1/27/25 Redefining Diversity: A Conversation with Traco Matthews

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Monday, January 27th BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Guys" podcast call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management instagram: MoneywiseWealthManagement Guest: Traco Matthews, Chief Health Equity Officer for Kern Health Systems website: www.kernfamilyhealthcare.com/v

• 0:00Speaker 00

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  Now, let's start the Money Wise Show.

• 0:42Speaker 03

  Welcome to the Money Wise Show. We are live from the Gero Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway on ESPN Bakersfield, 1230 AM, 101.1 FM, and always streaming at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can call or text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. Today, we're your hosts, Sharad Waite and...

• 1:04Speaker 04

  Sammy Abiyawi.

• 1:05Speaker 03

  Hey, Sammy. Happy, happy day.

• 1:08Speaker 04

  A very good day.

• 1:09Speaker 03

  I want to get right to it because we have a guest coming up.

• 1:12Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:12Speaker 03

  A really great guest, but before we do it, we've gotten some listener questions over the weekend, so let's get right to it.

• 1:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, the first one, "A few days after inauguration made, me wonder if there have been any recent updates to laws or regulations that might impact my retirement planning, or anything I should keep an eye out for?"

• 1:32Speaker 03

  The question is, we have a new president, and he's just been in barely a couple of weeks, or a week, and what changes? What can we see? What's going to happen? The first thing that came to my mind, Sammy, was the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017. Why did that come to my mind? Well, because this was a very significant change to our tax code. One of the most significant changes to the tax code in my career, and it happened under President Trump's first term. And... One thing that our Congress does, and thank goodness, the way that our government is set up, is they'll put on any time, usually when there's a big change to the tax code,

• 2:16Speaker 03

  there will be a sunset provision. And this is a way to protect, I think, the taxpayers from getting into trouble, passing something, and then, you know, down the road, you can't, it's, you know, takes literally an act of Congress to undo it. So, for better for worse, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 had a sunset clause, and it was set to expire at the end of this year, end of 2025. And so, without legislative action, the tax rates would all revert back to that 2017 time period, and that would be another drastic change for everybody. Now, we'd go through two major changes. This came up a lot during our shows

• 3:01Speaker 03

  last year, as we were discussing usually in terms of estate planning and the death tax, or the estate tax. That was something that was going to impact many, many people, how much it was going to cost them if they died and passed their assets on. That was going to affect, we had several meetings with attorneys that just said, hey, listen, we got to just kind of sit and wait and see what's going to happen with this. So, to give you a reminder of some of the big changes of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, which, by the way, so it's set to expire this year, if it doesn't get renewed, essentially, Congress is going to have to act this year. If they don't, we're going back to pre-2018 levels,

• 3:45Speaker 03

  right. What that would mean, we'd have expiration of the tax rates, the tax rates would go back to what they were before. For many people, that would be an increase in taxes. For some people... It will be a decrease because remember when President Trump under his first term passed this law, not everybody got a tax decrease. There were some people that actually ended up paying more in taxes, even if you were in a middle-class situation. He took a lot of flak for this, President Trump did. He didn't make everybody happy, but this was in part because the standard deduction was increased. It used to be $12,000 for single

• 4:29Speaker 03

  filers. It was $6,350 for single files, nearly doubled it to 12,000. So if you're married, you had a standard deduction of $24,000 versus 12,700 before. So there were a lot more people before that could itemize their deductions, but now it's, well, you can't. So we'll have to see. That was one of the big changes that people would certainly start to recognize. The child tax credit also doubled from $1,000 to $2,000. That's huge for a lot of people. When they get their tax return each year, most workers benefit, the chunk that they get back comes from that child tax credit. We also saw an increase in the income thresholds

• 5:10Speaker 03

  for exemption from the alternative minimum tax, which is a very complex formula. We saw corporate tax provisions that were a reduction in the corporate tax rate. It went from the max of 35% to a flat 21%. That was massive. That's huge.

• 5:29Speaker 04

  It's probably the biggest impact on corporate tax in, I don't know how many years, like 50, 60, 70 years, maybe, since the Second War.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's just unbelievable that that happened. There was also, you know, the SALT tax, which is the state and local taxes. Before, you could deduct those from your federal tax return. President Trump got rid of that. And under that Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, that was an example where a lot of people's taxes went up if they were used to deducting their state and local taxes. So these are just some examples of some things that will happen. I have no idea how this is going to pass, what will happen to the taxpayers of the country, but my suspicion is, based off of the Republicans controlling both the House and the Senate,

• 6:19Speaker 03

  and now the White House, that we are likely to see laws passed that are That are beneficial to the taxpayer, meaning probably pay less in taxes. Now, if you're, if you're, if you're politically, fiscally conservative, that's not great news. Because all that does is add more debt, because this is the way that, you know.

• 6:43Speaker 04

  We're gonna pay for.

• 6:44Speaker 03

  We have to pay for it one way or another. So how are we paying for this? So that's a great question, though. Anything else there, Sammy?

