Black Wealth/ White Wealth

Description

The rise of the black middle class is heralded as evidence of greater racial equality, but why do middle-class blacks possess only fifteen cents for every dollar of wealth held by middle-class whites? Why do 61% of black households have no financial assets at all - twice the rate for white households? Black Wealth / White Wealth offers a powerful portrait of racial inequality based on an analysis of private wealth. Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro analyze wealth - total assets and debts rather than income alone - to uncover deep and persistent racial inequality in America, and they show how public policies fail to redress the problem. Drawing on data from over 12,000 households and in-depth interviews with a range of black and white families, the authors chart the ways in which systematic economic barriers have discouraged many blacks and impaired their ability to accumulate wealth. These barriers - historically low wages and limited access to capital, local and state policies, the rise of the modern suburb, and the making of the urban ghetto - limit opportunities for a better life.

First Sentence

Over a hundred years after the end of slavery, more than thirty years after the passage of major civil rights legislation, and following a concerted but prematurely curtailed War on Poverty, we harvest today a mixed legacy of racial progress.

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