Resource Category: Solutions
Research on this page investigates possible solutions for boosting wealth and assets, including interventions that have been attempted as well as research exploring new ideas that have not yet been tried at scale.
Potential Solutions to Racial Wealth Inequity in the Greater Boston Area – And Beyond
The racial wealth gap is a complex problem that requires a multifaceted response. Therefore, research in this section explores a range of policy solutions for boosting assets and closing racial wealth divides.
Some solutions are race-targeted, meaning they apply only to people based on their racial identity or specific family connection to documented policy harm, like housing discrimination. Reparations programs are one example of this sort of race-targeted approach.
Other solutions are race-neutral and instead available based on financial need or geography. If these income-based programs are thoughtfully designed, they still can help close racial wealth gaps since Black families and other families of color are disproportionately lower-income. Most baby bonds proposals, for instance, are designed to provide support to all kids born into lower-income families. The net effect of this would be sending more financial support to Black and Latino families since patterns of racial discrimination have led them to be disproportionately lower-income.
Resource Summaries
The New Wealth Agenda: A Blueprint for Building a Future of Inclusive Wealth
By Katherine Lucas McKay, Shehryar Nabi
As part of its Financial Security Program, the Aspen Institute has proposed a new goal for mobilizing action to increase wealth-building and economic security for all Americans. The goal states: “By 2050, we must increase by ten-fold the wealth of households of color and those in the bottom half of the wealth distribution in the United States.” Using that goal as a jumping off point, The New Wealth Agenda details action steps within eight objectives to achieve this goal, such as supporting baseline financial security, increasing retirement assets, resolving debt issues, and creating wealth-building career pathways.
As part of its Financial Security Program, the Aspen Institute has proposed a new goal for mobilizing action to increase wealth-building and economic security for all Americans. The goal states: “By 2050, we must increase by ten-fold the wealth of households of color and those in the bottom half of the wealth distribution in the United States.” Using that goal as a jumping off point, The New Wealth Agenda details action steps within eight objectives to achieve this goal, such as supporting baseline financial security, increasing retirement assets, resolving debt issues, and creating wealth-building career pathways.
One unique contribution of the report is proposing an broad agenda designed to address needs of a wide range of families, from very low-income families that are quite far from having investible sums of money to higher-income families that are on the cusp of starting their own business but lack initial start-up capital.
Baby Bonds: A Universal Path to Ensure the Next Generation Has the Capital to Thrive
By Christa Cassidy, Rachel Heydemann, Anne Price, Nathaniel Unah and William Darity Jr
As a universal, race-conscious program, Baby Bonds present an opportunity to establish economic security as a birth right for all Americans. Baby Bonds programs, like Senator Cory Booker’s Opportunity Accounts proposal, are a wealth building program that provides accounts funded by the federal government to every infant at birth. Typically, they are means-tested to determine the amount of seed money the government puts in each family’s account and Booker’s Opportunity Accounts policy adds restrictions on use of funds and age at which the funds can be accessed.
As a universal, race-conscious program, Baby Bonds present an opportunity to establish economic security as a birth right for all Americans. Baby Bonds programs, like Senator Cory Booker’s Opportunity Accounts proposal, are a wealth building program that provides accounts funded by the federal government to every infant at birth. Typically, they are means-tested to determine the amount of seed money the government puts in each family’s account and Booker’s Opportunity Accounts policy adds restrictions on use of funds and age at which the funds can be accessed.
The authors explore the implications of program structure on potential outcomes and implore policymakers to clarify their goals for a program as they design the program structure. The authors recommend considering the basis of the means-test for the annual contribution amount on household wealth rather than household income, which is an important distinction that a 2018 study indicated would substantially narrow the racial wealth gap.
The authors emphasize that despite Baby Bonds transformative potential, one policy alone will not effectively bridge the gap between Black and white wealth and recommend pairing Baby Bonds with a federal reparations program.
A Brief History of Equality
By Thomas Piketty
This book from French scholar Thomas Piketty repackages some of his more dense, academic research into a book that is accessible for general audiences.
While Piketty is known for his work ringing the alarm about the inequality-enhancing effects of free market capitalism, this book argues that over the longer-sweep of history, most nations have actually made some progress in advancing economic equality over the past 100-200 years. Some unwinding of inequality came through unfortunate circumstances like war and national disaster, but much of it came through effective social and political movements, dismantling colonialism, passing progressive tax reform, and building social welfare states.
This book from French scholar Thomas Piketty repackages some of his more dense, academic research into a book that is accessible for general audiences.
While Piketty is known for his work ringing the alarm about the inequality-enhancing effects of free market capitalism, this book argues that over the longer-sweep of history, most nations have actually made some progress in advancing economic equality over the past 100-200 years. Some unwinding of inequality came through unfortunate circumstances like war and national disaster, but much of it came through effective social and political movements, dismantling colonialism, passing progressive tax reform, and building social welfare states.
The book’s international perspective provides a nice complement to the domestic focus of most other research in this resource center. It puts the practice of American slavery in a broader international context alongside European colonialism, and it explores ambitious ideas for advancing greater equality into the future. These solutions include the idea of a “universal inheritance” paired with basic income, more progressive taxation, and a vision for “participatory socialism” in the governance of private corporations.
Normalizing Reparations: U.S. Precedent, Norms, and Models for Compensating Harms and Implications for Reparations to Black Americans
By Linda J. Bilmes, Cornell William Brooks
The Business of Bank Fees: How Public Alternatives Can Ensure Equitable Economic Participation
By Emily DiVito
Implications of Housing Conditions for Racial Wealth and Health Disparities
By Michael Neal, Amalie Zinn, Linna Zhu
How Baby Bonds Could Reduce Massachusetts’ Growing Wealth Gap
By Eva Bórquez
The New Wealth Agenda: A Blueprint for Building a Future of Inclusive Wealth
The Importance of Wealth to Family Well-Being: Seeding Innovation to Address the Structural Roots of Inequality
By Alexis Mann, Sara Chaganti
Evaluation of the Massachusetts BabySteps Program
By Rebecca M. Loya, Madeline Smith-Gibbs, Eunjung Lee, Miriam Berro Krugman, Armando Vizcardo-Benites, Meghan Gragg
From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century
By William Darity Jr., A. Kirsten Mullen
Race and Gender Wealth Equity and the Role of Employee Share Ownership
By Maureen Conway, Joyce Klein, Joseph Blasi , Douglas Kruse, Melissa Hoover, Todd Leverette, Julian Mckinley, Zen Trenholm, Jenny Weissbourd & Yoorie Chang
Leveling the Playing Field between Inherited Income and Income from Work through an Inheritance Tax
By Lily Batchelder
Why we need reparations for Black Americans
By Rashawn Ray, Andre M. Perrt
Closing the racial wealth gap requires heavy, progressive taxation of wealth
By Vanessa Williamson