Proserity, Security & Unity Metrics
Bannistereans: 83%
Black Americans: 44%
Newbeings: 81%
The Prosperity, Security & Unity Metrics
How are we doing as Black Americans? The evaluation criteria are as follows: Commerce, Adaptability, Unity, Patronage, Reticence, Trust, Decorum, Individuality, Talent, Creativity, Health, and Ethics. Ethnic groups that achieve a score exceeding 50% in at least nine of these metrics are deemed robust and prosperous. Impressively, the "Bannistereans" surpass the 50% threshold across all metrics, resulting in a thriving community with a Prosperity, Security, and Unity (PS&U) score of 83%.
NOTE: We combine traditional data analysis with proprietary measurement theories, statistical methods, and predictive models tailored to the Black American experience. Through ethically collected data and rigorous analysis, we quantify overlooked realities, uncover emerging patterns, forecast change, and transform complex phenomena into actionable intelligence.
Learn more about our Standards of Accuracy.
UNDERSTAND OUR METRICS
Patronage
The degree to which community members support their own businesses, institutions, and initiatives. Patronage matters because it strengthens economic independence, circulates resources, and builds collective prosperity.
Reticence
The ability to exercise discretion, restraint, and thoughtful silence when appropriate. Reticence matters because it reduces unnecessary conflict, protects sensitive information, and encourages deliberate action over impulsive reactions.
Trust
The confidence community members have in one another's honesty, reliability, and intentions. Trust matters because it enables cooperation, strengthens relationships, and reduces the social and economic costs of suspicion.
Decorum
The practice of civility, respect, dignity, and appropriate conduct in public and private interactions. Decorum matters because it promotes safety, constructive engagement, and a culture of mutual respect.
Individuality
The freedom and capacity to develop independent identities, perspectives, and aspirations. Individuality matters because it encourages independent thinking, personal accountability, and diversity of thought without sacrificing community cohesion.
Talent
The collective abilities, skills, knowledge, and potential of community members. Talent matters because identifying, developing, and retaining it strengthens innovation, productivity, and generational advancement.
Commerce
The production, exchange, and distribution of goods and services within and beyond the community. Commerce matters because it generates wealth, creates employment, and establishes economic influence.
Adaptability
The capacity to anticipate, respond to, and thrive amid changing social, economic, and technological conditions. Adaptability matters because communities that evolve remain competitive, resilient, and relevant.
Unity
The ability to pursue shared interests and objectives despite differences in beliefs, backgrounds, and perspectives. Unity matters because coordinated action amplifies collective influence without requiring uniformity.
Creativity
The capacity to generate original ideas, solutions, expressions, and approaches to challenges. Creativity matters because it fuels innovation, cultural influence, problem-solving, and new opportunities.
Health
The physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being of community members. Health matters because healthier populations enjoy greater longevity, productivity, stability, and quality of life.
Ethics
The principles and standards that guide honesty, fairness, accountability, and responsible conduct. Ethics matters because it establishes moral credibility, discourages exploitation, and sustains trust across generations.
Bannisterean™
The Bannistereans™ are a fictional model community built by combining the highest-performing metrics from two real U.S. ethnic groups, selecting the best achievement in each category to establish an exceptional standard of strength, unity, and prosperity. While every benchmark has been achieved by a real ethnic group, no single group has achieved them all. This fictional model demonstrates what is possible without diminishing any ethnicity. Inspired by the Roger Bannister Effect, in which a seemingly insurmountable barrier becomes an accepted norm once broken, the Bannistereans™ represent a standard of excellence that challenges perceived limits, redefines possibilities, and establishes a new benchmark for Black Americans and future generations.
Population: 9,100,000. Median Income: $130,000.00. Median Business Income: $3,100,000.00. Median Asset Wealth: $4,390,000.00. Median Quality of Life: 8.4
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Patronage
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Reticence
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Trust
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Decorum
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Individuality
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Talent
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Commerce
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Adaptability
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Unity
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Creativity
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Health
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Ethics
Black Americans
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 Population Estimates (released June 2025). The U.S. population identifying as Black alone was estimated at 43.1 million. Where income ranges are presented, the median represents the middle value of the reported figures when arranged from lowest to highest, providing a measure of central tendency.
