The Challenge
Amplify addresses the racial wealth gap by building pathways to entrepreneurship, self-determination and high growth professional careers.
Historical inequalities and injustices have led to an increasing gap in wealth across races.
The wealth gap, educational disinvestment, criminalization, violence, lack of lending, and barriers to employment are not only justice issues; solving these challenges is also in our collective economic interest.
“Our society has, in the name of being tough on crime, made a series of policy choices that have fueled a cycle of poverty and incarceration. We send large numbers of people to prison, and then when they leave just as penniless as they were when they went in, we expect them to bear the burden of legally-acceptable employment discrimination.”
“If Chicago and our country are serious about long-term economic health and prosperity, then we must also be serious about breaking cycles of limited employment and depressed wages that stifle self-sufficiency, self-determination and wealth building.”