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4 - Racial Inequality, Market Inequality, and the American Political Economy

from II - Race, Space, and Governance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2021

Jacob S. Hacker
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Alexander Hertel-Fernandez
Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York
Paul Pierson
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Kathleen Thelen
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Summary

A study of Boston’s racial wealth gap made headlines in late 2017 when it revealed that the median net worth of the city’s Black households was only $8, compared to $247,000 among white households (Hill 2017; Johnson 2017; Muñoz et al. 2015). The gap in Boston may have been starker than in the nation as a whole, but the latter was also striking. In 2016, the median net worth of Black and Hispanic households nationwide was $17,000 and $20,700, respectively, compared to $171,000 for whites (Dettling et al. 2017). The disparities amongst households with children were even more pronounced. In 2016, Black households with children held 1 percent of the wealth of non-Hispanic white households with children (Percheski and Gibson-Davis 2020: 1).

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The American Political Economy
Politics, Markets, and Power
, pp. 133 - 157
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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