Fact check: Tim Scott says Black homeownership has been static for decades
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott recently said there has been scant progress for Black homeownership in the past five decades, despite "trillions of dollars spent" on federal housing programs.
"For African American families in particular, the homeownership rate remains relatively unchanged since 1968, the year the Fair Housing Act was signed into law," the Republican said in an April 11 press release from the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.
He added, "Unfortunately, federal housing policy has done little to address the affordability of housing. It’s too expensive and too far out of reach."
Scott, who filed paperwork saying he will seek the 2024 Republican nomination for president, made a similar statement Feb. 9 on his website, and added that the outcome was despite "trillions spent on numerous federal housing programs." In April, he introduced legislation calling for more congressional oversight of federal housing programs; rethinking how agencies collect and analyze data so policymakers can understand what’s working; and encouraging local communities to fix local housing problems.
We looked at statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and other government agencies and found they show that Scott is spot-on about Black homeownership rates; they have barely budged since 1968. Scott’s spokesperson said the senator reached his conclusion using the same statistics that we did.
On April 11, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits housing discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, family status, religion or disability. The act makes it illegal to offer different terms or conditions for home sales, deny mortgages or refuse to negotiate. It was one in a series of laws that followed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and aimed to end discrimination against Blacks and other minorities.
Two years after the law’s passage, in 1970, the census found that 42% of Black households owned their own homes. In 2022, that number was 44% and had risen 0.4% over 10 years, the National Association of Realtors, a trade group, reported in March.
By comparison, in 2022, white Americans had a 72.7% homeownership rate. The numbers represented the largest Black-white homeownership rate gap in a decade. (Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans also had higher homeownership rates than Blacks, at 62.8% and 50.6%, respectively.)
Census data showed that Black homeownership peaked in 2004 at 49.1%, according to a 2017 PolitiFact report.
Thomas Shapiro, a research professor in Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy, said Scott’s numbers are accurate, but he disagreed with Scott that ineffective government policy is behind the minimal change.
"The Great Recession (of 2008) and housing implosion took a huge bite out of Black (and Hispanic) homeownership," he said. "The more recent homebuyers, especially first-time owners, were hit the hardest, as study after study after study documents."
Minority homeowners, Shapiro added, had more adjustable-rate mortgages, experienced job loss disproportionately and could not keep up with mortgage payments.
Susan Wachter, a financial management and real estate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, agreed with Shapiro. She said that over the past 40 years, home prices have increased faster than wages and the global financial crisis caused many people to lose their homes.
"The minority community was particularly hard-hit," she said. "The anti-discrimination laws I believe have helped, but these barriers remain and are even steeper today than in decades past."
Junia Howell, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Illinois Chicago, said factors that influence the lack of change in homeownership include Black homeowners deriving fewer benefits from mortgage interest deductions than white homeowners and Black-owned homes tending to be in communities where houses don’t appreciate as much.
Figures from Enterprise Community Partners, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing housing supply, bear that out. The nonprofit said white households receive 71% of mortgage interest deduction benefits.
The liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities added that taxpayers with annual incomes exceeding $100,000 receive 80% of mortgage interest benefits — and 16% of Black households earned $100,000 or more in 2020, compared with 33% of whites.
Black homeowners are nearly five times more likely to own a home in a formerly redlined district, which affects home value. "Redlining," a U.S. government practice that ranked homes for their riskiness as investments, was outlawed by the Fair Housing Act. Nonetheless, over the past 40 years, homeowners in formerly redlined neighborhoods have typically gained 52% less in personal wealth generated by property value increases than homeowners in nonmarginalized neighborhoods, Forbes reported.
PolitiFact ruling
Scott said, "For African American families in particular, the homeownership rate remains relatively unchanged since 1968, the year the Fair Housing Act was signed into law."
Data shows his numbers are correct. In 1970, about a year and a half after the law was enacted, about 42% of Black Americans owned homes. In 2022, Black homeownership stood at 44%.
We rate this claim True.
PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