• 6:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, I have another question. My wife and I are both seven years old, retired, live in Mississippi, and have an $8,500 a month tax-free income with annual COLA adjustments. Do we have enough to live out our lives, or is there something we are missing? Very good question.

• 7:07Speaker 03

  Such a good question. My, my first thought is, okay, $8,500 a month, tax-free.

• 7:12Speaker 04

  In Mississippi?

• 7:12Speaker 03

  In Mississippi?

• 7:13Speaker 04

  That's pretty good.

• 7:14Speaker 03

  You should be all right. I mean, even in California, even in California, depending on what you're, this all comes down to what maybe debts you have, because if you've got a, you know, a big mortgage, if you've got other healthcare, that may be insurance expenses, $8,500 bucks is gonna get eaten up real quick.

• 7:31Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 7:31Speaker 03

  But if, let's say you're just looking at your discretionary expenses, $8,500 bucks a month will, will be more than enough for, at least my wife and I go out to dinner every once in a while. You know, if we didn't have a mortgage and all these other, other.

• 7:44Speaker 04

  Well, Mississippi holds the, some of the lowest rents and cost of living in the country. The, the, the two-bedroom apartment in Mississippi will cost you around $1,000 to $1,200. That's on average. Homes, the median price in Mississippi is about $160,000 to $180,000 compared to our state.

• 8:02Speaker 03

  Right, even Bakersfield's three times that.

• 8:04Speaker 04

  Bakersfield's $360,000, almost $400,000. Utilities, gonna cost about $200 to $400 a month. Food, $300 to $500, that's, like, if you add a little bit of going out from time to time, that could increase to about maybe $800 a month. And transportation, Mississippi has some of the lowest prices of fuel in, in, in the country, below the national average. So I would say, without knowing a little bit more details about the lifestyle, eighty-five hundred dollars is plenty to live off in the state of Mississippi.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  There's a great index that anybody could go to. It's called the Cost of Living Index. And what it is, is it sets a baseline. A hundred is the score that the country gets, meaning the average cost is a hundred, one hundred on the Cost of Living Index. So California on that index is a hundred and thirty-four. That means we're, I'm doing rough math, we're thirty-four percent higher than the average of the country. Mississippi, eighty-three. That means, on average, it's like seventeen percent cheaper to live in Mississippi than it is to live in the national average. This reminds me of Dave Chappelle's stand-up bit on Saturday Night Live.

• 9:24Speaker 03

  I don't know if you happened to see it. It was a couple of weeks ago.

• 9:27Speaker 04

  I saw a small part of it when he talked about, when he addressed President Trump directly.

• 9:32Speaker 03

  He, I don't know if you saw the part where he talked about the LA fires and he's, I'm gonna butcher his joke and the timing and everything, and it's a little inappropriate. So if you've got kids in the room, basically, he said, hey, you know, the LA fires, estimates are showing it's fifty billion dollars in expenses, and then he pauses and he goes, I could set six thousand acres on fire in Mississippi and pay for it for six hundred bucks. That cost me six grand, you know? Mississippi, eighty-three. It's literally, it's almost twenty percent cheaper than it is to live in another part of the country. But, you know, you don't have a beach like we got here.

• 10:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, you got the barbecue, though.

• 10:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't wanna, I don't wanna down on Mississippi, but there you go.

• 10:21Speaker 04

  Good question.

• 10:22Speaker 03

  Housing index, it also depends on, like you said, you broke it down perfectly, Sammy. If you're looking at the housing cost, Mississippi is sixty-six. Remember, a hundred is the national average. California is two-hundred-and-one. That means we're twice as expensive than the national average. We're, we're almost on track for the median home price in the state of California. It's very close to a million dollars. Which is, it was less than 10 years ago that Marin County up in the Bay Area, their median home price reached a million dollars and it just blew my mind. It's like, how is this? How could anybody afford a million dollar house? And we're talking about, that's the median price. Just your property taxes alone are going to be.

• 11:06Speaker 04

  Yeah. So I don't know what I read. I read something about the houses. I don't go away from what you're talking about, but there's a shortage of housing in the state of California because we're building about 80,000 homes a year where we need to be building about 180,000 in order for us to cover the shortage.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:24Speaker 04

  So we're short 100,000 homes.

• 11:26Speaker 03

  Right. And so that's, that's just driving up prices.

• 11:28Speaker 04

  Now a little bit more with the fires.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. And especially down in LA.

• 11:31Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 11:32Speaker 03

  It's going to affect, continue to affect the state of California. And so, you know, hopefully that helps. These are such smart questions. Really appreciate our listeners sending these in. I want to encourage anybody who's got any questions or comments, 661-396-1000. We're going to take a break. When we come back, we're going to be joined by our guests. We're Money Wise.

