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By 2003, the savings and asset-building field had achieved critical research and policy successes. However, there were few organizations of color in the field and few experts of color at decisionmaking tables. Over 11 years, the Ford Foundation developed a strategy to understand the knowledge and perspective of communities of color about saving and wealth building, and to include this perspective within the

The persistent racial homeownership gap and related wealth gap, have been in focus for some time. The declining black homeownership rate has reached an alarming level. The Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center has been conducting in-depth research pieces on these persistent issues, and convened a planning roundtable in 2018 to collect stakeholder feedback and experiences from a national and

An important concern for pension policy is the unequal distribution of benefits. Almost one-half of full-time wage and salary workers lack pension coverage on their current jobs. Workers with coverage tend to be economically advantaged in many ways. Covered workers generally are well educated, work for large firms, and earn high wages.

Urban partnered with the Chicago Community Trust on a new plan to narrow the racial and ethnic wealth gap in Chicago.

Kilolo Kijakazi, Institute fellow, testified before the US House of Representatives Financial Services Subcommittee on Diversity and Inclusion during a hearing that examined the racial and gender wealth gap in America. Her testimony emphasized that the racial wealth gap was created by policies, programs, and institutional practices and that effective solutions required more expansive data collection on wealth

  The Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee today gathered researchers, small business owners, and government leaders to talk about solutions for closing the racial wealth gap and empowering minority-owned businesses to grow and thrive. This is a pressing matter for policymakers because, as things stand, we’re headed in the opposite direction. Research I conducted and published with my colleagues

As we think about the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, we’re reminded of something National Urban League Director Whitney Young said during that event in 1963: “The hour is late. The gap is widening.” Young was referring to the prosperity gap between blacks and whites. Fifty years later, that large gap remains. On average, white families have six times the wealth of black and Hispanic families. So for every $6.00 a white family

This post originally appeared on The Government We Deserve. A recent paper by Bayer, Ferreira, and Ross on mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures finds that people of color had greater problems once the recession hit than did many others in roughly equal circumstances, such as income and location, but with different racial backgrounds.  We believe this is a useful, though not surprising, finding in