<p>[Wealth</a> gap widens between whites, minorities - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/wealth-gap-widens-between-whites-minorities-040224418.html]Wealth”>http://news.yahoo.com/wealth-gap-widens-between-whites-minorities-040224418.html)</p>
<p>Discuss?</p>
<p>Makes sense to me. It’s been a rough go here for a lot of people. Those the most firmly entrenched in a field and with assets are in better shape than those still in transition.</p>
<p>Yes, I understand what you’re saying. It was just surprising to me how large the gap between whites and hispanics/blacks is. $113,149 vs $6,325 for Hispanics and $5,677 for blacks? Crazy!</p>
<p>This should go in the Parents Cafe so I expect the thread to be moved.</p>
<p>I posted this in another thread but was thinking that it wouldn’t be bad to have its own thread.</p>
<p>The article that I read this morning had Asians ahead of Whites before the housing crash - Asians lost a lot of ground after the housing crash. It appears that Asians were disproportionately located in real estate markets that crashed harder than the rest of the country.</p>
<p>The article that I read mentioned that a big factor in wealth is the stock market. The stock market has been quite strong since early 2009 and those that bailed before the crash and then jumped in early 2009 should have some pretty sizable gains, hopefully strongly offsetting housing losses.</p>
<p>I wonder if there is a small percentage of whites that brings their average way up. It would be interesting to drill into the data.</p>
<p>It seems to me that many would have done with assets in the stock market than the housing market for the past ten years.</p>
<p>How big a range is there within the white population, though?
What is the education level of the various income groups?
How many whites are of the same average income as the minorities?
What percentage of whites and of minorities are recent immigrants?</p>
<p>Generalizations like this can mask important deviations and patterns; using race to sort through a population can create a sense of patterns and causalities where they may not exist. </p>
<p>On another note, it would be interesting to see if education level or race or a certain level of income correlates with investing/saving practices.</p>
<p>(not another AA or racism thread, I hope)</p>
<p>What constitutes as “wealth”? Money in the bank, stocks, assets, etc.?</p>
<p>The source is census data so I’d guess that the data is self-reported.</p>
<p>“What constitutes as “wealth”?”</p>
<p>I believe it is net worth (asset - liability).</p>
<p>1) Its the mean not the average.</p>
<p>2) Yes census data so self reported data and actually just a special survey of a very small group then extrapolated to larger whole country.</p>
<p>3) It must also include data on illegals/undocumented workers as it is census data. I think that would skew results.</p>
<p>@performersmom - I certainly do not intend for this thread to be about AA or racism.</p>
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According to the article, those are median values, so it’s not caused by a small number of super-rich white people.</p>
<p>It also occurs to me that these numbers are a little hard to interpret, because all of these groups would include quite a few people with net worth less than zero.</p>
<p>They should break out the numbers for single-mom homes and two-parent homes. </p>
<p>Family situation is what largely influences those numbers. </p>
<p>Two-parent homes, regardless of race, are least likely to be in poverty.</p>
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<p>Yes, according to the article…</p>
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<p>But having a negative net worth isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if it’s because of a mortgage that your income is sufficient to service. The article suggests that one reason for the disparity might be that black and hispanic families are younger.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong–it’s a huge disparity. I’m just saying that it’s a bit hard to interpret.</p>
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<p>The mean IS the average. I think you meant to say it’s the median and not the average.</p>
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<p>Normally, if you have a mortgage, you should also have a house that is worth more than the amount of the mortgage, so that the mortgage and house would not, by themselves, cause you to have a negative net worth.</p>
<p>Of course, if the value of the house declined to below the amount of the mortgage, that would make the mortgage and house be a net negative contributor to your net worth. That is usually a bad situation to be in.</p>
<p>Yet a common situation today. Often more due to HELOC debt on top of the mortgage.</p>
<p>Coureur
Yes thank you for the correction…</p>
<p>The article itself states a reason for this. White Americans tend to be older and older people have more savings and more home equity. </p>
<p>The numbers might come out differently if all the groups were adjusted for age.</p>