• 11:52Speaker 00

  Money Wise Wealth Management is the only locally owned, independent firm that uses a comprehensive wealth, tax, and estate approach, working closely with a highly trusted CPA and attorney. For information on how Money Wise can help you invest and plan for your future, call 661-847-1000.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  Welcome to Money Wise. I'm Sharad Waite. Sammy Abbiawi is the co-host. We're joined right now by our guest, Traco Matthews. If you don't know Traco, you may not live in Bakersfield or Kern County. Traco's everywhere. Besides being the Chief Health Equity Officer for Kern Health Systems, Traco's also a pastor of a local church, the Church of God. Traco, welcome back to the show.

• 12:38Speaker 05

  To be here.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  It's it's always great having you on this. I've mentioned to you, I've been excited for this. This particular interview for months in most because I've been scratching my head a little bit about some of the social pushback against programs, equity programs. DEI or diversity, equity and inclusion has somehow turned into a four letter word. And I think I might have a guess about what that is, but I wanted to bring in an expert here. I consider you an expert in this area. Can you just start there? What, what do you? How do you see the recent societal pushback against programs like DEI?

• 13:25Speaker 05

  Oh, so that's a great question. And I think whenever there's pushback on anything, we just passed Martin Luther King Junior Day. And he kind of said it best. People sadly hate each other because they don't know each other. And they don't know each other because they haven't taken the time to connect and learn about each other. And I think DEI gets a bad rap because people really don't know what it's all about. And they don't understand what success looks like, what it means for their businesses, for their schools, for their families, their churches, for our communities. And so I often, you know, when folks tell me, hey, you know, DEI is going away.

• 14:09Speaker 05

  I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. For one, it was, we were doing DEI in America, in your city, long before it was called DEI.

• 14:16Speaker 03

  I was gonna say, it seems like DEI, before it was DEI, now people want to just put you in a group. You're either on the left or you're woke or whatever. But before it was DEI, what was it? What was it called then?

• 14:27Speaker 05

  So way back in the day, 1965, there was this thing called the Civil Rights Act. Most people have heard about it. You know, after the I Have a Dream speech, then the federal government comes together and says, you know what? Yeah, this isn't quite right. We probably should give black people the right to vote. My grandfather, who will be 102 next month, he fought in World War II, came back and And just for the sake of context, he couldn't vote for 20 years after he got back from World War II here in America. And I did some math a couple of days ago, he was 43 years old. So I'm 46 for, you know, most of his or for the, you know, his first part of his life, about 43% of his

• 15:10Speaker 05

  life, he couldn't vote, which is not right or fair. And most people are like, yeah, that is ridiculous and that's crazy. But some of the things that I like to point out to folks way back in that legislation was women couldn't work everywhere and they couldn't go to school everywhere. And so all of these freedoms were delivered to not just black folks, but to women and to other minority groups. And so sometimes they called it civil rights. Sometimes they didn't call it that at all, but it's always been just this push, in my opinion, towards greater freedom, which is something that is beloved and is part of the DNA of America.

• 15:49Speaker 05

  And so if freedom, liberty and justice for all really is going to apply to all, you don't have to call it DEI. It's just everybody's getting the opportunity.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, call it liberty.

• 16:00Speaker 05

  Call it liberty.

• 16:00Speaker 03

  Liberty and justice for all.

• 16:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:02Speaker 03

  I mean, I suppose then it would just be a matter of time before now that becomes something that people don't want to be a part of, right? They

• 16:11Speaker 05

  Liberty and justice for all?

• 16:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's unfortunate, I know, but it's possible.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  LJA, oh, you're part of LJA. Oh, we don't want anything to do with that.

• 16:18Speaker 05

  True.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  I guess there's, oh, what is it? What is this? What is this sort of backlash that is happening? Against, against DEI, for example?

• 16:30Speaker 05

  So for me, I always equate things not just to, you know, there are evil people that hate folks that aren't like them. Usually it's fear. And in my experience in the workplace and as a pastor, the fear is usually a scarcity mentality. So what that means is people understand the concept of equity for their own family members. And so one of the examples I use in the healthcare industry is, could you imagine going to an emergency room with a literal hole in your head, or you're bleeding out from an artery and them treating you like the DMV, where you have to just pick

• 17:11Speaker 05

  a number? No, triage is an equity step. It makes sense. But when you talk about liberty and justice for all, and say, and so we should do this equity work for everyone, because they all deserve to not die from a hole in the head. Then some people say, oh, no, that's too expensive. I don't think we can extend the same liberties, the same justice, the same freedoms to some because it's too expensive.

• 17:44Speaker 03

  Well, okay, we have liberty and justice for all, all over our government, right? It's in our pledges, it's in our currency. So why, I'm playing devil's advocate here. Why would we, maybe that's why we don't need these programs. Maybe that's why DEI could be viewed as a waste of money, because it's already written in to the things. And we already have the Civil Rights Act. Like, why, is this really necessary?

• 18:11Speaker 05

  Well, that's a great question. And I always say, hopefully, there will come a day where you don't need to do any of this, where the dream that MLK talked about has literally been realized, and we have reached the promised land as a nation. But right now, the data doesn't suggest that that is the case.

