National study highlights racial disparities within pandemic wealth growth

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A new national study shows many American families grew their wealth by double digits during first couple of years. But these earning weren’t enough to lift every household.

In Washington, D.C, nonprofit organizations like SOME/So Other Might Eat witnessed first-hand how the pandemic impacted low-income families.

“She found herself being unemployed and having to depend on food pantry services…by the time she received a stimulus payment, it was already late, she was already in debt,” said Archie Williams, senior vice president at SOME/So Other Might Eat.

In its latest analysis, the Pew Research Center find that many families boosted their wealth by more than 35 percent during the first few years of the pandemic. This wealth stemmed from federal stimulus checks, less spending overall and historically low mortgage rates.

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“These gains, even though they sound very impressive, and they were historically high rates of gain, they were not sufficiently large enough to lift everyone up from being underwater,” said Rakesh Kochhar, senior researcher at Pew Research Center.

But the report also reveals some racial disparities. It finds about one in four black households and one in seven Latino households had no wealth or were in debt in 2021. That’s compared with about one in ten American households.

“This gap is especially acute among lower income households where we have disparity with white poor white house resorts have 21 times the wealth of poorer Black households,” said Kochhar.

According to the report, some low-income Black households trimmed their debt. It find families were able to go from $10,000 in debt in 2019 down to $4,000 by 2021.

“It’s very difficult, almost impossible to build wealth, making minimum wage,” said Williams. “So there needs to be other opportunities as put in place for individuals to have those opportunities to not just build savings for emergencies, but to be able to build those opportunities out.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Williams said many of their clients have jobs again. But he said now their incomes aren’t keeping up with inflation.

“Rent price rent has gone up. When you go to grocery stores, food has gone up, everything else has gone up.

Researchers say many minority families are less likely be homeowners and have financial assets like stocks and bonds. They explain these factors also contribute to the racial wealth gap.

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