Report: NJ Racial Wealth Gap Between Whites and Blacks/Latinos Doubles to More Than $600,000
AC JosepH Media
NEWARK — The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice said on Thursday, April 3, that the racial wealth has more than doubled between White and the Black and Latino communities.
In NJISJ’s report “The Two New Jerseys: A Deepening Divide,” researchers utilized data collected before the pandemic that showed New Jersey’s approximately $300,000 racial wealth gap between Black/Latina/o and white families has doubled to approximately $640,000.
The institute said the statistics are stunning given that New Jersey is one of the country’s wealthiest states, but that wealth is shared unequally.
“It is alarming to see New Jersey’s racial wealth gap divide grow even larger,” said Laura Sullivan, director of the Economic Justice Program at the New Jersey Institute of Social Justice.
“We confront this staggering disparity during turbulent times marked by the dismantling of federal agencies and an attack on consumer protections, which will even further harm Black and Brown residents. For Black and Brown New Jerseyans who are already facing down a racial wealth gap disaster, this moment is perilous.”
According to the Institute’s newly released analysis, the median household wealth of white families in New Jersey is $662,500, compared to less than $20,000 for Black and Latina/o families. For individuals, the median net worth of white individuals is $192,700, compared with just $14,000 and $5,000 for Black and Latina/o individuals.
“The devastation of New Jersey’s Black communities during the COVID pandemic should have been a wake-up call to make deep and sustainable investments in building an equitable foundation in our state,” Sullivan said. “Unfortunately, that opportunity was missed, and we are seeing the results: an ever-deepening divide.”
The report also addresses other financial disparities in New Jersey, including home ownership and income. While more than three quarters (76.6%) of white families own their home, only 41.3% Black families and 40.4% Latina/o families do. The median household income for white families is $110,100, compared to $68,000 for Black families and $76,100 for Latina/o families.
“We did not come by these Two New Jerseys — a prosperous place for many white households and an economically uncertain one for the majority of our Black and Brown households — by accident,” said Sullivan.
“Where we are today is the result of choice — patterns created by design through public policies and social exclusions. We must, at this critical moment, choose better. We must choose to enact policies that work toward building One New Jersey.”
Below are some of the key data points from the report:
The Homeownership Gap
The statewide home ownership rate for white New Jersey households is 76.6%, nearly double the home ownership rates for Black and Latino/a New Jersey households who have home ownership rates of 41.3% and 40.4% percent, respectively. These disparities in home ownership have changed very little over the past decade.
Substantial Income Disparities in New Jersey
The median household income in New Jersey is $110,100 for white households, but just $76,100 for Latina/o households and $68,900 for Black households.
Black and Latina/o New Jerseyans Much More Likely Than White New Jerseyans to Face Poverty
About one-sixth of Black and Latina/o families live below the federal poverty line, together making up over half of all people in poverty in the state – even though they represent about a third of the state’s population. And economic vulnerability is much more widespread than the federal poverty line reveals due to the inadequacy of the poverty line in measuring the true costs of necessities, particularly in New Jersey.
A full copy of The Two New Jerseys: A Deepening Divide can be found here.
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