White-Minority Wealth Gulf Widens

Miriam Jordan:

The wealth gap between whites and each of the nation's two largest minorities--Hispanics and blacks--has widened to unprecedented levels amid the housing crisis and the recession, according to new research.

The median net worth of white households is 20 times greater than that of black households and 18 times greater than that of Hispanic households, according to an analysis of newly available 2009 government data by the Pew Research Center, an independent think tank.

The disparities are the greatest since the government began tracking such data a quarter-century ago, with the gulf separating whites from other groups twice as wide as it was in the two decades prior to the recession and 2008 financial crisis, according to the study.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at July 27, 2011 1:15 AM
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