The wealth gap has turned into a yawning chasm for black and Latino households. That's the conclusion of a new Pew Research report released Friday that says the wealth divide between minorities and whites is the widest it's been in more than a decade.
As of 2013, whites had 17 times the wealth of black households, the biggest gap since 1989, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data. The current white-to-Hispanic wealth gap is at its highest since 2001. (Asians and other groups are not separately identified in Fed public-use versions of their survey).
From 2010 to 2013, the median wealth of non-Hispanic white households increased by 2.4 percent, from $138,600 to $141,900 whereas the median wealth of non-Hispanic black households fell 33.7 percent, from $16,600 in 2010 to $11,000 and for Latinos it decreased by 14.3 percent, from $16,000 to $13,700.
According to the report, the reasons for this disparity include:
- A 9 percent drop in median income for minority households between 2010 and 2013.
- White households are more likely to own more financial assets such as stocks which have recovered in value more quickly than housing.
- Asset ownership has decreased among minority households; homeownership rates among Latinos and blacks have dropped by 6.5 percent from 2010 to 2013.
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