• 18:29Speaker 03

  Okay. Again, let me say, Traco Matthews is joining us. He is the pastor of the Church of God here in town, as well as the chief health equity officer for Kern Health Systems. Go ahead, Sammy.

• 18:41Speaker 04

  No, I was just gonna say, as an immigrant, I hear liberty and justice for all. It's in the pledge. Anytime we go to Rotary events, any other events, we do the pledge of allegiance, and it's in.

• 18:54Speaker 05

  Me too.

• 18:54Speaker 04

  Right? And we're still struggling. Is that because the history of this country? Part of it, the racism that? And and one of the things too, I want I want you, Trekkles, to talk about is it's not only African Americans that are affected by diversity and inclusion and and and and equity. No, it's other groups.

• 19:17Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 19:17Speaker 04

  We have veterans, we have women.

• 19:19Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 19:20Speaker 04

  Women that were not allowed to work up until recently and vote up and up until how many years ago? So I think we lose that in the translation of the D E I sometimes. It is not only black or African American. It's a lot of other minority groups.

• 19:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's if you think about groups as kind of distinct by race or age or whatever, then honestly, if we don't do these programs, a lot of times the majority of, you know, smaller demographics, any minority group will be negatively impacted by not having some sort of programs in place. And so I'll give you an example. I had the opportunity to share right across the street at California State University Bakersfield for some doctoral students on Saturday. Special lecture and I shared the data and I'll ask you you both a couple of questions.

• 20:12Speaker 05

  Across the United States, per McKinsey data, they do a study every single year. What percentage of what's the gender breakdown in terms of percentage, men versus women in the C suite?

• 20:24Speaker 03

  Good question. So how many men versus women are are in executive level positions? It's got to be dominated by men.

• 20:32Speaker 05

  It is.

• 20:32Speaker 04

  Twelve percent for women?

• 20:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:34Speaker 05

  Twelve percent?

• 20:34Speaker 03

  I'd say under, oh, maybe I'd be a little higher, maybe twenty percent.

• 20:37Speaker 05

  Twenty percent? So actually, this year, we we made some big gains and it reached thirty percent.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 20:43Speaker 05

  I know. And it was twenty five for a long time, it was stuck at twenty five. But here's the here's the sad piece about the data. What year did women start to outpace men in the United States in attainment of four year degrees?

• 20:56Speaker 03

  Oh, uh, it's probably been at least ten years.

• 21:00Speaker 05

  You say ten years?

• 21:00Speaker 04

  Nineties?

• 21:02Speaker 05

  The early nineties, like around nineteen ninety one, nineteen ninety two, depending on how you measure.

• 21:06Speaker 03

  Like thirty years ago.

• 21:07Speaker 05

  Thirty five. So women have been outpacing men in attainment of four year degrees for thirty five years. And yet do not have the same representation, the same power, they don't make the same money. And so when you do these studies and you look at the evidence and the data, um, women have proven they're just as smart as men, did it a long time ago. And still, they don't have the same.

• 21:34Speaker 03

  Women are so far superior to us, men. In every statistic, I'm not kidding. I read a recent article about the comparing women to men in terms of intelligence, life expectancy, crime rates, all of the sort of these major metrics that we would...

• 21:56Speaker 04

  Success rates, running a business as a second or third generation.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  There's only one area that men scored higher than women, and it's brute force. Physical brute force. I mean, because we're physically bigger. But literally, everything else, we're outpaced by women. And so, in my mind, why wouldn't DEI just be a logical conclusion? Because if we can get more women in that C-suite position, doesn't that mean more money to me as a man? I think it would be.

• 22:28Speaker 04

  Culturally, we still expect certain things out of women.

• 22:33Speaker 04

  We still expect, if they work, we still expect them to come to the house and do certain things. That's the women role within the household, right? So that, in my opinion, it limits some of the things they can do and can't achieve because they get pregnant. No, they have to stay at home with the baby. They have, there's certain things and certain rights, including for the fathers, because we don't have certain things from a medical standpoint like European countries have. My brother-in-law had a baby with my sister, and now he can stay home for four months.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 23:03Speaker 04

  With the baby. We don't have that here.

• 23:06Speaker 03

  Incredible.

• 23:06Speaker 04

  Right.

• 23:07Speaker 05

  Yeah. So, no, you're bringing up a great point, Sammy, and part of it is just social acculturation. So, there are many books. My wife is, has a PhD, is smarter than me and more educated than me. And I remember she told me about a book a few years ago called, like, Second Shift. And basically, it was talking about how women who work a nine-to-five, like, you know, they're partners...

• 23:36Speaker 05

  They are expected to go home and take care of the kids still and to cook dinner and do all of these other things, which in my opinion is just a testament to their work ethic. It's like, wait, so they're just as successful in the workplace, even though they're doing extra work. I, you know, Sunday after church, after I preach, if I don't sleep, I might die. And so just thinking about how women can balance all of these things, I think the research is correct. They seem to be smarter and more effective.

• 24:05Speaker 03

  More capable.

