Research – The Asset Value of Whiteness: Understanding the Racial Wealth Gap

Issues of racial inequity are increasingly at the forefront of America’s public debate. No metric more powerfully captures the persistence and growth of economic inequality along racial and ethnic lines than the racial wealth gap. This paper explores a number of these popular explanations for the racial wealth gap, drawing on data from the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances, and looking at individual differences in education, family structure, full- or part-time employment, and consumption habits. In each case, we find that individual choices are not sufficient to erase a century of accumulated wealth: structural racism trumps personal responsibility.