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Subscribe to RSSThe wealth gap between whites and blacks in America is wider than it has been in a generation, but it doesn’t seem to be hurting President Obama politically.
Whites now have 20 times the net worth of blacks and 18 times that of Hispanics, as compared to a ratio of 7 to 1 from whites to both groups in 1995, when the U.S.’s economic expansion boosted many underprivileged groups to the middle class, according to an analysis of Census data released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. That’s the widest gap in 27 years, since U.S. government began recording the wealth gap between whites and minorities.
In terms of total decrease in net worth, Hispanics have been affected most adversely, with a decrease of 66% from 2005 to 2009. The net worth of black families decreased 53% in the same period, as compared to a 16% drop for whites.
Analysts of the data report that the white-minority gap can be partially explained by the fact that whites have invested more in stocks and corporate savings, while younger Hispanics and African-Americans have invested more in homes, and therefore have seen significant losses. With an exceedingly stalled housing market, this wealth gap may widen even further.
"The findings are a reminder, if one was needed, of what a large share of blacks and Hispanics live on the economic margins," said Paul Taylor, director of Pew Social & Demographic Trends. "When the economy tanked, they're the groups that took the heaviest blows."
These studies emerge in the midst of the debt ceiling debate, in which Obama and congressional leaders must arrive at a decision to cut deficits and raise the debt ceiling or run the risk of seeing the U.S. default on its financial obligations -- all by the deadline of August 2nd. Last week, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) met with Obama and urged him to avoid making cuts to housing assistance or safety net programs, claiming such cuts would disproportionately hurt minorities. It remains to be seen if this plea, and the study presented by the Pew Research Center, will have an impact on the August 2nd decision.
Still, despite these data and Republicans, like Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney pointing out how minorities have been adversely affected in this economy, blacks and Hispanics appear firmly in Obama’s corner. In the latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, released last week, the president’s overall job approval was split with 47% approving and 48% disapproving. But those numbers spiked among Hispanics and African Americans. Hispanics approved 56%-39%, and blacks were an even stronger 88%-7%.
Those numbers have held pretty steady since the president took office. Provided they remain that way, that support could give Obama a measure of insulation in next year’s election that might not be enjoyed by other presidents in a similar economy.
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It is about time the GOP shows some muscle. For years people of the coloreds had been producing welfare pimps and queens on the backs of hard working Americans. They have benefited from things like affirmative action and quotas. Our people have had to take the backseat for much too long. Now they have a president. They along with other minorities like Mexicans and leftists socialists and communists have taking away the America that we once knew. I would rather default on our national debt than to let those people have anything else on the backs of real and honest Americans. John Boehner is finally standing with the Tea Party and a real American hero Eric Cantor. With Michele Bachmann working with them we can take our country back. We promise to do good for all Americans this time if we are given the opportunity.
Our children need a future without debt, a freedom to know that liberals like Planned Parenthood won't be murdering their babies, they can pray in school, they will be protected by a straight military with no gays and homosexuals, and no minority will come before them. We will all be equal. This buget mess is a blessing in disguise. Our people can return to work. God bless America!
Willie-do yourself a favor-walk down to the pharmacy and get your meds-did your momma not tell you what would happen if you stopped your meds and while you there get a whole lot for your Tea Party friends(or is it foes)
Just goes to show you, when the minorities are still and have been supporting the democratic party that shows you how stupid, ignorant, and uninformed the educated liberals in this country are at this time. What a joke that the so called minorities still vote democratic when they are being lied to on a daily basis by a lying president. This president never puts a position out and in fact when he put out his budget not one democrat voted for his policy. Wow, are we stupid, well, I didn't and wouldn't vote for this guy but the fact that the minorities do is a sad omen for this country. Oh, they didn't read the health care bill so we can really trust this guy from an African background. Get real.
Amen my friend. I knew there where people out there who think like me. For years we have been called the silent majority. But now we are mad and will take it no longer. As God fearing conservative christians, we want our country back; and if that means that all those spear chucking people of the coloreds have to return to the back of the bus then let it be so and take the damn liberals with them. This is our country. We fought for it! Our people built it. We made the laws. We made the flag. Our principals should be those God centered principals of a christian nation, and not the work of some muslim jungle witch doctor. We need to return intelligence to the white housel. Conservatives should be running everything. Look at what the minorities did to this great land. They have all but distroyed it. We will not let it fall any longer. They should be forced to pay taxes for once. They hate both God and country. But we are taking it back one step at a time.
Dude, I bet you have a nazi tatoo and a picture of hitler on your mantle. I bet you got beat up a lot in high school, or are you still there?
