News Americas, WASHINGTON, D.C., Fri. July 29, 2011: Blacks and Hispanics in the U.S. are watching their wealth dwindle.
Between 2005 and 2009 the median wealth of Hispanic households in the United States shrank 66 percent, the largest among all racial and ethnic groups, the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends project released this week found.
In the same period, the wealth of African American households dropped 53 percent while white households lost 16 percent.
The disparity, say study authors Rakesh Kochar, Richard Fry and Paul Tylor, are the biggest since the government began publishing data and “roughly twice the size of the ratios that had prevailed between these three groups for the two decades prior to the Great Recession.”
Researchers also found that the median wealth of white households is 18 times that of Hispanic households and 20 times that of black households.
In 2005, according to the study, the median net worth of white households was $134,992 compared with $18,359 for Hispanic households and $12,124 for black households.
In 2009 the median net worth of white households was $113,149 compared with $6,325 for Hispanics and $5,677 for blacks.
In 2009, according to the report, nearly 25 percent of both Hispanic and black households had no other asset but a vehicle, compared with a scant 6 percent of white households in the same straits.