• 24:06Speaker 05

  And more capable. So the logic would hold. Well, why not have as many of them, if not more, in leadership positions and positions of power and positions of authority? And yet, we somehow don't do that. And again, in my opinion, it's not based on hate, it's based on fear.

• 24:28Speaker 03

  Yes, I was gonna say that because here we're speaking as men and we're saying, you know, we understand that we would benefit by having more women in the workplace, more women in positions of power. But I can, I can, I guess, understand how other men would feel like, well, that means I'm giving up something myself. Cause I've already got a piece of the pie. There's only, there's only one, one piece of pie here. If a lady's gonna come into the picture. And that's where I think the struggle is because I've, logically, you can talk through why it benefit, how economically we all benefit from diversity and inclusion. Like, it's mathematically, scientifically, you can talk till you're

• 25:12Speaker 03

  blue in the face, but there's something within us. Maybe it's a, maybe it's the ugly side of humanity where we just, I don't know, we, we're fearful of losing what we have.

• 25:23Speaker 05

  Yeah. No, I absolutely agree with that. I think that. A scarcity mentality tends to be the default and an abundance mentality is counterculture. We tend to be selfish by default and so it takes some work, it takes some internal self-awareness and interrogation of our biases, our unconscious biases, our fears, it takes healing in order for us to actually get to a place where, you know, a trillion stars can shine in the sky at night and us not be nervous that somebody's gonna take our opportunity or our light. I like to think that I've grown to a place where I'm not afraid of competition and to me, when people talk about getting rid of D E I, sometimes I know that the underlying

• 26:08Speaker 05

  reality is that, okay, so you must be afraid of the competition.

• 26:13Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 26:14Speaker 05

  You have to be afraid of the competition. I played basketball for years, there weren't a lot of teams that I was afraid of because I knew how good I was. And in the workplace, I'm not afraid of other folks being educated and smart and working hard. We can all be great.

• 26:31Speaker 04

  Regardless of skin color or race or whatever, you know, it's common sense, in my opinion, like inclusion, diversity in a workplace and a company is common sense. There's an economic impact.

• 26:45Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 26:46Speaker 04

  There's a profitability impact when you have diversity within a leadership team, a workforce within the company. I've seen it happen. I've worked for a company before MoneyWise and now MoneyWise, both companies, I think, on the leading edge when it comes to inclusion and there is an impact. First, what comes to my mind is just the thought process. Thought process is different. I did not grow up like shared. The fact that I did not grow up like shared actually gives us an edge.

• 27:15Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 27:16Speaker 04

  Because that's a different experience.

• 27:17Speaker 05

  Right.

• 27:18Speaker 04

  Now, that's just common sense. However, I see companies like this over the weekend, companies, large companies that came out and was like, okay, we're, you know, taking, going away from this. Target is one of them, Walmart. These are two of the largest employers in our country.

• 27:34Speaker 04

  But they are going away from this. Why is the question?

• 27:37Speaker 05

  So I think the most direct response to that is, I think they're doing it under duress. I think there are external pressures and so folks are kind of reading the tea leaves. Obviously, you know, DEI programs have been essentially banned at the federal level or done away with. And so I think most folks are thinking, okay, if we continue to do this work, if we allow our employee resource groups to continue to exist, do we get in trouble? And so I think that there's that fear and, you know, some organizations like Costco, they basically say, bring it.

• 28:15Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 28:15Speaker 05

  You know, we'll, we'll fight. We don't care. It, it, you really, I don't think in a court of law can make treating your employees right or better is, is illegal. There's, there's just no way you can ever do that and say, we're going to be inclusive of the ideas of all of our employees.

• 28:35Speaker 03

  However, we, there, there is now, at least from the, from the White House, orders to get rid of, to dismantle DEI.

• 28:45Speaker 04

  At the, at the federal level.

• 28:47Speaker 05

  And that is at the federal level. And so what I'm saying is, I think in the private sector, some folks are kind of seeing that and just being proactive potentially about not, not getting

• 28:59Speaker 04

  Following suit. I mean, we've got the leader of the country stating that, so yes.

• 29:03Speaker 05

  And there's, there's always the, um, there's always the chance as well, you know, I, I hate to think it, but I know it's a reality. Often, um, you know, whatever position you take on DEI, it can, it can impact your brand based on who your customers are. Uh, you know, I've had, I saw a picture over the weekend as well, um, you know, the Reverend Al Sharpton and several other hundred black leaders were doing what they call a buy-in at Costco. Well, as much as you might have some folks do a buy-in at Costco because they say, we're going to keep our programs, you might have other folks that choose to boycott Costco because they're going to keep their programs. And so you have to weigh that imbalance that I think as a business owner.

• 29:46Speaker 03

  We actually have a listener question asking about Al Sharpton. He says, interesting topic. What are your guests' thoughts on Reverend Al Sharpton's planning to organize a boycott against companies stepping away from DEI initiatives? And do they believe businesses will genuinely shift away from these efforts?

• 30:02Speaker 05

  Um, my, my, this is just complete speculation.

