Maryland Governor Wes Moore and his administration announced two major moves that will address the racial wealth gap in Maryland.
Talking to the congregation at Bethel AME Church in Cambridge on Juneteenth, Moore announced that he is pardoning 6,938 additional individuals convicted of simple cannabis possession, which expands the more than 175,000 pardons issued by the administration last year.
“We cannot have a society that makes every sentence a life sentence,” Governor Moore said. “We found people who were unable to get barber’s licenses, obtain student loans, and unable to get housing loans because of misdemeanors that happened in the 1980s and 1990s.”
Moore said he believes the pardons, which he says are the largest in the country’s history, will give people second chances, all while boosting Maryland’s economy.
“If you want to get people back into the economy and give your larger economy a chance to grow and thrive, it means being intentional,” Moore said. “Giving people the chance to grow and […] be a part of economic growth will turn around and benefit our entire state’s GDP.”
Governor Wes Moore Investing $400 Million To Reverse Wealth Gap
The second initiative Moore announced was Just Communities. This new program will allocate $400 million in state funding to historically disadvantaged communities that he said faced discriminatory housing practices, including redlining, urban highway construction, mass incarceration, and appraisal bias.
“I’m fully committed to making
sure that we are ending the racial wealth gap. When I first came into office, Maryland had an 8-to-1 racial wealth gap,” he said. “I’m very clear that we didn’t have an 8-to-1 racial wealth gap because one group was working eight times harder.”Moore added, “There were structures and systems in place that allowed it. Maryland is not just the home to amazing innovators like Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman but, unfortunately, the birthplace of red lining.”
One significant reason for the wealth gap in Maryland is a lack of ownership. The other factor is decreased appraisal value in historically red-lined neighborhoods.
Nationwide, homes in Black neighborhoods are valued roughly 21% to 23% below their potential value
in non-Black neighborhoods, which limits wealth accumulation for homeowners in these communities, according to the Brookings Institute.In Maryland, Governor Moore recently signed a bill that attempts to reduce discrimination in real estate appraisals with a relatively small change: eliminating the bachelor’s degree requirement from certain types of appraiser licenses. This would eliminate barriers to becoming an appraiser and help to diversify the industry in the state. According to the Appraisal Institute, the professional organization for appraisers, 77% of appraisers nationally are white and 68% are men.
Moore has already approved the first round of funding for 419 of Maryland’s 1463 census tracts. The Just Communities designations are effective July 1, 2025. Selected communities will receive a five-year designation and priority consideration for competitive state funding.
“This is a larger frame of the work of repair that we are doing in the state of Maryland. This work of repair is honoring the promise that we are doing to create long-term wealth and to be able to address and erase the racial wealth gap in the state of Maryland,” Moore said.
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