This Week in ESG and Impact Investing

Key insight: Traditional thinking that Community Reinvestment Act investments involve high risk and low returns is giving way to an approach focused on low-risk, high-impact projects. Supporting data: Banks deploy more than $100 billion annually in CRA investments. Expert quote: "I think you're going to see more of this — alternative investment opportunities for banks to support housing in a tactical way in high-need communities." — Hugh Allen, head of commercial real estate at TD Bank William Cunningham, CEO of Creative Investment Research in Washington D.C., and a longtime authority on impact investing, said banks are giving more weight to investments' social returns, which has made them more open to alternative investment strategies.   A Maine-based fund manager is seeking to raise as much as $45 million from banks to support long-term affordable housing in distressed neighborhoods in South Dallas. The fund, which will invest in transit-oriented projects in the T...

The April 2026 Producer Price Index (PPI) report signals a significant escalation in upstream inflation pressures that are likely to further strain Black- and minority-owned firms over the coming months. The PPI for final demand increased 1.4% in April following gains of 0.7% in March and 0.6% in February. On a year-over-year basis, producer prices are now up 6.0%, the largest annual increase since December 2022. The report is particularly concerning because inflation pressures are broadening beyond volatile categories. Prices for final demand services rose 1.2%, accounting for nearly 60% of the monthly increase, while prices for final demand goods increased 2.0%. The “core” measure of producer inflation — final demand less foods, energy, and trade services — increased 0.6% in April and 4.4% over the past year, the largest increase since early 2023. The PPI report reinforces and deepens concerns raised by yesterday’s CPI release. CPI showed consumer inflation accelerating to 3.8% year-...

The April 2026 Consumer Price Index (CPI) report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics sends a troubling signal for Black and minority-owned firms. Inflation accelerated sharply again in April, with the CPI rising 0.6% for the month following March’s already elevated 0.9% increase . Over the past 12 months, overall inflation climbed to 3.8% , up from 3.3% in March . The data suggest that inflation is no longer just “sticky.” It is broadening and intensifying in key categories that disproportionately affect minority businesses and the communities they serve.  The biggest concern is energy. The energy index surged 3.8% in April alone and is now up 17.9% over the past year . According to the BLS release, energy accounted for more than 40% of the monthly CPI increase .  For Black and minority firms, this is especially damaging because many operate in sectors where fuel and transportation costs are unavoidable: trucking and logistics delivery services rideshare transportation ...

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the April 2026 Employment Situation report on May 8, showing a labor market that remains stable on the surface but continues to reveal major disparities across racial, ethnic, and gender groups. According to the report, unemployment rates showed little change in April for adult men (4.0%), adult women (3.9%), Whites (3.7%), Blacks (7.3%), Asians (3.3%), and Hispanics (5.0%). Teen unemployment remained extremely elevated at 14.4%. The most striking figure remains the Black unemployment rate of 7.3% — nearly double the White unemployment rate. This persistent gap reflects continuing structural disparities in hiring, wages, access to opportunity, and economic resilience. Hispanic workers, with unemployment at 5.0%, remain vulnerable to weakness in construction, logistics, hospitality, and other service sectors sensitive to slowing economic growth. Asian unemployment remained low at 3.3%, supported by stronger representation in technology, healt...

American Banker Newspaper BankThink:  Powell is right to stay at the Fed; the central bank needs continuity.  By William Michael Cunningham Published May 01, 2026, 7:30 a.m. EDT Jerome Powell has indicated that he will buck tradition by remaining on the Federal Reserve Board after his term as chair expires. Bloomberg News • Key insight: Jerome Powell's decision to remain on the Federal Reserve Board is not a break with tradition for its own sake. It is a response to conditions that justify it. • What's at stake: Recent developments make clear that the institutional guardrails surrounding the Federal Reserve System are being actively tested. • Forward look: By choosing to remain at the Fed, Powell is reinforcing the principle that central bank independence is a core institutional requirement that must be actively protected. This week marks a pivotal moment for the Federal Reserve. With Kevin Warsh advancing toward confirmation and Jerome Powell concluding what is likely h...