• 30:08Speaker 05

  Under this administration, I don't think that folks will necessarily shift away. Unless, you know, the Reverend Al Sharpton can convince everyone to boycott Walmart. But I think so many of them are just too big. They're gonna make plenty of money, even if, say, you know, whatever percentage of black folks there are in the United States. Say, we're never shopping at Walmart again. Well, they're not gonna go out of business. And I think what they have weighed is, hey, maybe we make as much as we lose because of the position that we're taking. It's completely political, but that is a legitimate consideration and evaluation.

• 30:51Speaker 05

  And so, that piece, I know some businesses, I think, are just really counting dollars and saying, hey, what's gonna help us achieve the best bottom line in terms of our D E I position? Not necessarily thinking about the ethical implications and probably some of the more sustainable or long-term implications. Because one of the challenges is you can take years to build up your brand, to be trusted across the board in all communities, and then you do something like this and you never get that trust again, or it's difficult to rebuild that brand.

• 31:33Speaker 05

  And so, I think it's a short-term decision that will have long-term negative impacts and effects, but not enough to where folks are thinking, we've gotta take urgent action right now.

• 31:46Speaker 04

  We live in a world where data is very important, and Target, Walmart, and any, all these large companies have very detailed data about their shoppers.

• 31:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, they know.

• 31:56Speaker 04

  So before they made the decision about going out from, they did their research, and what type of attrition they're gonna have, what type of losses they're gonna have. And in our experience in this country, a lot of the time, the losses...

• 32:12Speaker 04

  Are going to be small compared to their long-term gain. Because also historically, we might get behind certain things and boycott. But because of the market share that these guys have, people are going to go back and shop there. That's what they are banking on.

• 32:29Speaker 05

  I would agree with that. I don't think that anyone is thinking, hey, you know, because there's a boycott today, or maybe for a couple of years, that, like I said, we're not going to go out of business.

• 32:41Speaker 04

  I can't resist that cheap toilet paper at Walmart, man.

• 32:44Speaker 03

  Sometimes critics will argue that DEI programs are prioritizing diversity over merit. And so how do you reconcile diversity efforts with merit-based advancement?

• 32:59Speaker 05

  So again, I've heard that argument as long as I've been doing diversity work, equity work, inclusion work, belonging work, et cetera. And again, the evidence just doesn't support the reality of the allegation. And the example that I often go right back to is women. And so, you know, folks for years, I remember when I was a little boy growing up, you know, I'm one of seven, five boys first, and then two younger sisters. And my older brother, one day, I was probably like six years old, he said, "Did you know that boys are smarter than girls?" And I know, and it sounds hilarious because he was like nine, I'm like six. And I was like, "That sounds about right to me."

• 33:43Speaker 05

  You know, the mid 80s, and so I believed that.

• 33:46Speaker 03

  You couldn't Google it.

• 33:47Speaker 05

  I couldn't Google it. And all I knew was that, you know, the subset of young ladies that I happened to go to elementary school with. So I remember thinking when I was a teenager, I was like, "I don't think he was right."

• 33:59Speaker 03

  Something doesn't sound right about that.

• 34:02Speaker 05

  But he was just a reflection of something that he had heard. He had no evidence. And so, but all of that to say...

• 34:13Speaker 05

  Quote-unquote scientifically, because women were not allowed to go to the same universities until 1965, and then they still didn't necessarily integrate right away. And so probably about 1975, you started to see broader integration. And literally within one generation, 16 years later, they have started to outpace men in attainment of those four-year degrees, thereby disproving forever the erroneous, distorted thinking that girls are not as smart as boys.

• 34:46Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:47Speaker 05

  And so the evidence shows that sometimes those allegations about quote-unquote merit are just incorrect. The other thing that I tend to point out to folks is, you know, some of the recent selections for the administration, you compare them to previous administrations. Whatever your position is, if you compare education as the metric of success, or you compare experience, you know, in the role, promotions, all of, you know, results, things that we use in business to measure success, it just doesn't bear out. You know, minorities,

• 35:27Speaker 05

  women, everyone performs about the same, generally speaking. And so when folks bring that argument, usually I'll have, you know, just a couple of examples, sometimes from that particular workplace or that sector. And it always disproves the erroneous theories that quote-unquote, when you expand, cast a wider net, bring more diverse people into leadership, or into the medical, you know, healthcare industry, or into engineering, or whatever, they're not making worse decisions. Things don't fall apart. The businesses continue to soar, thrive, or maybe even get better, as you were talking about earlier, when you

• 36:09Speaker 05

  get more women in leadership. And they're doing great. And so the evidence just disproves the erroneous allegation.

• 36:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're joined by Traco Matthews. He is a pastor, a local pastor at the Church of God. Traco, can you give us any examples where you saw diversity or equity initiatives that impacted productivity or impacted a business for the good?

• 36:37Speaker 05

  For the good.

• 36:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, or an organization like what maybe or even from a personal level like what what where has let's call it a program impacted for good, you know, how how has this give a real life example of how how DEI may have impacted?

