Growing up in Austin, with a single mother who worked two jobs to provide for me and my two older sisters, I’ll never forget the relief my mother felt when she bought her first home. It provided safety, security, and an opportunity to build up an investment to pass on to the next generation. Most families like ours lived month-to-month without the luxury of thinking years down the road.
Unfortunately, that reality still persists for too many Black families in Chicago and across the country today. According to recent data, the median Black family in America has a net worth of roughly $45,000, compared to $285,000 for the median white family. That six-fold gap means Black communities are always playing catch-up in educational attainment, homeownership, and business ownership — the same things that allow families to weather emergencies and plan for the future.
That’s why as treasurer of Chicago, I have made financial empowerment the heart of my mission, giving working and middle-class families in our city practical tools to build security for the next generation.
Take two examples: Through Building Wealth Today for Tomorrow (BWTT), our city’s largest financial education effort, we bring together community leaders and experts for hands-on workshops on credit, debt, home-buying, entrepreneurship, retirement savings, and more. Money Mondays with Melissa, our free, virtual series, demystifies budgeting, credit scores, and taxes so reliable financial guidance is available no matter your ZIP code. These initiatives are about turning good information into real, lasting wealth.
We’ve made progress, but the barriers are real. Decades of disinvestment, the legacy of redlining, and predatory practices like contract-selling stripped equity from Black neighborhoods on the South and West sides and left too many families starting from zero. Those harms compound across generations, and today one in seven Black households are unbanked, which makes everyday life more expensive and keeps families outside the mainstream wealth-building system.
See, we don’t have the luxury of trusting that the system will work for us, but I believe innovations in finance — used responsibly and with safeguards — can open new doors. Cryptocurrency and the broader digital-asset ecosystem are not silver bullets, but for people who have been shut out or overcharged by traditional systems, they can provide lower-barrier entry points to saving and investing.
We’ve already seen meaningful adoption among communities of color. Currently, Black consumers are using cryptocurrency for payments at over twice the rate of white ones. At the same time, we have to be clear-eyed: crypto is volatile. That’s why we must advocate for adoption, and the same type, of financial education I’ve championed as treasurer.
I’m a proponent of doing this the right way. That means expanding safe, low-fee, transparent on-ramps so first-time investors can start small, automate savings, and avoid predatory fees. It means putting education first, scaling programs like BWTT and Money Mondays to include digital-assets so residents understand scams, taxes, and diversification before they invest a single dollar. It means pairing opportunity with strong guardrails: clear disclosures, fraud prevention, and reputable platforms so innovation doesn’t become exploitation.
Done thoughtfully, fintech can also serve community wealth by lowering remittance costs, enabling micro-savings, and supporting neighborhood entrepreneurs so that resources are directed back into the same communities that need them most.
Chicago families don’t need hype; they need fair chances and clear rules. I’ll keep doing what I’ve always done: give our communities practical tools to build stability now and accumulate wealth over time. If we pair education with access and safeguards, we can make sure that a working mom with three daughters in Austin doesn’t have to choose between the light bill and saving for a brighter future.
Melissa Conyears-Ervin is the Chicago city treasurer.