The latest data on U.S. economic growth tells a story that looks strong on the surface—but uneven underneath. First-quarter 2026 GDP growth came in at roughly 2%, with a major driver being a surge in artificial intelligence (AI) investment (1.5%). Data centers, server infrastructure, and software systems are powering a new wave of private-sector expansion, with nonresidential investment rising sharply—up nearly 8.7% in the quarter. This is not a typical business cycle story. It is a structural shift. The question is not whether AI is driving growth. It is who is being left out. AI as a Capital-Intensive GDP Engine AI’s current contribution to GDP is heavily concentrated in capital formation: Massive buildout of data centers Explosive demand for server equipment and chips Increased spending on cloud and AI software infrastructure Companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Oracle are leading this expansion. From a GDP accounting standpoint, this shows up as a surge in private in...

The IMF/World Bank Annual Spring Meetings ran from April 13 to 17, and I was fortunate to have the opportunity to listen to several of the Regional Economic Outlook press briefings that accompanied them, including briefings from the Asia and Pacific Department, Africa Department, Middle East and Central Asia Department, European Department, and Western Hemisphere Department. Overview: The war in the Middle East rewrote everything Every single briefing, whether it was on Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East itself, Europe, or the Western Hemisphere returned to one main factor: the war that broke out in the Middle East as of February 2026. This changed the economic forecast in ways that nobody modeled just months earlier. Oil prices surged past $100 a barrel, the Strait of Hormuz, though which roughly one-fifth of the global oil supply and more than a quarter of the global liquid natural gas (LNG) passes, came close to a standstill. The European gas prices rose by roughly 60 percent...

Figure 1 - Federal Reserve Distributional Financial Accounts (DFA): Wealth Concentration, Pandemic Bump and Post 2022 Reversal. DFA data via FRED. FAR Stress Ratio is a CIR-Developed metric: Top 1% Share divided by the Bottom 50% Share.  The latest report highlighted in Federal Reserve System data and discussed in this TheStreet article ( TheStreet ) makes a stark point: wealthy Americans are pulling further ahead at a pace “with no historical precedent,” reshaping how the economy functions beneath seemingly resilient headline numbers.  This is not just a story about the rich getting richer. It is evidence of a structural transformation of the U.S. economy — one that I have warned about for decades in my books , regulatory filings , and amicus briefs . The implications are particularly severe for Black and minority-owned firms, whose wealth base is thinner, whose capital access is more constrained, and whose exposure to macroeconomic shocks is higher. A K-Shaped Economy Is Now...

  The March Consumer Price Index (CPI) shows a sharp increase in inflation , signaling renewed economic pressure on Black- and minority-owned firms. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that consumer prices rose 3.3% over the 12 months ending in March , up from 2.4% in February . Core CPI rose 2.6% , while energy prices surged 12.5% year-over-year and food increased 2.7% . ( Bureau of Labor Statistics ) This represents a meaningful re-acceleration in inflation , with the largest increases concentrated in categories that disproportionately affect minority businesses and the communities they serve. Why the March CPI Is Especially Important This CPI release changes the economic narrative: Inflation re-accelerated Energy costs spiked sharply Core inflation remains sticky Food prices continue rising This combination creates a double squeeze on Black and minority firms: Higher operating costs Reduced customer purchasing power Industry Impact on Black and Minority Firms Black and mino...

The US unemployment rate was 4.3% in March, 2026, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, in construction, and in transportation and warehousing. Federal government employment continued to decline. BLS reported that the number of unemployed Black women fell from 804,000 to 691,000, by 113,000 persons in March, 2026. Note that the reported industries with job gains do not match industries where Black women are employed. Overall payroll employment increasing by 178,000 would mean 63% of the new jobs went to Black women. This is unlikely and indicates a need for further review. In other words, we do not trust these initial numbers... Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for people who are Asian (3.7 percent) decreased in March. The jobless rates for adult men (3.8 percent), adult women (4.0 percent), teenagers (13.7 percent), and people who are White (3.6 percent), Black (7.1 percent), or Hispanic (4.8 percent) showed li...

On March 26, 2026, I attended a public meeting at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors on the Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act. I expected something highly technical and removed from everyday realities, but the conversation returned to the same concerns.  The meeting was divided into four panels: supervision, banking regulations, innovation, and consumer protection. The discussion centered on two themes: inconsistency in supervision and the pressure placed on community banks.  Panelists came from different institutions, but their concerns overlapped. The first panel on bank supervision made it clear that the issue is not a lack of rules, but how unevenly those rules are applied. Several speakers highlighted the issue of weak communication between regulators and banks, noting that expectations shift depending on the examiner or agency involved, which creates unpredictability that makes the system more difficult to navigate.  Instead of operating wit...

