correspondent at theGrio. She can be seen on CNN as a political analyst.

TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku and Android TV. Also,please download theGrio mobile appstoday!

The post Black voters name inflation, economic issues as biggest concern ahead of midterm elections in TheGrio/KFF survey appeared first on TheGrio.

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Black voters name inflation, economic issues as biggest concern ahead of midterm elections - Yahoo News

Hattie Leeper is a lifetime Charlottean and acquaintance to many of the greats, but most of all shes a mom and a friend to those who still call her Chatty Hattie.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. Shes a native Charlottean who became a legendary radio personality. Her given name, recorded in the family Bible, is Hattie Leeper. By the time she was a teenager and on the air at WGIV radio, she was Chatty Hattie.

Back in those days, to help capture a big listening audience, radio DJs used names that rhymed. The Chatty worked well with Hattie, and did so for decades. She was the first black female radio DJ in Charlotte and one of the first in America.

Leeper began working for WGIV radio at the age of 14, helping around the station and learning the ropes from the stations group of seasoned announcers. By 1951, as 17-years-old, she was on the air with her own show. She stayed on the air for decades, becoming a household name in Charlotte and all across the Carolinas.

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She became involved in the music industry as well, managing a number of local music groups and even started her own record label, called Aware Records.

She also wrote and produced a number of regional hits for the label and traveled to Chicago and New York City to do the sessions. This was at the invitation of some of the top management in the business, including the legendary Jerry Wexler, the President of Atlantic Records. Leeper wrote the liner notes for many of the top artists of that time, including Aretha and Patti Labelle.

Leeper also had other goals in her life, like higher education. She earned a Masters in Education Administration at Central Piedmont Community College. Soon afterward, she became a college instructor. Eventually, Leeper served as the Dean of the Communications Department at Gaston Collegeand held that position for eleven years. She left there and became the founder and owner of her own very successful local record stores.

Over the years, Hattie Leeper has received many awards and was honored numerous times. Earlier this month she was given one of the biggest honors of her life: induction into the National Black Radio Hall of Fame. This was at a ceremony at the Harris Stowe State University's Emerson Theatre in St. Louis. Others honored at the same time were Al Sharpton and the members of the legendary R&B group The O'Jays

Hattie Leeper is a radio legend, record producer, songwriter, published author, educator, broadcast executive, and music historian. More than anything shes a lifetime Charlottean and acquaintance to many of the greats, but most of all shes a mom and a friend to all of those who still call her Chatty Hatty. Shes spinning the tunes from Belmont to Boone and all the way to the moon.and still rhyming after all these years.

Contact Larry Sprinkle atlsprinkle@wcnc.comand follow him onFacebook,TwitterandInstagram.

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Charlotte radio legend 'Chatty Hattie' inducted into Black Radio Hall of Fame - WCNC.com

Sherwin-Williams has responded to a protest being held on Tuesday regarding the construction of its new headquarters.

CLEVELAND Just before Rev. Al Sharpton began to speak at a rally outside of Cleveland City Hall calling for a Black-owned firm to be a key partner in the construction of Sherwin-Williams' global headquarters project on Tuesday, the Cleveland-based company released a statement responding to the protest.

Sherwin-Williams has been meeting with Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb since he was elected. His support of our Company over that time has been and continues to be steadfast," Sherwin-Williams Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John G. Morikis said in a statement. "While we received many attractive offers to relocate our new headquarters from several cities nationally, Mayor Bibbs strong leadership and clear vision for Cleveland have only solidified our choice to stay and invest here. Working together with Mayor Bibb and his administration, we are focused on the right things, we are excited by what we have already accomplished, and we are confident that our continued partnership will achieve our shared goals of helping Cleveland, the region and Sherwin-Williams thrive for decades to come."

Sherwin-Williams also noted that it was hosted by the Urban League of Cleveland on Monday "to provide a joint update on the Building our Future project and the positive impact the project is having on the local community." Attendees at the event included:

Sherwin-Williams also said that its "deliberate and intentional process of ensuring diverse firms are included in the Building Our Future project" has resulted in $122 million in contracts to diverse firms with a commitment that is expected to exceed $180 million and engagement with 57 diverse firms on the project to date.

"It is unfortunate that some are using their personal agendas and animosities to drive a false narrative and cloud the positive impact the Building Our Future project is making on the Cleveland community now and for years to come," the company said.

According to a flyer for Tuesday's protest, the rally aimed to "urge the Mayor and the City Council to show the public where taxpayer dollars are being spent on the construction of The Sherwin-Williams Company's new global headquarters. Black-owned firm should be named key partner with major managerial responsibilities and higher earning potential."

The Urban League of Greater Cleveland says it plans to continue its partnership with Sherwin-Williams.

