by. Henry Meier
It took two extra holes for Adam Scott to become the first Australian to win the Masters, the most prestigious golf tournamentin the world. He beat out an aging Argentinian and, among others, an African-Americansuperstar looking to make a comeback. Go back just fifty years and the Masters would have been as diverse as a KKK convention.
Now, imagine twenty years from now if there are not great African-American golfers, if Hispanics simply stop playing the game and Australians don’t grow up dreaming of winning the Masters. Everyone would lose.
That scenario is the single greatest danger facing our country today.As institutions with a statutory and moral obligation to help people of modest means, credit unions have a unique opportunity to help ensure that we continue to promote the best and the brightest this country has to offer. First, the statistics are depressing. According to an annual survey recently released by the Department of Labor, an increasing number of those in poverty — 10.4 million out ofmore than 46 million –are in fact working but making little advancement in striving for more financial security.In addition, there is increasing evidence that the stubborn growth of the working poor reflects declining social mobility in this country; a credible case can be made that Europe is becoming a better place formoving up the ladder of advancementthan the United States.
If we are going to help people of modest means, our challenge is more complicated than it was when the credit union movement took hold.Credit unions no longer have to be created because large groups of peoplearelegally deniedloans based on their race, social classor ethnicity. Still, there is a stubbornly high number of people of modest means and the challenges theyface can be just as daunting as those confronted byprevious generations.It is nolonger enoughjust to provide financial productsto the poor or those discriminated against,instead we mustshow how the products and services we offerprovide the means of social mobility.