These people with limited education are simply voting by Knee-jerk reaction. There is no real thought process here. Just follow the sheep in front of you.
You need meds as well -go with Willie-you can hold hands if you like
Cut taxes for the rich!
Amen. The rich should not be paying taxes any way. They are the job creators. Their wealth pays the salaries of millions of Americans. They should have every break the government can give.
And you should get a lobotomy if you think that the billionaires are the ones who create jobs in this country, they are the ones who move abroad with their fortunes in order not to pay any taxes in the U.S.
If you don't know that, you are a millionaire or an ignorant.
Dont reply to Willie-him and his ilk have IQ'S that are almost positive.Has our educational dept let us down!!!!To spout this garbage shows how far we have fallen behind in education.Even with the help of the internet this man is so lost in the woods-i actually feel sorry for him!!!!
Why did you, people give back congress to the republican party ?? You gave congress back to a bunch of fascists the same ones that destroyed the economy and ruined the country while in power for 8 years and you voted for them, AGAIN ??? Unbelievable, you americans are truely stupid ! You, people, really deserve the situation, you're in.
To any europeans, to be that stupid is mind boggling
Look, I am what you would call a "conservative democrat" (there are a lot of us out there). Obama took this job and the economy tanked within two months. Not his fault, I do blame the republicans for that. No doubt about it. They were in power for 8 years and gave us 2 wars, with a LOT of spending there, and a housing bubble that Bush's own people admit to causing. I think Obama is a decent man, maybe too decent for Washington. He is not a terrible president at all, but an unlucky one. The high spending by Dems was to get us out of the toilet with the economy. It worked to a degree. Things are better. My business is much better, but all the lies and retoric thrown out there by conservatives are distorting everything and causing people to doubt their country. All for political gain. And let me say this, I have NEVER seen a good fiscal policy from any republican president except Eisenhower. This sparing the rich so they will invest more is also a lie. I am an older guy. Never seen it, never will. I do not begrudge someone their wealth. More power to them, but with wealth comes responsibility to help those who cannot help themselves. Pay a little more in taxes. You will still be rich. And reform welfare. No welfare unless you take a drug test. If you do not pass, no money. Get a job if you are an able bodied person. The minorities need to value education more. You will never rise if you do not educate yourself. Stop believing everything someone says and look it all up. Do your homework damn it!
The Republicans had nothing to do with our economy tanking. You are not conservative. You are a liberal. Don't lie to the American people. Colored guys have never done good with money issues. They are the reason for bad mortgages because banks were forced to lend to them even though they new they were bad risks. Most people who defaulted on their bank loans and mortgages were people who loved to party and use drugs. You can not blame the republicans for this. Minorities had been crying discrimination for every crisis they faced. Never did they look into the mirror and see who was really at blame. They have always been the fault of their downfalls, and decent hard working average Joes are fed up. Reagan was right, "Let them pull themselves up by their own boot straps!" That's how our generation got ahead.
You made some good points, but I disagree with "with wealth comes responsibility to help those who cannot help themselves". Baloney. People can do what they like with their own money (hence the name, "their" money).
I'm not wealthy at all, but darn it, my money is my money. If I want to give to the Salvation Army or United Way or whatever, I will. And I will give the amount I please, if any. That is why they call it charity. You do it out of the goodness of your heart, not because someone who was not around while you were earning it, decides that you have a "responsibility" to support someone else.
If you want the power to decide where my money goes, maybe you should have been there for 44 years doing the dirty, dangerous work to earn it, as I did.
Willie and Co.: I can tell that the only source of information for you is Fox and its scumbag commentators.
Your mind is so closed that nothing can enter it except for the garbage you listen to and the venom you spew against anything left of Hitler. Pathetic is the word.
Mortgage rates are going to sky rocket after the TEA party led GOP takes the USA into default! The economy has slowed, banks are hoarding money, corporations are laying off personnel, companies are closing, CFO's got a four million dollar raise, Granma is choosing between buying medicine or food while the TEA party led GOP squanders time and places our government in "Default Status"! The rich get richer and the poor barely scrapes by! The USA is losing it's triple "A" rating all around the world and the cause will be known in the future as the "Boehner Bumble"! President Obama is right! The TEA party heads are going to kill Boehner's House Leadership! Decrying a "partisan three-ring circus" in the nation's capital, President Barack Obama criticized a newly minted Republican plan to avert an unprecedented government default Monday night and said congressional leaders must produce a compromise that can reach his desk before the Aug. 2 deadline
So, Obama wants to get rid of the mortgage tax exeption. Then, he wants to impose a sales tax on any real estate transaction. 3.8% to be exact.