There are three criteria that we consider when engaging in public-private partnerships, said Marsha A. Mockabee, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Urban League of Greater Cleveland, in a statement. There must be an authentic commitment to diversity and inclusion, a demonstrated accountability to achieving the metrics, and the willingness to develop long-term strategies that empower communities and change lives. The Urban League is pleased to partner with Sherwin-Williams to bring its community impact commitment to fruition.

3News sat down with Mockabee, who added that while she understands aspirational goals, there are certain processes and policies that should go in place first.

"You first have to create policy, because without policy, there's no teeth to hold people accountable, so that's the first step," Mockabee said. "I think the second step is, you have to make sure that there is a pipeline of the kind of talent that you're talking about that you want in those positions, and that's what the Urban League is doing in helping Sherwin-Williams with their commitment."

Mockabee said developing policy can allow people in the African American community to benefit from contracts and the "opportunities to work and grow and develop wealth."

She added that conversations with civil rights colleagues and with partners involved in the project have informed the Urban League's decision to stay aligned with local leadership and work with Sherwin-Williams.

"Our job, the Urban League is, we feel, to extend the benefit from that building into our communities in ways that even Sherwin-Williams doesn't necessarily see immediately," she said. "So we're that sort of broker in between to help Sherwin-Williams see how they can bring benefit into the communities, and the communities can benefit from them staying here as a headquartered organization."

You can view Rev. Sharpton's comments at Tuesday's rally in the video player above or YouTube player below.

3News' Dave "Dino" DeNatale contributed to this report.

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Sherwin-Williams responds to Rev. Al Sharpton protest regarding Cleveland headquarters construction - WKYC.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. The #WinWithBlackWomen collective for the first time welcomed a plurality of their brothers running for office and activating their neighbors ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. The group which included DNC Chair Jaime Harrison, Senate Candidate Mandela Barnes, Gubernatorial Candidate Wes Moore, Rev. Al Sharpton, Derrick Johnson and Terrance Woodbury spoke to the engagement and excitement of Black men this election cycle as well as their commitment to the elevation of Black women running for office.

This historic gathering speaks to the power of Black women and men, especially when it comes to our impact on elections, saidJotaka Eaddy, social impact strategist and founder of #WinWithBlackWomen. Reproductive, voting, and civil rights are on the ballot, all of which will have the greatest impact on Black Americans. Together we are committed to galvanizing the collective momentum built over the last two years to impact this election and most importantly bring impact to the communities in which we live and serve.

The time is now more important than ever for Black men and women to stand together and ensure our collective voices are heard, saidSteve Benjamin, the former Mayor of Columbia, South Carolina and a convener of the gathering. We brought together candidates and amazing leaders with some of the most powerful Black women in the nation, who lead in their respective fields, to become energized for what is ahead. In just a few weeks, the nation will see our strength, leadership, and impact when the future of our nation is at stake.

This group also featured Arkansas Gubernatorial Candidate Chris Jones; and House Candidates Don Davis (NC), Jevin Hodge (AZ), Tim Alexander (NJ) and Kermit Jones (CA).Candidates spoke in brief panels on why they decided to run for Senate, the House of Representatives, or Governor specifically about how they can address the needs of Black women. They and community leaders also touched upon the engagement of Black male voters, despite pundits questioning the extent of their participation this fall. They equally affirmed their commitment to empowering Black women running for office, including Georgia Gubernatorial Candidate Stacey Abrams; Iowa Gubernatorial Candidate Dierdre DeJear; Senate Candidates Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) and Cheri Beasley, the former Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court; and Los Angeles Mayoral Candidate Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA), among other notable Black women on the ballot.

This also included a panel discussion lead by strategist Donna Brazile, Voting rights advocate Latosha Brown and Cliff Albright, communications expert Rachel Noerdlinger, Derrick Johnson of the NAACP, pollster Terrance Woodbury, Mayor Benjamin, strategist Holli Holliday, and Vincent Evans of the Congressional Black Caucus.NOTE: These individuals all appear and participate in a personal capacity, not in affiliation with the organizations they serve or lead.

Since forming as a collective of intergenerational, intersectional Black women, such a significant group of Black men had ever joined their meeting. This underscored the significance of the challenges facing Black Americans, especially as the Supreme Court considers several voting rights, environmental, and civil rights cases.

About #WinWithBlackWomen:

#WinWithBlackWomen is an intergenerational, intersectional collective of Black women leaders from various backgrounds in public and private sectors committed to advancing and uplifting Black women, our families, and communities. The collective formed in 2020 through its inauguralopen letterspeaking out against racism and sexism in the 2020 election cycle. WWBW, through its efforts, helped significantly impact the historic election, which elected the nations first Black woman Vice President, the confirmation of several Black women in the Biden-Harris Administration, the successful confirmation of the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, and the fight to bring Brittney Griner home. The collective continues to play a key role in significant moments impacting Black women across sports, culture, entertainment, tech, and politics.