Population: 43,100,000. Median Income: $59,980. Median Business Income: $35,000. Median Asset Wealth: $44,100.00. Median Quality of Life: 6.8
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Patronage
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Reticence
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Trust
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Decorum
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Individuality
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Talent
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Commerce
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Adaptability
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Unity
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Creativity
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Health
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Ethics
Newbeings
Correlation does not imply causation. However, when we isolate Newbeings, our term of endearment for Black Americans actively practicing decolonization, deconstruction, de-traumatization, and detoxification of the mind, body, relationships, and lifestyle, from the broader Black American population, our PS&U metrics show marked improvement. While this distinction does not establish causation, it reveals a compelling relationship between intentional personal transformation and measurable collective progress. NOTE: There over 6.5 million Black Americans that qualify as Newbeings. That's more that the total population of North Dakota, Hawaii, Mississippi, Delaware, Grenada, Monaco, Antiqua & Barbuda combined.
Population: 6,500,000. Median Income: $83,000.00. Median Business Income: $450,000.00. Median Asset Wealth: $1,090,000.00. Median Quality of Life: 8.0
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Patronage
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Reticence
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Trust
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Decorum
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Individuality
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Talent
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Commerce
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Adaptability
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Unity
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Creativity
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Health
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Ethics
Where do our $1.7 Trillion go?
Take a closer look at these counters to understand how quickly our collective buying power is spent and where that money goes. Each counter illustrates cumulative spending, calculated by distributing annual totals evenly across 365 days. They do not track live transactions, as real-world spending fluctuates rather than occurring at a constant rate. We are using our conservative $1.7 trillion buying power as opposed to the popular $2.1 trillion buying power calculated by Nielson. (Click Here)
The next time you reach for your debit card or add an item to an online cart, remember that your purchase contributes to the economic reality represented by one of these counters. Every dollar spent supports someone’s prosperity. May the following information cause of those dollars to circulate in ways that strengthen our communities, empower us today, and build lasting prosperity for generations to come.
Black American entrepreneurship is most concentrated in healthcare and social assistance, accounting for roughly one-quarter of Black-owned employer businesses. Other prominent sectors include professional and technical services, transportation, warehousing, real estate, retail, food services, beauty, and personal care. Transportation and warehousing experienced nearly 150% growth in Black-owned employer firms between 2017 and 2022. Importantly, approximately 96% of Black-owned businesses had no paid employees in 2021, underscoring the enormous role of independent entrepreneurs, including rideshare drivers, delivery couriers, truck owner-operators, freelancers, and other gig workers. Yet, despite our expanding entrepreneurial footprint, Newbeings 1619 estimates that only 3% of our buying power circulates through Black-owned businesses, up one percentage point from 2024. (Brookings Institution)
Black American Businesses
Avoidance of Truculence. A significant portion of Black American spending power flows outside our communities toward housing, entertainment, education, and other services. Too often, this is mistaken for seeking proximity to whiteness, when it is mostly simply the pursuit of safety, respect, decency, and decorum. This is not a rejection of our people, but Provisonal Exclusion of behaviors that undermine our collective prosperity. The Decorum+ QR Code offers a solution by helping us identify, connect with, and economically support those within our own communities who uphold these standards.
