So I’m perusing through the news and I see this article about a Pew Research study on median wealth in the United States and how the Great Recession impacted household worth.
It is a stunning indictment of our fiscal, social and moral progress as a nation. If there’s anyone out there who needs a basic primer on why we are facing some months of unrest, then they need to take a look at this. What’s happened is that the wealth of white households has grown to 13 times that of African-American households since the end of the recession. In 2010, the gap was 8 times the wealth. For Hispanic households, the gap between their wealth and whites grew to 10 times the wealth, from 9 times in 2010.
In plain numbers, the results are even more shocking. In 2013, the median net worth of white households, which includes real estate, savings, stocks, bonds, etc., was $141,900, while that of African-Americans was $11,000, and the Hispanic household average was $13,700.
Linger over those numbers. How is it that we can address any kind of racial, ethnic or economic tensions when large groups of people in the United States have so little and fewer opportunities than whites to avail themselves of large parts of American society? These numbers are not well-publicized at all, but they need to be. Send them around social media. Put them on a poster. Talk to your friends.
But do something.
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