JPMorgan Chase announced Thursday a $30 billion investment over the next five years that the company says will address some of the largest drivers of the massive wealth gap between black and white Americans.
The commitment makes the bank by far the largest monetary contributor to efforts by businesses to fight systemic inequality and racism in the U.S. JPMorgan is the country's largest bank and CEO Jamie Dimon is past chairman of the Business Roundtable, a group of nearly 200 CEOs at America's largest corporations, said Andre Perry, fellow at the Brookings Institution JPMorgan has earmarked $14 billion for new housing loans to Black and Latino borrowers plus: $8 billion to increase affordable housing and homeownership in underserved communities; $4 billion for mortgage refinancing; $2 billion for small business lending; $2 billion in philanthropic capital. The bank also committed to increased hiring and investment in existing employees "to build a more equitable and representative workforce and hold executives accountable" as well as $50 million of deposits in minority-owned financial institutions. Capital One this week launched a similar program with a $200 million, five-year commitment on top of the $10 million it pledged in June. JPMorgan's commitment amounts to about 16% of its 2019 profits for the next five years. The top 10 companies excluding JPMorgan committed an average of less than 2% of their 2019 profits.