
Resource Category: Studies of Wealth Inequity
There has been much research activity in the past regarding disparities in income, educational attainment, career progression, etc. disaggregated by race, but studies of wealth as a measure of net household assets are comparatively rare. The pieces in this category represent some of the best new research on wealth with a racial equity lens.
Highlighting Key Studies of Racial Wealth Inequity
Often when we think of economic inequality, we think of gaps in income. While income is an important driver of economic inequality, wealth is just as important, if not more so.
Wealth disparities are three times the size of income disparities in the U.S. Wealth, which represents a family’s assets minus their debt, allows families to bounce back from economic hardships and plan for the future. The absence of wealth limits opportunities and often forces families to rely on debt in the case of an unexpected emergency.
The reports in this section explore the best available data on wealth in America, often disaggregating by race, income, educational attainment, and geography. Many of these resources look at trends over time, trying to assess whether or not we’ve made progress in boosting assets for lower-wealth families or narrowing the distribution.
Reports elsewhere in this resource center investigate dynamics specific to individual components of wealth — like homeownership, business ownership, and retirement — but the resources here all aim to take a more crosscutting view, analyzing trends in net asset levels.

Resource Summaries
Trends in the Distribution of Family Wealth, 1989-2019
This report from the Congressional Budget Office uses Survey of Consumer Finances data to explore changes in distribution of family wealth between 1989 to 2019 and is helpful for understanding the wealth gap from a variety of angles including income, education level, race and ethnicity, and age. The report also breaks down wealth by specific assets and debt levels.
This report from the Congressional Budget Office uses Survey of Consumer Finances data to explore changes in distribution of family wealth between 1989 to 2019 and is helpful for understanding the wealth gap from a variety of angles including income, education level, race and ethnicity, and age. The report also breaks down wealth by specific assets and debt levels.
This report offers a lot that’s worth digging into, but a few key takeaways include:
- From 1989 to 2019, total family wealth increased substantially — but that wealth became less equally distributed over the 30-year period. Families in the top half of the wealth distribution (especially the top 10% and 1%) enjoyed greater increases in wealth than families in the bottom half. For example, between 1989 to 2019 total share of wealth of families in the top 10% of the wealth distribution increased from 63% to 72% respectively, meanwhile total share of wealth decreased from 4% to 2% for families in the bottom half of the distribution.
- Part of the wealth disparity between families at different points on the wealth distribution spectrum can be explained by the types of assets making up families’ wealth. While families in the bottom half of the distribution were more likely to hold their wealth in home equity, families in the top half were more likely to hold their wealth in defined contribution and non-retirement financial assets, which were also asset types whose real value increased substantially more during the 30-year period.
- Overall median family wealth varied by racial and ethnic groups over the 30-year period. However, wealth of white families remained significantly greater than wealth of any other race and ethnicity throughout the timeframe. Notably, the median wealth of Hispanic families and Black families increased more overall than median wealth of White families and Asian and other families during the 30-year period. However, by 2019 White families and Asian and other families still had higher median wealth than Black and Hispanic families because Black and Hispanic families started with so little wealth to begin with.
The Geographic Distribution of Extreme Wealth in the U.S.
By Carl Davis, Emma Sifre, Spandan Marasini
This report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy analyzes data from Survey of Consumer Finances to look at the distribution of extreme wealth by states, looking both at overall levels of wealth and the portion of wealth held in unrealized capital gains.
This report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy analyzes data from Survey of Consumer Finances to look at the distribution of extreme wealth by states, looking both at overall levels of wealth and the portion of wealth held in unrealized capital gains.
The researchers find that extreme wealth is highly concentrated in Massachusetts and that the Northeast, more broadly, has the highest concentration of any region in the U.S. Their analysis finds that nationally thirty percent of wealth is held by a small fraction (0.25%) of households whose wealth totals over $30 million. When breaking the data down by race, they find that among families with net worth over $30 million, 92% of total wealth is held by white families.
This type of extreme wealth is often held in unrealized capital gains, which is income made on investments that is largely sheltered from taxation under current tax policy. Income from wealth has long been taxed more lightly than income from work — meaning ultra-wealthy families pay less in taxes and can build substantial wealth from their existing assets. This report points to tax policy as an important lever for reducing extreme wealth and economic inequality. The authors explore options for changing state and federal tax codes to increase taxation on extreme wealth as a strategy to reduce the wealth gap and to increase revenue for public services.
