Closing the Racial Wealth Gap

Bringing together 150 years of data, Ellora Derenoncourt is shedding new light on our understanding of the historical roots and persistent challenges of the U.S. racial wealth gap. This new picture highlights the scale of policies needed to achieve economic equality.
Learn more about her work at www.elloradere...
Derenoncourt's research shows that while there was initial progress in wealth convergence, by the mid-20th century, the gap had stagnated and has since diverged further. Derenoncourt explores how differences in savings, income, and investment opportunities explain the gap's persistence, highlighting that conventional policy approaches are insufficient. Instead, she discusses more ambitious proposals, such as reparations, to address systemic inequality.
Ellora Derenoncourt is Assistant Professor of Economics at Princeton University and a member of the Industrial Relations Section of Princeton Economics. She is also the founder and faculty director for the Program for Research on Inequality at Princeton Economics.

[@therationalist234]

Very interesting - I had no idea the stock market had 5x returns over the housing market since 1980 - I wonder if that's even more amplified when looking at predominantly black communities. I always thought the foundation for wealth was in home ownership, which is partly true, but this video really emphasized the role of having equity in the stock market. Not to mention, greater sums of capital command greater returns. Wealth inequality is the greatest issue of our time, imo - and it's even more difficult to solve politically than economically

[@drwalka10]

Why is wealth in inequality the biggest issue of our lifetime? why is it a issue at all

[@tuckerbugeater]

@@drwalka10 because they have the money

[@drwalka10]

@@tuckerbugeaterhow do you achieve convergence unless you slow or stop wealth growth of white people ? Stop making this a racial competition. Just state you want to increase wealth of black Americans

[@therationalist234]

@@drwalka10because once it takes hold, it’s very hard to reverse. Check out Pikettys work, or just read a history book. The polarization and social decay is a direct result of these macro wealth pressures, it’s just very hard to see through all the noise

[@richardpage9502]

⁠and the power

[@blazer9547]

Asians make the most money. Compare it to them

[@jaywyse7150]

Whites and Asians worship each other.

[@vga-t7m]

sorry but the more we keep on with the past all we are going to do is to end up with is more stories for our holy books to accumulate and our never ending pin the tail on the donkey games. clear the closets and refill them with new stuff and restart living.

[@drwalka10]

1000 % agree

[@jonathansaunders6697]

easy for the majority who committed the discrimination to say...white people say why should I be held accountable for the decisions of my ancestors that I wasn't around to be a part of making...and this is a completely valid logical complaint...problem is, white people are more than willing to accept the benefits of the decisions of their ancestors that they weren't around to be a part of making...you can't have it both ways...white people want to press restart and start fresh from today,...when they are orders of magnitude ahead in unfairly obtained generational wealth...they don't want to hit reboot from t=o...and they couldn't anyway, even if they wanted to... This lack of scholarship on the issue is the problem. Economist and historians are in agreement that the american middle class was built on a series of government policies that blacks were explicitly excluded from by law. There is plenty of academic research quantitatively demonstrating this. These classic white narratives of deflection and smoke and mirrors don't change the empirical data. Europe became the richest region in the world from the trans atlantic slave trade, beginning hundreds of years of european hegemony and funding the industrial revolution and imperialist expansion. The European middle class was built on colonialism. The European at 8% of the world, subjugated by force over 80% of it. To pretend that all lives matter equally and that there is no such construct of white privilege flies in the face of all research data. This is all readily available scholarly consensus. Europeans and their descendants can't claim to be intellectuals, let alone academics, and continue to espouse these narratives. I am not advocating for reparations for descendants of slavery in the western hemisphere, but to pretend that the historical record is not littered with established precedent and examples of reparations being used as resolution to conflict; is intellectually dishonest and lacking scholarship. As is the comparison of the myriad forms of slavery and indentured servitude observed worldwide as analogous with the new, novel, and institutional dehumanization of the African as practiced in the trans atlantic slave trade. Not to mention that the majority of Europeans and their descendants claim to be Judeo-Christian, yet apparently choose to ignore the plethora of scripture in that canon on the concept of sons paying for the sins of the fathers both spiritually and materially, in exodus, Isaiah, Lamentations, Deuteronomy, etc. White people don't want to pass out the 200 dollars when you start over at the Go square...even Monopoly understood that in order for the economy to function you had to allow for participants in the game to recover from "bad luck",...which in this case was being born black in a society that jumpstarted its nascent economy through their enslavement and then systemically limited their agency and self-determination for centuries. The inaccuracy and cognitive dissonance of these classic white narratives don't advance civil discourse.