Black-White Wealth Gap Getting Worse, 160 Years of US Data Show

The gap between the wealth of Black and White Americans, one of the starkest benchmarks of inequality in the US, is on track to widen substantially after the pandemic exacerbated wealth concentration, according to new data that details 160 years of racial wealth disparities for the first time.

Black Americans in 2019 had one-sixth the wealth of White Americans on an average, per capita basis, according to analysis in a paper this month from economists Ellora Derenoncourt, Chi Hyun Kim, Moritz Kuhn and Moritz Schularick. Though that’s a drastic improvement from the 60-to-one ratio in 1860 on the eve of the Civil War, it’s still less than what they had in the 1980s.