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Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) discusses wealth gap as Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) looks on (NNPA Photo by Freddie Allen)
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- The growing racial wealth gap - $200 in median wealth for Blacks in 2011 and $23,000 for Whites - threatens national economic security in the United States, according to a recent report by the Center for Global Policy Solutions.
"When it comes to the racial gap in liquid wealth, African Americans and Latinos are nearly penniless," stated the report.
"The median liquid wealth of Whites is over 100 times that of Blacks." The report said that when retirement savings are taken out of the analysis, the disparities in liquid wealth are even more disturbing.
"Blacks are found to hold a mere $25 and Latinos just $100 in liquid wealth, compared to $3,000 held by the typical White household," the report said.
Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) said that families are living paycheck to paycheck and are drowning in debt from predatory loans and mortgages and decreased home values following the housing crisis.
He said that minorities were institutionally restricted from having access to wealth-building tools largely until the Civil Rights Movement and, though explicit institutional racism has somewhat subsided, the wide gap in wealth between families of color and White families is still a reflection of more discreet systematic and social barriers that have limited economic mobility.
Maya Rockeymoore, president of the think tank that produced the report, said that the African American community should know that it's not about them, it's about the system and how it is structured with policies that deny their opportunity to have equitable chances for growing wealth in this nation.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) added: "We have to make sure that America understands that this is not just a minority problem, this is an economic security problem. If you cut that many people out of the economic mainstream, your country will literally collapse."