• 36:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, so that's a great question. I'm sorry, I was actually prepared for the opposite because usually people ask me how did this, you know, cost society, but I would say during during COVID, I thought that there were some really great examples of how equity programs and programs done in a culturally sensitive competent way actually were incredibly helpful. So I'll give you one example and there are lots of parallels to this one. So here in the Central Valley, you know, one of our core businesses is ag agriculture.

• 37:38Speaker 05

  And when the COVID pandemic happened, you know, many of the people who are picking our grapes and our tomatoes and putting the food on our tables.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  Essential workers?

• 37:50Speaker 05

  Essential workers, but some of them are not documented. People tend to know that. And so because they weren't documented, they weren't getting benefits. And they because they're hardworking and they're working and supporting their families, they wanted to continue to work. And so they might have had symptoms of COVID and they didn't stay home. They just kept going to work. And so this was in late 2020, they recognized, wow, this is pretty crazy because as people are getting sick and then suddenly your labor force is getting decimated with this disease, then.

• 38:32Speaker 05

  Folks started thinking, we've got to do something, but it was politically fraught with tension. And so finally, the governor, he said, you know, we're going to come up with a program. And so he rolled out an equity program. It was called Housing for the Harvest. And basically what they did, they said, hey, we know that many of the undocumented workers that are literally putting food on our tables, doing great work, they're not getting benefits. And so we're going to give them some money so that they can stay home and sequester, really even away from their families. And so we used hotels and so forth. And it actually helped to curb, curb the

• 39:12Speaker 03

  The loss of workers from illness.

• 39:15Speaker 05

  We were able to bend the curve here in current county faster than any other county in the state of California. For, for a couple of reasons, but for one, because we used folks that had lived experiences that were trusted in the community with farm workers. And so once a couple of folks tried it and they said, hey, I actually got the money. The extra money so that I could stay home so that we could bend the curve. And ultimately everyone could come back together and we could continue to produce the level of agriculture that we need to produce for the state, for the rest of the nation and for the world. That was an incredible, incredible program that bore fruit.

• 39:55Speaker 03

  Right. And economic fruits, right? So the, the tax dollars that went in for this program paid for itself via sustaining that sector of our, of that industry. And, and keeping it going. It reminds me of, it's, it's counterintuitive sometimes when you, when you have to pay for, call it a program. And, and it can be very expensive to, to run these programs. But some of these programs actually at the end of the day end up, again, more money in your pocket. And an example is the unhoused homeless issues. It's about 10 years ago, I think it was the state of Utah that decided to just buy homes for the, you know, for, for their unhoused.

• 40:39Speaker 03

  Say, we're just going to, we, you know, we can, we're going to Try this program, this is buy these houses or apartments and just put people in these homes. We'll pay for it and we'll figure out how to do it later. It turns out saved them so much more money because people weren't spending the night in hospitals in the ER. And at the end of the day, taxpayers were saving an enormous amount of money, even though they were, you know, they were funding a hundred thousand dollars for this apartment. It was a lot cheaper than what the alternative is. And I fear that that's, that's the current pushback against DEI. I think we're, I think we may be shooting ourselves in the foot here economically speaking. I don't care what your background is. If you're an American, you want, you want to be prosperous and you want

• 41:21Speaker 03

  your neighbors to be prosperous. And so I'm going to push for an initiative to rename it from DEI to JFA, Justice for All.

• 41:29Speaker 05

  There you go.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  Until, until that gets, until that gets axed.

• 41:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  Traco, we, we're going to take a break now. I want to thank you so much for coming on the air. This is a sensitive subject. You come, you're the perfect person for this. We appreciate you being, being a friend of the show, coming on, having these difficult topics and discussions with us. That's Traco Matthews. Thank you so much.

• 41:52Speaker 05

  Thanks for having me. It's always an honor.

• 41:54Speaker 03

  We're Money Wise. We'll be right back.

• 41:55Speaker 00

  Are you curious to learn more about how you can be money wise? Check out the Money Wise website at MoneyWiseGuys.com to get more info about what we do.

• 42:08Speaker 03

  Thanks for tuning into Money Wise. If you missed any of our show, you can go to MoneyWiseGuys.com or wherever you stream your podcasts, there you can find out more. And I want to thank Traco.

• 42:24Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 42:25Speaker 03

  It's such a, it's

• 42:26Speaker 04

  It's a difficult subject to talk about, especially in light of what just happened with the administration, large companies scrapping this DEI initiatives.

• 42:36Speaker 04

  And just rubbing people the wrong way somehow, somewhere, I really don't get it. It makes total sense in my mind.

• 42:44Speaker 03

  I just, again, we're a money show. And the reason why we talk about this on a money show is because I believe, take your morals out of it. I believe there's an economic incentive for us to have diversity in the workplace and to have more equality and to have people feel like they are included and that they belong. These are, for better or for worse, you mentioned, Sam, the history of our country is such that not everybody is starting at the starting line. Not everybody started at the same line to start out with.

• 43:20Speaker 04

  No.

