Wealth gap

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• Closing the Wealth Gap and the Role of Black Banks
  Lectures and panel discussions at the UNC School of Law on February 27 and September 17, 2018, including links to video recordings.
• From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century
  William A. Darity Jr., A. Kirsten Mullen. Chapel Hill, UNC Press, April 2020. ISBN: 978-1-4696-5497-3, eBook ISBN: 978-1-4696-5498-0.
  Darity and Mullen look to both the past and the present to measure the inequalities borne of slavery. Using innovative methods that link monetary values to historical wrongs, they next assess the literal and figurative costs of justice denied in the 155 years since the end of the Civil War. Finally, Darity and Mullen offer a detailed roadmap for an effective reparations program, including a substantial payment to each documented U.S. black descendant of slavery.
• Household Wealth Trends in the United States, 1962 to 2016: Has Middle Class Wealth Recovered?
  Edward N. Wolff, NBER Working Paper No. 24085, November 2017
  Abstract: Asset prices plunged between 2007 and 2010 but then rebounded from 2010 to 2016. The most telling finding is that median wealth plummeted by 44 percent over years 2007 to 2010. The inequality of net worth, after almost two decades of little movement, went up sharply from 2007 to 2010, and relative indebtedness for the middle class expanded. The sharp fall in median net worth and the rise in overall wealth inequality over these years are largely traceable to the high leverage of middle class families and the high share of homes in their portfolio. Mean and median wealth rebounded from 2010 to 2016, by 17 and 28 percent, respectively. While mean wealth surpassed its previous peak in 2007, median wealth was still down by 34 percent. More than 100 percent of the recovery in both was due to a high return on wealth but this factor was offset by negative savings. Relative indebtedness continued to fall for the middle class from 2010 to 2016, and wealth inequality increased somewhat. The racial and ethnic disparity in wealth holdings widened considerably between 2007 and 2016, and the wealth of households under age 45 declined in relative terms.
• Long-Term Effects of Wealth on Mortality and Self-rated Health Status
  Anjum Hajat, Jay S. Kaufman, Kathryn M. Rose, Arjumand Siddiqi, James C. Thomas. Am J Epidemiol (2011) 173 (2): 192-200. Abstract: Epidemiologic studies seldom include wealth as a component of socioeconomic status. The authors investigated the associations between wealth and 2 broad outcome measures: mortality and self-rated general health status. Data from the longitudinal Panel Study of Income Dynamics, collected in a US population between 1984 and 2005, were used to fit marginal structural models and to estimate relative and absolute measures of effect. Wealth was specified as a 6-category variable: those with ≤0 wealth and quintiles of positive wealth. There were a 16%–44% higher risk and 6–18 excess cases of poor/fair health (per 1,000 persons) among the less wealthy relative to the wealthiest quintile. Less wealthy men, women, and whites had higher risk of poor/fair health relative to their wealthy counterparts. The overall wealth–mortality association revealed a 62% increased risk and 4 excess deaths (per 1,000 persons) among the least wealthy. Less wealthy women had between a 24% and a 90% higher risk of death, and the least wealthy men had 6 excess deaths compared with the wealthiest quintile. Overall, there was a strong inverse association between wealth and poor health status and between wealth and mortality.
• Opinion: Here’s why black families have struggled for decades to gain wealth
  Darrick Hamilton Trevon Logan. MarketWatch, Mar 4, 2019
  Long history of government policies that facilitated wealth for white Americans but not for blacks
• Ten Solutions to Bridge the Racial Wealth Divide
  Chuck Collins, Darrick Hamilton, Dedrick Asante-Muhammed, Josh Hoxie | April 29, 2019 |
  The solutions in this report include:
  1. Baby Bonds, 2. Guarantee Employment and Significantly Raise the Minimum Wage, 3. Invest in Affordable Housing, 4. Medicare for All, 5. Postal Banking, 6. Significantly Raise Taxes on the Ultra-Wealthy, 7. Turn Upside-Down Tax Expenditures Right-Side Up, 8. Congressional Committee on Reparations, 9. Improve Data Collection on Race and Wealth, 10. Racial Wealth Audit.
• The Great Legacy Of The Great Recession
  WAMU 1A, October 10, 2019
  Reporter Aaron Glantz's new book, “Homewreckers,” tells the story of people like Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who Glantz says made tremendous financial gains from homeowners after the Great Recession. 1A talks to Aaron Glantz and Jung Choi, who focuses on housing policy at the Urban Institute, about the legacy of the Great Recession.
  Produced by Jonquilyn Hill. Guests:
  Aaron Glantz Senior reporter, Reveal; author "Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks, and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream;" @Aaron_Glantz
  Jung Choi Research associate, Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute; @JungatUrban
• Why Small Debts Matter So Much To Black Lives
  Paul Kiel, ProPublica, Dec. 31, 2015
  Due to the racial wealth gap, black families have far less in savings than whites. The consequences can be far-reaching and often severe.