*According to this week’s highly anticipated Survey of Consumer Finances from the Federal Reserve, the “wealth gap” between white Americans and Black Americans has gotten worse in recent years. The latest available data (from 2007) shows that for every dollar in wealth held by a white household, the typical Black household has just 10 cents.
The Federal Reserve releases the survey every three years. When it was last released covering 2004, African Americans had 12 cents in wealth for every dollar of wealth owned by whites. In other words, the wealth gap worsened during the years of the Bush administration. Indeed, in terms of wealth, Hispanics have now moved ahead of Blacks. They now have 12 cents in wealth for every dollar of white wealth.
Thus, while Blacks are making impressive educational and political gains in America, when it comes to wealth accumulation, they are falling behind. Wealth is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. In other words, it is net worth - what you truly own after all debts have been subtracted.
Wealth accumulation tends to be inter-generational. Indeed, most experts agree that the single biggest predictor of how much wealth you will accumulate is the net worth of your parents and how much of it they were able to pass on to you. However, this economic truism does not explain why Hispanics have started to accumulate more wealth than Blacks.
Overall, however; the years of the Bush administration were not good for most Americans. The Federal Reserve report shows that the net worth of the average American family is less today than it was in 2001.
[source: Taylor Media Services – www.freewebs.com/blacknewsjournal/]