It's Always About the Money

Written by: Marshai R

25 July 2025

I thought it would be a fun thought exercise to compare Black American wealth against the GDP of countries. What is the purchasing power of Black Americans on a global stage. In order to set the stage, one must gather a few numbers.

• Number of US Households¹: 131.43 million

• Black US households: 13.6% or ~17.87 million

  • (A 10% reduction taken to remove Black with Hispanic or foreign born, since solely Black/Non-Hispanic could not be located)

• Est Total Black/Non-Hispanic/Non-Foreign Born American Households: 16.09 million

• Medium Black/Non-Hispanic/Non-Foreign Born American Income²: $52,800

Total Black American "GDP": $849,395 billion

Since we don't have a name for our fictional country, let's call it [Blank]- Landia. Using World Bank estimations³, [Blank]- Landia will fall right after Switzerland at Number 22. This aligns before notable countries such as Belgium, Norway, South Africa and Greece, among others. This is 22 of 189 (or 194) countries, depending on how you recognize countries. The calculations are at market or government official exchange rates.

So what does this all mean? If anything, Black Americans have an enormous purchasing power. Although, the United States have a high cost of living comparably to the world, this purchasing power has political and economic ramifications, if used in a unifying direction.

I often wonder about the seemingly over representation of Black Americans in commercial ads, some positive others are not. I feel we have found the answer or at least a strong clue. Black purchasing power is not to be ignored.

As a call to action, keep moving in the right direction and ensure you are protecting your wealth accumulation. If you must spend your discretional funds, make a valiant effort to utilize a percentage within the community.

If [Blank]- Landia was a real country, what would you name it? Were these numbers a surprise for you?

Citations:

¹Korhonen, V. (2025, July 5). Number of households in the US 1960–2023. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/183635/number-of-households-in-the-us/

²Sullivan, B., Hays, D., & Bennett, N. (2024, April 23). Wealth by race of householder. U.S. Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/04/wealth-by-race.html

³"GDP (current US$)". data.worldbank.org. Retrieved 3 July 2025.