Modest Gains for Black Homeownership Likely to Continue

Since the Great Recession, the wealth gap between Black and White Americans has only increased, but modest gains could help shrink that gap over the next decade. The Black-White wealth gap currently resides at $3 trillion and nearly half can be attributed to housing differences, according to Zillow. The wealth gap between an average Black household versus White household is $174,000, an increase from the past few decades, and Black-owned homes are typically worth 18% less than a White-owned home. But from quarter one 2019 to 2020, the Black homeownership rate increased 1%.

Generating Wealth at Home
In 2019, more than 75% of the nation’s total wealth was held by the richest 10% of the population (and 50% of wealth was held by the top 2.3%). In order to paint a picture of the majority of the population and not have our analysis swayed by the extreme wealth of the nation’s billionaire class, we measured the median wealth gap, tallying what the total wealth difference would be if every household had the typical wealth for their race and age group.

The median wealth gap of $3 trillion presented here may seem small next to the average gap of $13.5 trillion (which includes billionaires), and the larger number is relevant when measuring the power of the nation’s ultra-rich to shape and defend institutions in ways that favor their interests. But it is less-relevant when examining the role of housing in accounting for typical wealth (housing is a fairly tiny share of your everyday billionaire’s overall portfolio), and there are vanishingly few Black billionaires to begin with — in 2020, just seven of the country’s 614 billionaires were Black.

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