Market Place Urban

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Black Buying Power

According to a recent article on Newswise.com African-American buying power has seen impressive gains since the end of the last economic downturn, jumping from $961 billion in 2010 to an estimated $1.3 trillion in 2018. Since 2000, the African-American market has seen a 114 percent increase in buying power. The boost is the result of a surge in black-owned businesses, increased educational attainment and booming population growth.

The percentage of African-Americans who completed college continues to rise (23 percent in 2017, up from 17 percent in 2000), and the population is growing at 22.7 percent since 2000, faster than the national average of 16.3 percent. The youthfulness of the African-American population skews the group’s buying power downward, as a larger share of the population have yet to hit their peak earning years.

The 10 states with greatest black buying power growth since 2000 are North Dakota (1,051 percent), South Dakota (502 percent), Idaho (375 percent), Wyoming (339 percent), Vermont (320 percent), Arizona (265 percent), Montana (255 percent), Maine (243 percent), Utah (235 percent) and New Hampshire (226 percent). All have flourishing African-American consumer markets, but none is among the nation’s 10 largest black consumer markets.