What to Do about the Racial Wealth Gap
Check out Thomas Shapiro and Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry (filling in for Rachel Maddow who is on vacation) discussing the explosion of the racial wealth gap, and the policies that our government could employ to start closing that gap:
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The study that Shapiro and Harris-Perry are discussing is this one from the Pew Research Center, which found that “median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households.”
Pew re-confirmed that the collapse of the housing market and the recession that followed were the primary factors in the decimation of Black and Brown wealth.
And yet, though we know exactly what caused the gap to widen, the federal response to the foreclosure crisis has been anemic (as I mention in an earlier post)
Obama did recently announce that unemployed borrowers with FHA mortgages or who are participating in the Making Home Affordable Program will be able to receive 12 months of mortgage forbearance, which is a good first step.
But we need more.
- Check out some fixes to the federal foreclosure program proposed by Americans for Financial Reform (PDF).