Wealth Gap in US Between Blacks and Whites Tripled Since Reagan

RayBeckerman ‏@RayBeckerman

Wealth Gap in US Between Blacks and Whites Tripled Since Reagan ~ #commondreams http://bit.ly/15RcMDU
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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/02/27-8

The wealth gap between blacks and whites in the U.S. has drastically widened in the last 25 years, nearly tripling since the days of the Reagan administration, according to a new report from Brandeis University.

According to the study, “The dramatic gap in household wealth that now exists along racial lines in the United States cannot be attributed to personal ambition and behavioral choices, but rather reflects policies and institutional practices that create different opportunities for whites and African-Americans.”

One of the major factors in the wealth divide was exemplified in home ownership and historic governmental policies that have created vast disparities in ownership opportunities over the years—accounting for over 25 percent of the gap.

Subsequently, the wealth gap was drastically widened in the aftermath of the mortgage crisis—with half the collective wealth of African-American families "stripped away during the Great Recession," when the wealth gap between whites and African-Americans nearly doubled.