The wealth gap between white Americans and minorities has grown wider during the recession, according to an analysis of US Census data.
It found the median wealth of white US households in 2009 was $113,149 (£69,000), compared with $6,325 for Hispanics and $5,677 for blacks.
This left whites with about 20 times the net worth of blacks and 18 times that of Hispanics.
Those ratios compared with 7:1 for both groups back in 1995.
The study, compiled by the Pew Research Center from 2009 data, found the wealth gap was the widest it has been since the government began publishing such statistics by ethnicity in 1984, when the white-black ratio was roughly 12:1.
Asians lose ranking
The data analysis demonstrates that the economic recession, which plunged housing values and caused widespread unemployment, widened an existing racial wealth gap significantly.
In other findings:
Asians lost their top ranking to whites in median household wealth, more than halving from $168,103 in 2005 to $78,066 in 2009
About 35% of black households and 31% of Hispanic households had zero or negative net worth in 2009, compared with 15% of white households
The share of wealth held by the top 10% of American households increased from 49% in 2005 to 56% in 2009
"What's pushing the wealth of whites is the rebound in the stock market and corporate savings, while younger Hispanics and African-Americans who bought homes in the last decade... are seeing big declines," Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specialises in income inequality, told the Associated Press news agency.
Between 2005 and 2009, the median net worth of Hispanic households dropped by 66% and that of black households by 53%, according to the report.
That contrasted with the median net worth of white households, which dropped by 16%. ...
Originally Posted by jnkbortka
