Biden announces a new plan to narrow the racial wealth gap including $100 billion more in federal contracts to small businesses and rules to end housing discrimination

• The White House on Tuesday announced a new plan to narrow the racial wealth gap.
• It aims to help small businesses access federal contracts and to address housing discrimination.
• Biden announced the measures on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre.

President Joe Biden's administration on Tuesday announced new measures designed to narrow the racial wealth gap and build wealth in Black communities.

The plan aims to help reduce discrimination in the housing market and increase the number of federal contracts given to small disadvantaged businesses by 50%, resulting in an extra $100 billion in contracts over the next five years, the White House said in a press release.

The Biden-Harris administration unveiled the measures on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, when a white-supremacist mob killed an estimated 300 Black Americans in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, also known as "Black Wall Street."

"Because disparities in wealth compound like an interest rate," the White House statement said, "the disinvestment in Black families in Tulsa and across the country throughout our history is still felt sharply today."

Homeownership is a key part of Biden's plan to build wealth in Black communities. The statement cited a 2018 Brookings study that found that houses in majority-Black neighborhoods were often valued at tens of thousands of dollars less than similar homes in majority-white areas.

The White House said a cross-government effort could enforce existing fair-housing laws and develop guidance "to root out discrimination in the appraisal and homebuying process."

The White House statement also included more details about programs in Biden's American Jobs Plan to build wealth in communities of color. It said the measures included a new $10 billion Community Revitalization Fund to pay for community-led civic infrastructure projects that aim to "spark new local economic activity."