What: "Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics", Pew Social & Demographic Trends
When: July 26, 2011
The median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from 2009.
These lopsided wealth ratios are the largest since the government began publishing such data a quarter century ago and roughly twice the size of the ratios that had prevailed between these three groups for the two decades prior to the Great Recession that ended in 2009.
Some might simply shrug and suggest that they're not surprised. However, there is a difference, I think, between the fact of an outcome, generalized—e.g., The wealth gap between whites and blacks or hispanics is growing—and considerations of scale.
The idea that white households are better off financially than black or hispanic households is hardly shocking. But the idea of the gap being eighteen- or twenty-fold is unsettling, to say the least.
Of course, some would suggest that not only was this the predictable result of trickle-down economic theory, it was also the point.
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