New Report Examines Racial Wealth Gap Ahead of Dr. King Day

FEATURING DEDRICK ASANTE-MUHAMMAD – Ahead of what would have been Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 90th birthday, there are obligatory memorials and retrospectives remembering his critical work on civil rights. But near the end of his short life Dr. King took on the project of economic inequality and led the “Poor People’s Campaign.” There has always been a racial wealth gap in the US but that gap has not closed. In fact since the 1980s it has doubled.

A new report by the Institute for Policy Studies, titled Dreams Deferred, has found that, “Between 1983 and 2016, the median Black family saw their wealth drop by more than half after inflation, compared to a 33% increase for the median White household. Meanwhile, the number of households with $10 million or more skyrocketed by 856%.” The report links the ever-rising fortunes of the obscenely wealthy with the on-going racial wealth gap.

Download the report HERE.

Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, Associate Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, co-author of the report Dreams Deferred: How Enriching the 1% Widens the Racial Wealth Divide.

** This segment was originally broadcast on January 16, 2019.