U.S. wealth gap widens

The Montreal Gazette:

Minorities lost most during recession; Hispanics were hit the hardest by meltdown in housing market, census data show

The wealth gap between American whites and the poorest minorities became the biggest on record during the recession, analysis of U.S. census data shows.

Hispanics - closely followed by blacks - lost the greatest proportion of their assets compared to other groups as the economy sank in the years following the 2006 burst of the U.S. housing-market bubble, according to the Pew Research Centre study.

Percentage losses for white households were, overall, far less and from a far larger base than those of the poorest minorities, the report says. The result was white households' median wealth became 20 times more than that of black households, and 18 times that of Hispanic households.

White households also displaced Asian households for the top spot in median household wealth.

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