Wealth – the difference between what people own and what they owe – serves as a financial buffer in an emergency and as a means towards upward economic mobility. People can use their wealth to buy a new house, move if better job opportunities open up elsewhere and support their families’ education, among other things. Yet, wealth is highly unequally distributed, especially by race and ethnicity and those gaps show no sign of abating. This leaves Black and Latino/Hispanic households in particular financially more vulnerable and with fewer opportunities for upward economic mobility.
The Federal Reserve’s Distributional Financial Accounts show, among other things, total wealth by race and ethnicity – for Black, Latino and white households. This data set also includes quarterly estimates of the number of households in each racialized population category. The data then allow for the calculation of the average per-household wealth for Black, Latino/Hispanic and white households on a quarterly basis from 1989 to 2023.
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