Saturday, February 11, 2017

Poorer African Americans

A new study titled “The Asset Value of Whiteness: Understanding the Racial Wealth Gap" conducted by researchers at Brandeis University, Massachusetts, and the public policy group called Demos has debunked some of the myths that surround the US racial wealth gap disparity which ascribes individual behavior to be the chief reason for the disparity to exist.

Attending college does not close the racial wealth gap
 The median white adult who attended college has 7.2 times more wealth than the median black adult who attended college and 3.9 times more wealth than the median Latino adult who attended college.

Raising children in a two-parent household does not close the racial wealth gap
The median white single parent has 2.2 times more wealth than the median black two-parent household and 1.9 times more wealth than the median Latino two-parent household, the study found.

Working full-time does not close the racial wealth gap
The median white household that includes a full-time worker has 7.6 times more wealth than the median black household with a full-time worker. The median white household that includes a full-time worker also has 5.4 times more wealth than the median Latino household with a full-time worker, according to the study's findings.

Spending less does not close the racial wealth gap
The average white household spends 1.3 times more than the average black household of the same income group, the research stated.

The study suggests that whites are five times as likely as blacks to receive substantial gifts and inheritances. Another portion of the report suggests that public policies such as the GI Bill, "which mostly helped white veterans attend college and purchase homes with guaranteed mortgages," excluded people of color from the same set of opportunities. This accumulated money “can be used to jump-start further wealth accumulation, for example, by enabling white families to buy homes and begin acquiring equity earlier in their lives,” the study said while noting that this intergenerational wealth continues to provide advantage to its recipients. Traub reportedly noted that the forms of racial discrimination “that happened in the past, like redlining, continue to show up in bank accounts today.”

From here

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