Blacks Will Take Hundreds of Years to Catch Up to White Wealth

The wealth gap between blacks and whites in America will take hundreds of years to close–if ever.

If current trends persist, it will take 228 years for black families to accumulate the same amount of wealth as whites, according to a report released this week from the Corporation for Economic Development and the Institute for Policy Studies. For Latino families, it will take 84 years.

Over the past 30 years, the average household wealth of white families has grown 85% to $656,000, while that of blacks has climbed just 27% to $85,000 and Latinos 69% to $98,000.

{snip}

{snip} Wealth is the value of assets–including a home or retirement savings–subtracted from the debt owed against those assets. Unlike other measures of wealth by race, the figures in the report exclude the value of durable goods like cars and electronics.

As the number of people of color in the U.S. increases, so will the wealth gap. By 2043, the year the Census expects whites to be the minority in the U.S., the racial wealth gap between black and Latino households and white households will double from $500,000 to $1 million, the report said.

{snip}