The Racial Wealth Gap Is About the Upper Classes
By Matt Bruenig
This opinion piece in Jacobin magazine argues that the focus on median wealth in racial wealth gap analyses, rather than on mean (or average) wealth, misses the important fact that the vast majority of national wealth is concentrated at the very top of the distribution. Efforts to close the racial wealth gap at the median would help advance racial equity to some degree, as simulations of SCF data in the piece demonstrate, but they would leave in place huge inequality between the largely white top end of the wealth distribution and the multiracial lower and working classes. The piece ends by arguing that advocates should instead push for broader redistributive efforts that would ultimately tackle both racial and class inequality simultaneously.
This opinion piece in Jacobin magazine argues that the focus on median wealth in racial wealth gap analyses, rather than on mean (or average) wealth, misses the important fact that the vast majority of national wealth is concentrated at the very top of the distribution. Efforts to close the racial wealth gap at the median would help advance racial equity to some degree, as simulations of SCF data in the piece demonstrate, but they would leave in place huge inequality between the largely white top end of the wealth distribution and the multiracial lower and working classes. The piece ends by arguing that advocates should instead push for broader redistributive efforts that would ultimately tackle both racial and class inequality simultaneously.
Greater Wealth, Greater Uncertainty: Changes in Racial Inequality in the Survey of Consumer Finances
By Aditya Aladangady, Andrew C. Chang, and Jacob Krimmel, with Eva Ma
Understanding Latino wealth to address disparities and design better policies
By Tonantzin Carmona
The Importance of Wealth to Family Well-Being: Seeding Innovation to Address the Structural Roots of Inequality
By Alexis Mann, Sara Chaganti
Data from a Native CDFI yield new insights on wealth gap in Indian Country
By D.L. Feir, Elijah Moreno, Lakota Vogel
Stuck on the Ladder: Intragenerational wealth mobility in the United States
Racial Wealth Disparities: Reconsidering the Roles of Human Capital and Inheritance
By Boston Fed, Jeffrey Thompson, John Sabelhaus
Wealth of Two Nations: The U.S. Racial Wealth Gap, 1860-2020
By Ellora Derenoncourt, Chi Hyun Kim, Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick
Disparities in Wealth by Race and Ethnicity in the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances
By Neil Bhutta, Andrew C. Change, Lisa J. Dettling
The economic impact of closing the racial wealth gap
The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap
By Mehrsa Baradan
Systematic Inequality: How America’s Structural Racism Helped Create the Black-White Wealth Gap
By Angela Hanks, Danyelle Solomon, Christian E. Wellter
Income and Wealth Inequality in America, 1949-2016
By Moritz Kuhn, Moritz Schularick, Ulrike I. Steins
The Asset Value of Whiteness
Wealth Inequalities in Greater Boston: Do Race and Ethnicity Matter?
By Tatjana Meschede, Darrick Hamilton, Ana Patricia Munoz, Regine O. Jackson, William A Darity Jr
Reducing Racial Wealth Inequalities in Greater Boston: Building a Shared Agenda
By David Bryant, Ginger Haggerty, Cynthia Parker, Mimi Turchinetz, and Ester Schlorholtz
The Color of Wealth in Boston
By Ana Patricia Muñoz , Marlene Kim, Mariko Chang, Regine O. Jackson, Darrick Hamilton, and William A. Darity Jr.
Bootstraps Are For Black Kids: Race, Wealth and the Impact of Intergenerational Transfers on Adult Outcomes
By Dr. Yunju Nam, Dr. Darrick Hamilton, Dr. William A. Darrity, Jr., Anne E. Price
The Racial Wealth Gap: Why Policy Matters
By Laura Sullivan Tatjana Meschede, Lars Dietrich, Thomas Shapiro (IASP), Amy Traugh, Catherine Ruetchslin, Tamara Draut, (Demos)
Less Than Equal, Racial Disparities in Wealth Accumulation
By Signe-Mary McKernan, Caroline Ratcliffe, Eugene Steverle, Sisi Zhang
The Roots of the Widening Racial Wealth Gap: Explaining the Black and White Income Divide
By Thomas Shapiro, Tatjana Meschede, Sam Osoro
Do Financial Support and Inheritance Contribute to the Racial Wealth Gap
By Signe-Mary McKernan, Caroline Ratcliffe, Margaret Simms, Sisi Zhang
Black Wealth/ White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality
By Tom Shapiro, Oliver L Melvin