What a financial wizard. This will raise plenty of revenue for him to buy more Democratic votes.
dems have always hurt the poor. They keep giving them free money so they have no incentive to better themselves so they just become slaves to the government. They don't vote for dems. They vote for whoever offres them free money
i may not be yet considered a minority in this country, and i have been surprised by some of pres. obama's decisions...but make no mistake: i support him.
Big business hoodwinked all Americans thinking that the Black man was for the little people! It couldn`t have been farther from the truth.
One of the Bush administration's big 'outreach' to minorities voters was their support of the programs that offered mortgages to lower income or less qualified families. I have heard Bush's mouth pieces congratulating Bush for being a compassionate conservative to African and Hispanic Americans.
Unfortunately, the people who got these mortgages were not well versed in mortgage procedures. They did not realize that the trick in those mortgages 'gifted' by Bush were variable rates and interest only payments. These people, along with many educated and informed home buyers, also did not realize that they were the victims of fraud being committed by agents and banks who over-valued houses. When the mortgage payments adjusted higher and the value of those homes tanked, the people with most to lose, lost everything.
Maybe people should write articles on how the minorities are being educated about who to vote for... So they can make an educated decision. What has Obama done really? What has he done to make the US a better, economically stable place to live? Seems to me he's only good at giving speeches about crap he won't do for you, us, we as a country. What has he done for the minorities and poverty level people of this country? Of course the minorities still favor him, they don't know any better! They don't even realise they are more poor than they were before.
Really? Because my observations suggest that younger blacks and hispanics have invested mostly in rims and car stereos and cheap costume jewelry. Not to say that plenty of younger whites haven't been sucked into these spending habits, but not at anywhere near the same rate. Also, it might be instructive to include a detailed analysis of the homes invested in versus incomes. When you buy a house that you can't afford using a bad mortgage loan, it's really no surprise when things fall apart. Again, not that plenty of whites didn't go down that same road of instant gratification and perpetual milking of equity for frivolous consumerism, but even articles with a left-leaning slant claim that minorities got hooked into sub-prime mortgages more than whites.
The only thing surprising here is that minorities continue to support the party and policies that pushed the sub-prime lending market on them.
I am not a minority, not a medicare/medicaid beneficiary, not African-American, financially OK...and I SAY THANK YOU OBAMA for trying your best!!! You made a few mistakes, missed a few point BUT YOU TRULY LOVE THE PEOPLE.
What used to make America great was its big heart not its big wallet...
MSNBC only published part of the PEW Report. The report also shows that Asians are basically doing as well as whites and in fact the PEW Report concludes "median net worth of Asians significantly increased from $78,066 to $116,555 (between 2005 and 2009)."
If you ever wondered why MSNBC never mentions Asians in these "reports" that imply that "the (white) man" is holding minorities back, it is because Asians are doing quite well thank you and are doing better and better by the day and soon will overtake whites at the top of the economic heap.
Kinda blows the "white man is keeping them down" theory. Guess blame will have to be placed elsewhere. But MSNBC wont tell you this so you can read the PEW Report for yourself at http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/Wealth_Report.pdf
Sounds like this study did not bother to factor in the effects of a criminal record, drug abuse, school truancy, single-parent (or no-parent) homes, devotion to study, school grades, job attendance, drug use by either parents or children, the effect of government handouts on the loss of ambition to work, unreported income ("working under the table", money from selling drugs, etc.), income or services from social/government/church programs, free medical care, teenage pregnancies, school attendance, etc.
If people think the divide between rich and poor is great now just wait until the banking industry removes the guard rails Obama has placed on Dead Mans curve. Already banks have spent a billion dollars to lobby Congress so they can return to irresponsible practices that caused the housing meltdown. Perhaps Karl Marx will be right about capitalism going into convulsions again and again - the irony being Republicans will largely be the blame for this because they refuse to protect sensible banking legislaton.
Republicans refuse to accept ANY regulation on their friends in corporations, banks, factories, insurance companies, etc. That's why we had the BP disaster and thousands of pollutants in our water, air and soil. Regulations keep the profits at a reasonable level and protect the population. Guess who are the Republicans protecting? Yes, the ones who brought us this disaster and, if allowed, wil perpetrate the same practices again and again on the american people.
Republicans are the whores of the 1% at the top, the rest of you, good luck.
Rasputin,
This is the Obama super-recession, with all that Obama unemployment. The Oil spill in the Gulf was the Obama oil spill disaster.
The Obama Wikileaks scandal, The Obama real estate meltdown, the Obama Fort Hood shootings, and so on....and so on...and so on.
