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News Release

Report: “Failing to Address the Status Quo Will Drive the Racial Wealth Divide for Centuries to Come”

August 10, 2016
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A new report on the nation’s growing racial wealth divide was released on Monday by the Institute for Policy Studies, editors of www.inequality.org, and Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED).

DEDRICK ASANTE-MUHAMMAD, dasantemuhammad@CFED.org @DedrickM
CHUCK COLLINS chuckcollins7@me.com
Muhammad is the director of the Racial Wealth Divide Initiative at the Corporation for Enterprise Development and the author of “African-American Economic Inequality: A Twenty-First Century Challenge” within What It’s Worth: Strengthening the Financial Future of Families, Communities and the Nation. Collins is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and long-time inequality activist.

The report is called The Ever-Growing Gap: Failing to Address the Status Quo Will Drive the Racial Wealth Divide for Centuries to Come . The report release coincides with the 2nd anniversary of the shooting death of Michael Brown by a Ferguson, MO. police officer, which spawned the Black Lives Matter movement and calls for racial justice across all segments of society. Here’s a summary of key findings within the report:

 

  • “If current federal wealth-building policies remain in place, it will take the average African-American family 228 years to amass the same amount of wealth that white families have today and it will take Latino families 84 years to reach that goal.

 

  • “By 2043, when households of color will constitute a majority of the U.S. population, the racial wealth divide between white households and African- American and Latino households will have doubled from about $500,000 in 2013 to $1 million.

 

  • “The Forbes 400 will see their average wealth skyrocket to $48 billion by 2043—more than eight times the amount they hold today. During that same period, the average wealth for white families will increase by 84% to $1.2 million compared to $165,000 for Latino families (69% growth) and $108,000 for African-American households (27% growth).”

CFED and IPS call for a range of reforms to address the problem, including fixing an “upside down” tax system that currently doles out more than half a trillion dollars annually to help primarily wealthy households get wealthier, while providing almost nothing to lower-income households.