Economics are the most common barometer for measuring inequality in America. A 2016 Brookings Institution report handed Boston the dubious distinction of having the highest income inequality in the country, with the top 5 percent of earners making an average of $266,224, compared to just $14,942 for the bottom 20 percent.
That inequality is even more pronounced along racial lines and net worth. Staggeringly so. A white family in Greater Boston has a net worth of $247,500, according to a recent report. The wealth of a black, U.S.-born household in Boston? $8.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has been trying to understand the origins of this wealth gap, and how to close it. “Every time, there’s this sense that the numbers can’t be right,” says Anmol Chaddha, a policy analyst with the Boston Fed who has worked closely with the bank’s efforts to study the disparity. “Is there a mistake? A calculation error? And every time, it’s actually really true.”
[For more of this story, written by Steve Holt, go to https://www.citylab.com/equity...h-gap-boston/533253/]
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