Today is Juneteenth, a holiday to remember an important milestone in the victory against slavery. But I think it’s also important to reflect on how race still plays a role in our society.
This post shows some basic facts about wealth and race in the US. The numbers are plain to see. But the reason behind the inequality is more complex. The best analysis I’ve heard describes that you can put every possible reason for the discrepancies into two main buckets. One bucket contains reasons internal to the person, the other bucket contains reasons external to the person. If you believe black families have less wealth and lower income because of something internal to the people, that’s racism. If you believe it’s something external, that’s systemic inequality.
Whenever I mention the existence of race, I hear some loud angry comments. (Almost exclusively from white men, strangely enough). I personally would love to not talk about race inequality. But as someone who won the womb privilege lottery and now has a tiny bit of a platform, I feel an obligation to shine a light on it as long as it exists. I’d do the same for any form of systemic inequality. For example, did you know that brown haired people make 64% more money than blonde haired people? Do you know why you didn’t know that? Because it’s not true. I just made it up. But wouldn’t that be messed up? Well, that’s the world we live in, except it’s skin color.
I do have a bit of good news. I posted a similar post over three years ago in 2020. I updated all of the charts based on the most recent data, and the gap has closed a bit for each. Back in my 2020 post, white families enjoyed 10X higher net worth, 71% higher income, and 50% higher call backs (based on a 2003 study). So while we have a long way to go, we’re making progress. I’m looking forward to the day when skin color is as irrelevant to wealth as hair color, eye color, or first name.
As always, reminding you to build wealth by following the two PFC rules: 1.) Live below your means and 2.) Invest early and often.
-Jeremy
via Instagram
