The wealth of the average white family in the United States has expanded 84 percent in the last three decades, a rate of growth three times greater than the average black family and 1.2 times greater than the average Latino family, according to a report from the Institute for Policy Studies and the Corporation For Economic Development. The rate of the current racial wealth gap means that it would take black families 228 years to acquire wealth equal to a white family, and would take Latino families 84 years to do the same.
The new report published Monday, The Ever-Growing Gap: Failing to Address the Status Quo Will Drive the Racial Wealth Divide for Centuries to Come, examined 30 years' worth of household income data from 1983 to 2013. The report found that not only is the racial wealth gap growing by leaps and bounds, but that the U.S.'s richest people are only getting richer as time goes on.
According to the report, the combined wealth of Forbes' 400 wealthiest individuals has grown by a staggering 736 percent: a rate 27 times greater than wealth growth for the black population and 10 times greater than the Latino population. Further, the report found that Forbes' top 100 wealthiest people have about the same amount of wealth as the entire African American population.
The report concluded that without policy changes that address disparities in existing tax laws such as fixing "upside-down tax incentives to ensure households of color also receive support to build wealth," as well as "address the distorting influence of concentrated wealth at the top through the expansion of existing progressive taxes and the exploration of a dedicated wealth tax." The report warns that without substantial policy change, the racial wealth gap will only continue to grow wider.
