Political Quotes

“I wasn't sure what his time was. I am chair of the Small Business Committee. I have many hearings, but I had one in the last 3 months and some of the testimony was startling to me. I wanted to share this with the Senator. It is in the 2000 census data. Someone was testifying about why this recession was taking so long to get over. They were giving figures about the status of the economy and the wealth or incomes of broad sections of the population. They said sort of off the cuff--like, ho- hum, today is Monday. They said: By the way, the average net worth, the median net worth of households in America, the average--median net worth--not income but net worth--of households is $67,000. That is very interesting. I thought it would be higher than that. That is taking what you own minus everything you owe, and the difference is your net worth. I thought people might have more than that in terms of equity in their homes, a couple hundred thousand. That was concerning to me. I said: Do you have that broken down by race, by any chance? They said: Yes, ma'am. I said: Would you share it? And they did. I will share it with you because I have not recovered from what I heard. The gentlemen said to me: Well, for White families in America, the average median--50 percent more, 50 percent less--is $87,000. For Hispanic families, it is $8,000. For African-American families, it is $5,000. I want to repeat that.…”