That’s according to a new report by the Corporation for Enterprise Development and Institute for Policy Studies, which estimates future wealth disparities among U.S racial groups using data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finance (SCF). The total amount of money in the average person’s pockets, or their net worth, is obtained by adding up assets like housing, bank deposits, financial securities, insurance plan values, stocks and mutual funds, and equity, and then from that sum, subtracting liabilities like mortgage, consumer, and educational debts. (This measure is based on a 2014 working paper by New York University economist Edward N. Wolff, and doesn’t take into account the value of goods like cars, electronics, and furniture.)
Using that methodology, the authors calculated the net worth of racial groups for 30 years before 2013, and then projected those trends into the future. They found that the economic rift between whites and minorities is widening dramatically: By 2043, when people of color overtake whites as the majority in the U.S. population, blacks and Latinos will likely lag even further behind them, wealth-wise, than they do now. These two minority groups will have around $1 million less than whites, on average, compared to $500,000 in 2013. [...]
If average Black family wealth continues to grow at the same pace it has over the past three decades, it would take Black families 228 years to amass the same amount of wealth White families [had in 2013]. That’s just 17 years shorter than the 245-year span of slavery in this country. For the average Latino family, it would take 84 years to amass the same amount of wealth White families [had in 2013]—that’s the year 2097.
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