Avoidance of Truculence
Latino Americans are most heavily concentrated in retail trade, which accounts for 22% of Hispanic- and Latine-owned businesses, followed by general services at 17%, manufacturing at 11%, and restaurant or food service at 7%. The construction sector has emerged as a particularly dynamic area of growth: between 2017 and 2023, the number of Latino-owned construction businesses grew by 86%, compared with just 2% growth for white-owned construction businesses. Latino-owned employer firms have also expanded rapidly overall, growing by 125% between 2017 and 2023 while employing over 3.8 million people. (So-Fi)
Latino Businesses
Asian, East Indian and Arab Americans together show strong entrepreneurial concentrations in hospitality, retail, and professional services. Among Asian-owned businesses, accommodation and food services is the leading sector: 144,141 firms, or 22.2% of all Asian-owned businesses, operated there in 2022, reflecting a deep presence in restaurants and hospitality. Arab Americans are highly entrepreneurial, with over 110,000 Arab-American-owned businesses in the U.S. in popular sectors such as restaurants, retail, logistics, real estate, and healthcare. Historically, Arab immigrants became dominant in grocery retail, owning 98% of grocery stores in Flint, Michigan, by the 1980s, a legacy that continues in many communities today. (Arab News)
Asian and Arab Businesses
African, Afro-Caribbean, and Afro-Latino Americans are known for entrepreneurship in food service, personal care, retail, and cultural goods. Afro-Latina owners have gained notice in coffee and cuisine, including Kansas City’s El Café Cubano, which preserves Afro-Cuban brewing, and Puerto Rican empanada restaurants in Baltimore. In beauty, Dominican entrepreneur Carolina Contreras founded Miss Rizos, the first Afro-Latina natural hair salon and product line sold by Sephora. Historically, Afro-Caribbean immigrants were represented in building services and skilled trades like carpentry and tailoring, later dominating upscale retail and financial services in Black American communities. Among Afro-Peruvians, top businesses are retail clothing and accessories (11%), restaurants (9%), and technology services (9%), with hairdressing and beauty treatments also notable.
African and Caribbean Businesses
White American-owned businesses, mega corporations, and the U.S. government capture the lion’s share of Black American buying power across retail, insurance, real estate, medicine, food, and other sectors. Many of these same White American owned institutions are also the largest employers of Black Americans and the source of approximately 80% of our buying power. At the same time, Black American-owned businesses hold contracts with the U.S. government. Although, the share fell from 1.53% in FY22 to 1.23% in FY25. For broader context, Black-owned businesses represent about 3.1 million firms across the United States but have historically received less than 2% of federal contracting dollars each year. (Gov Spend)
White, Corporate, Other and Government
According to projections from the Selig Center for Economic Growth, Black American buying power is expected to reach approximately $2.1 trillion in 2026. For context, that figure exceeds the total GDP of Spain at about $1.9 trillion, Australia at about $1.84 trillion, Mexico at about $1.83 trillion, and Turkey at about $1.6 trillion. It also exceeds the GDP of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai. In other words, if Black American consumer spending were measured as a national economy, it would rank above all of these countries.
$1.7 Trillion Black American Buying Power
Buying power, or purchasing power, is the value of a currency measured by the amount of goods and services it can buy, as defined by the Federal Reserve. It represents the real value of money and fluctuates with inflation, deflation, and changes in income. (Nasdaq) When Selig Center says Black Americans are forecast to reach approximately $2.1 trillion in buying power (As of October 2026 we are currently at approximately $1.7 trillion), they mean that is the total amount those consumers can spend in a given year, making it a key indicator of economic influence.
Black American Soft Power.
Black American Soft Power is the global influence generated by our culture, creativity, values, achievements, and resistance to injustice. Political scientist Joseph Nye defined soft power as influence through attraction rather than coercion. Black Americans have demonstrated this power through jazz diplomacy, hip-hop, civil rights movements, and athletic activism, from Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie to Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics.
According to the University of Georgia's Selig Center for Economic Growth, Black American buying power is projected to exceed $2 trillion in 2026. Yet our influence extends far beyond spending. Newbeings 1619 values Black American Soft Power at three times our buying power, approximately $6.3 trillion, representing half its inflation-adjusted relative strength during the 1960s and early 1970s.
The paradox is undeniable: Black American culture generates extraordinary global influence, yet Black Americans have historically captured disproportionately little of its economic and political rewards. The challenge is no longer simply generating influence, but organizing, directing, and benefiting from the power we already possess.
Black American Soft Power: $6.3 Trillion
