Ally Action Project Week 28: Racial Wealth Gap
This week we were looking into the racial wealth gap, which is the difference in wealth of white versus black families. The gap is estimated at $154k per family, with white families averaging $171k of wealth per family and the black families averaging $17k per family. The gap started after slavery was ended in the 1865, and increased over time due to laws in the US meant to suppress minorities. Some useful resources to learn more are:
McKinsey, a management consulting firm, has studied data related to the racial wealth gap and has determined that there is financial incentive to fixing the problem. McKinsey forecasts that closing the gap would increase the US GDP between 4-6% by 2028.
There is no one solution, and the racial wealth gap is the summation of the many silos of systemic racism in the US. We need to start by acknowledging the causes so that we can decrease the gap and start removing systemic racism.