For More Information, visit:www.winwithblackwomen.org

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#WinWithBlackWomen And Their Brothers Convene in Historic Show of Unity Ahead of Midterms - tntribune.com

Demonstrators hold Black Lives Matter signs at the Justice for George Floyd march outside the Minnesota State Capitol on March 19, 2021, in St. Paul, Minnesota. (Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images)

Around four-in-ten Black adults in the United States (39%) say Black Lives Matter has done the most to help Black people in recent years, far exceeding the share who say the same about other groups or organizations, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.

By comparison, around one-in-five Black adults (17%) say the NAACP has done the most to help Black people in the U.S. in recent years and 13% say the same about Black churches or religious organizations. Smaller shares point to the Congressional Black Caucus (6%) and the National Urban League (3%), while 14% of Black adults choose someone else.

The survey provided respondents with a set of answer options and did not specify whether Black Lives Matter was the name of an organization or the broader protest movement. But regardless of how respondents interpreted the term, Black Lives Matter outranked the other entities that were asked about.

The question was part of an October 2021 survey that examined Black Americans views of their position in U.S. society and their attitudes about social change. The survey included Black adults who are single-race, non-Hispanic; those who are multiracial, non-Hispanic; and those who indicate they are Black and Hispanic. It was conducted prior to allegations of financial mismanagement at a foundation that grew out of the Black Lives Matter protest movement.

This Pew Research Center analysis examines Black Americans attitudes about the groups and leaders they see as most helpful and important today. It relies primarily on an online survey conducted Oct. 4-17, 2021, among 3,912 Black U.S. adults, including those who are single-race, non-Hispanic; those who are multiracial, non-Hispanic; and those who indicate they are Black and Hispanic. The survey included 1,025 Black adults on Pew Research Centers American Trends Panel (ATP) and 2,887 Black adults on Ipsos KnowledgePanel.

Respondents on both survey panels are recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. Recruiting panelists by phone or mail ensures that nearly all Black U.S. adults have a chance of selection. This gives us confidence that any sample can represent the whole population. (See our Methods 101 explainer on random sampling.) Here are the questions used for the survey of Black adults, along with responses, and its methodology.

This analysis also includes additional data from other recent Pew Research Center surveys about how the broader U.S. public, including adults and teens ages 13 to 17, see the Black Lives Matter movement. Links to these surveys, including information about the field dates, sample sizes and other methodological details, are available in the text.

The survey highlighted differences of opinion among Black Americans on many questions, including at least to some extent the perceived importance of Black Lives Matter for helping Black people. For example, Black adults who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party are more likely than those who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party to say Black Lives Matter has done the most to help Black people in recent years (44% vs. 26%). Similarly, almost half of Black adults who describe their political views as liberal (47%) say the same about Black Lives Matter, compared with smaller shares of Black moderates (41%) and Black conservatives (32%).

Among the broader public, a little over half of U.S. adults (56%) say they strongly or somewhat support the Black Lives Matter movement, according to a separate Pew Research Center poll conducted in March 2022. (The March 2022 survey asked about Black Lives Matter as a movement, unlike the October 2021 survey.)

Among U.S. teens, support for the Black Lives Matter movement is higher than it is among adults. Seven-in-ten teens ages 13 to 17 say they strongly or somewhat support the movement, according to a survey conducted in April and May 2022.

The October 2021 survey of Black adults also asked respondents, in an open-ended format, to identify the Black leader they see as most important in the U.S. today.

Three-in-ten Black adults volunteer former President Barack Obama, the nations first Black chief executive, while 8% name current Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Black person ever to serve in that role. Around one-in-five Black adults (19%) say they are not sure who the countrys most important Black leader is, while 16% cite someone other than Obama or Harris, including small percentages who name leaders such as current Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, the Rev. Jesse Jackson or the Rev. Al Sharpton.

As is the case in Black adults views of Black Lives Matter, there are partisan differences in perceptions of the nations most important Black leader. Black Democrats are about twice as likely as Black Republicans (35% vs. 16%) to volunteer Obama, while Black Republicans are more likely than Black Democrats (33% vs. 18%) to say they are not sure. Among ideological groups, four-in-ten Black liberals name Obama, compared with three-in-ten Black moderates and around a quarter of Black conservatives (23%).

While there are age differences in Black Americans views on several questions in the Centers recent survey, there are no such differences when it comes to perceptions of Obama as the most important Black leader in the U.S. today. Black adults under 50 are just as likely as those ages 50 and older to volunteer Obama as the most important Black leader: 30% in each group name the former president.

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Black Lives Matter cited by Black adults as group thats helped them the most - Pew Research Center