At POLITICO’s Economy Summit on March 25, 2026, the conversation around trade captured something bigger than tariffs alone: the sense that economic policy is now inseparable from political struggle.  The summit included a trade panel, “What’s Next for Trump’s Tariffs?,” with Greta Peisch, Everett Eissenstat, and Eugene Laney, along with a separate conversation with Peter Navarro.  That lineup mattered. It signaled that trade is no longer being discussed only as a technical issue for economists or lawyers but as a live political battleground involving executive power, business strategy, and the price Americans pay for everyday life.  What makes this moment especially important is that it comes after a major legal shock. On February 20, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s sweeping global tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, ruling that Congress, not the president, holds the authority to impose tariffs of that scope.  But...

The latest Producer Price Index (PPI) release did not just come in elevated—it came in decisively hot. A 0.7% monthly increase, following 0.5% in January, is a pattern. And when you annualize the recent momentum, you are looking at 4–5%  annualized inflation pressure. Remember, PPI is not a prediction. It is a diagnostic tool. It tells us where inflation stress is forming inside the economy—before it becomes visible to consumers. And right now, that stress is building quietly but broadly. Goods prices are reaccelerating. Service costs are not cooling. Food costs moved higher. That combination matters more than the level of inflation. It is the distribution and direction that is important. We have now moved from: 0.4% → 0.5% → 0.7% Can We Use This to Predict Inflation? Yes — But Carefully If we take recent monthly PPI data and run a simple projection: [(1-mDec)(1-mJan)(1-mFeb)]**4 - 1] We get annualized inflation from 4 to 5 %. This is a meaningful, but PPI does not translate cleanl...

Saalex Event at the Capital One Arena. Left to right, Le Nhu Ngoc Tran, Whitman College, Ramal Moreland, JP Morgan, Don Cravins, CEO, NMSDC, Riley McGlynn, Sienna University, Amza Togore, Trinity College, Georgia Kogut, George Washington University On February 24th I attended an event that the interns at Creative Investment Research (Le Nhu Ngoc Tran, Whitman College, Riley McGlynn, Sienna University, Amza Togore, Trinity College, Georgia Kogut, George Washington University) helped put together. The event was hosted by Saalex Corporation at Capital One Arena during the Georgetown vs. Marquette basketball game. In attendance were individuals from different companies, including Don Cravins, President of the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), and Shannon Smith, Vice President of SAALEX.  Coordinating and designing this event was an important learning experience for us, as communication and collaboration were huge parts of the reason this event was so suc...

  Implications of the BEA GDP Second Estimate for Q4 and Full-Year 2025 The latest GDP release from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) confirms what many businesses already felt on the ground: economic momentum slowed significantly at the end of 2025. For Black- and minority-owned businesses (MBEs), this slowdown carries important implications for revenue, hiring, financing, and regional economic opportunity. Real GDP growth slowed sharply in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared with earlier in the year. The BEA reported that real GDP rose 1.4% at an annual rate in Q4 , down from 4.4% in the third quarter , with growth driven primarily by consumer spending and investment while declines in exports and government spending offset some of the gains.  Subsequent revisions and analysis suggest growth may have been even weaker, with estimates pointing to roughly 0.7% annualized growth , reflecting weaker consumer spending, falling exports, and reduced government activity....

The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) shows inflation rising 0.3% in February and 2.4% over the past year , with shelter, food, and energy the main contributors to price increases. ( Bureau of Labor Statistics ) This level of inflation appears high relative to the Fed's 2% inflation target. Further, the economic impact varies sharply depending on industry exposure and regional cost structures . For Black and minority-owned businesses (MBEs), these differences matter because minority firms are concentrated in specific sectors and urban regions that are particularly sensitive to inflation. 1. Industry Exposure of Black and Minority Firms Minority-owned businesses are disproportionately represented in a handful of industries. Key sectors include: Health care and social assistance Transportation and warehousing Accommodation and food services Retail trade Professional and technical services Construction ( Pew Research Center ) These industries account for a large share of minority ent...