Abstract
Researchers began to explore the wealth holdings of households by race in the mid-1980s, when data became available for the first time. The magnitude and implications of these early findings were shocking: most found that, on average, black households owned only a dime for each dollar of wealth owned by white households (Lui, Robles, and Leondar- Wright 2006). This difference was much larger than the prevailing income gap of 60 cents-to-the-dollar. More alarmingly, the racial wealth gap has increased further since it was first analyzed. Our analysis reveals an increase of $151,000 in the absolute racial wealth gap between 1984 and 2009. This chapter empirically examines the main reasons behind the rise in the racial wealth gap over the past 25 years, deepening the analytic and policy understanding and narrative required to effectively disrupt and reverse this trend.