Obama’s administration made little to no progress in bridging the vast racial wealth divide. The failure to bridge racial economic inequality is not unique to the Obama presidency. Whether under Trump, Clinton, or either Bush, there has been little to no progress in bridging the economic divide for African Americans in wealth, home-ownership, and income.
Over Obama’s presidency, median Black wealth never returned to even its modest $10,700 from before the Great Recession. By 2013, it had dropped to just $1,700 — virtually nothing — even as white wealth rebounded.
The racial wealth divide in the latter half of the Obama presidency was the largest it’s been in the last 30 years.
Income inequality remained virtually unchanged, too. In 2007, Black Americans earned about 60 percent as much as whites. By 2016, that had fallen to 58 percent.
In the aftermath of the Great Recession, homeownership — the key source of wealth for most middle-class families — decreased for most Americans. But new Black homeowners were hit hardest, driving the Black homeownership rate down from 49 to just 44 percent, nearly 30 percentage points lower than the rate for white Americans.
Can we expect Joe Biden be the reversal of all this?
Biden Needs to Make Closing the Racial Wealth Divide a Priority on Day One (truthout.org)
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