• 43:20Speaker 03

  And how can we, we're a Christian-based country. Christ, you know, this was his, gave his life for this message to lift others up, especially those that aren't like us, you know? He got a lot of guff for hanging out with prostitutes. What was that, you know, what's that all about? That was D E I, that was happening back then. And now you may say, well, yeah, but you know, it's going to cost. Now you're putting money towards this and it could be going towards other things. And it's like, yeah, this isn't going to be perfect.

• 43:55Speaker 04

  Who can actually, look, I can challenge a business and we'll sit down and we'll look at the diversity and inclusion, the impact, economic impact, profitability impact this can have. Look, I'm probably one that will say, hey, I hire on merit, regardless of how you look like, regardless of your gender. If you're good for the company, I'm going to go ahead and hire you. And I hope and wish companies treat me the same. Like because of what I bring to the table, that's why I'm being hired. Not because I am a minority and we're going to have to meet a quota.

• 44:27Speaker 03

  Right. That's right. Yeah. And you don't want to, you don't want to be viewed as somebody who just got a handout.

• 44:32Speaker 04

  No.

• 44:33Speaker 03

  You know, and you're just, oh, you're just, you're just getting favors because of, you know, you're an immigrant.

• 44:37Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 44:39Speaker 03

  This it's I I I'm glad that you know it was brought up that you know these companies, especially publicly traded companies, you mentioned Target, Walmart, what's the list? You have the list there like Target, Walmart, Meta. Some of the largest companies in the world are putting an axe to this, I guarantee it.

• 44:59Speaker 04

  Tractor Supply.

• 45:00Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 45:01Speaker 04

  I have the list somewhere. I'm sorry.

• 45:04Speaker 03

  This is this is a bit they're they're looking at their bottom line right now, but I guarantee you that they in inside their corporate structure are definitely aware of the economic benefits that they have from having a diverse workforce. Even I mean, this is a this is a fine an investment principle of diversification that is so easy to explain with mathematically, you can explain to to an investor how they benefit by not just holding one stock, but hold 10 different stocks. You actually get more power, more bang for your buck because you got these different industries or sectors or even from different countries. What? I want stocks from other countries? Yeah, yeah, you do. Because there's countries that do things way better than we do.

• 45:48Speaker 04

  One way to manage your risk.

• 45:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, so make money off of it. You can make money off of being diverse and having inclusion.

• 45:56Speaker 04

  So so the list I have here, Target, Meta, Walmart, McDonald's, Ford Motor Company, Lowe's, Harley Davidson, John Deere, Tractor Supply, just to name a few.

• 46:08Speaker 03

  There you go. There you go. So I'm just.

• 46:11Speaker 04

  Not my beloved Costco, though.

• 46:13Speaker 03

  No.

• 46:14Speaker 04

  My $1.50 hot dog is going to stay there, Stephen.

• 46:17Speaker 03

  Yep. Yeah. Hey, speaking of cost for food, we now know who's going to play in the Super Bowl.

• 46:22Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 46:23Speaker 03

  And last year, if you took the prices of individual products that people bought for Snoopable, Snoopable.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  Super Bowl snacks, the most popular being chips, guacamole, beer, chicken wings, food, you know, these different types of food and drink. How much do you think it costs on average this year versus last year?

• 46:45Speaker 04

  I would say 15% more.

• 46:47Speaker 03

  What's the average, what, what are, what's the average household spending for Super Bowl snacks?

• 46:53Speaker 04

  $300.

• 46:54Speaker 03

  A hundred, it's a hundred, yeah.

• 46:55Speaker 04

  I want to go to Sammy's.

• 46:57Speaker 03

  That's how Sammy feeds. That's, that's the Sammy.

• 47:00Speaker 04

  What, you're getting eggs?

• 47:00Speaker 03

  That's the Abiyawi house. $139. It's, it's actually just the same price as it was last year. It's only 10 cents higher, but so essentially everybody's spending $139 on average for Super Bowl food, just like they were last year.

• 47:15Speaker 04

  So, so, so hold on, hold on, $139. Now, now we're talking about diversity and inclusion here. What, what, which household are we talking about? A white, I mean, we're, my household is a little bit different. We've got a couple of, you know, an African and an Asian married on the both side of the family. It's a huge family.

• 47:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, you're right.

• 47:33Speaker 04

  So 300 is just on the lighter side.

• 47:36Speaker 03

  Hey, you get all the benefits though, from that because it tastes so good. Nothing like that Filipino Moroccan food. Conglomerate.

• 47:44Speaker 04

  No, no, no, I would not change that.

• 47:47Speaker 03

  It's about as good as it gets. So Sammy, thanks so much for being on the show. Been good.

• 47:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's been good. Thanks, Traco again.

• 47:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, thanks. Big shout out to Traco Matthews, friend of the show, has been here for many years and, and it's just, just a good human being.

• 48:01Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 48:02Speaker 03

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• 48:13Speaker 04

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• 48:14Speaker 03

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• 48:21Speaker 02

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