Get it?? anything that happens on Obama's watch is ALL his fault. Always.
This is called politics....get used to it.
Rasputin
I have but you are unable to comprehend anything that takes more than a second grade education.
Here is the bottom line folks-you can like or not i dont care!!!The demographics of this country are changing.By the middle of this century whites will be in the minority.This bodes really badly for the Republicans-i will repeat again-the Republicans are going to self-implode.This what happens when you have wingnuts controlling your agenda!!!These elderly, mostly white ,some of them as racist as can be,socially conservative,claim to be religious are a dying breed.They are all way into their seventies and even with modern medicine are not going to be around in the near future.Too bad for the Republicans-that is their voting base!!!!The younger generation have no problem with color gays illegal immigration etc-everthing the Republicans are against.There is the rub-the Republicans think if they can concentrate the wealth in a few select hands they can stave off the inevitable-thats not going to happen.The Republican party is going down-all the money in the world will not stop that!!!
Mark,
Don't really care. I'll be dead by then.
As an African American, I find this report to be glaring, shocking, disturbing BUT not at all surprising CONSIDERING that this story come not even 17 days AFTER MSNBC posted this article:
http://business.newsvine.com/_news/2011/07/10/7054333-blacks-economic-gains-wiped-out-in-downturn
Newsvine also covered this story, with a graph giving a breakdown:
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2011/07/25/7166003-wealth-gap-widens-between-whites-minorities?threadId=3182053&commentId=56335031#c56335031
WHY DON'T THE AMERICAN PEOPLE KNOW TREASON WHEN THEY ARE STARING IT RIGHT IN THE FACE ???
So why don't all of you suicidal lemmings know treason when you are staring it right in the face, month after month, year after year, decade after decade ??? This treasonous sellout of the United States has been going on for decades already, and still you all don't demand anything be done to end it. You all have been watching these treasonous politicians in Washington DC totally sell the United States down the drain for decades already !!! You all are so totally seduced by your terminal ("End Time") religious belief systems that apparently you all just don't care that your country is just being sold down the drain by these treasonous politicians in Washington DC. Once again, here below are the figures to totally back up what I am telling you, you terminally infected suicidal lemmings! - Rick Carter
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c0015.html
The point that everyone seems to be missing in the whole debate is this; BOTH PARTIES (DEMS AND REP), are doing a horrendous job. The reality is, if this country is going to turn around, it takes cooperation from all Americans (Black, White, Asian, Hispanic and any other nationalities). The bottom line is, race disputes do not solve the fact that the government is supposed to be for the people by the people. WAKE UP!!! We are the people.
All of the debates that are going on here are accomplishing exactly what politicians want, to keep Americans divided. Stop wasting time bashing another persons ideas/ideals, and see where you can come together on common ground. Together is how the difference is made. As long as there continues to be these pointless debates and quarrels, the government and politicians will continue to treat Americans the same way. There won't be any forward progress and the country will continue to decline.
If you are a racist, you need to find a way to get over it; because like it or not, minorities are here to stay. If you want to accomplish something, try to teach someone something that they didn't know or quite understand. Then the country elevates and becomes better. A country is only as great as its people.
Say what you want about the TP. However, they proved that a small group of people can make things happen. Imagine what message an entire country of United people can send. Stop fighting Americans and quit listening to the rhetoric of politicians. USE your common sense. Unfortunately, it seems as if the government can't help us. We're on our own. Follow your parties blindly if you wish. You've been warned!!!!!!
People would have jobs in America had it not been for leftist unions like the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, United Auto Workers, etc. Their socialistic demands pushed job creators to take our jobs overseas. We should have done what the Tea Party has been pushing long ago. We don't want unions or regulations in America. As a matter of fact just send those left leaning spear chuckers back to where they came from. America will survive. This is a christian nation. No more race mix'n, baby kill'n, wefare, gays and homosexuals in the military, or same sex marriage.These are the things that happen when you let un-patriotic Americans take over. They hate this great land. It is time to come home to those principals that made America great.
Simply said: Horse pucky!
The dumbing down of America is really starting to produce some good results for the liberal slugs. Lets see, teacher unions run the failing public school systems, kids are pushed into the next grade though they did not show up for half the classes, half of the kids here in CA are so fat they will have diabetes and multiple other health problems by the time they are 25 or 30. Gee, guess who gets to pay those medical bills along with the food stamps and housing vouchers......... This country is beyond repair. We are on the slippery slope and will soon be a 3rd world country. We have 18 million unemployed, impending doom with Obumblescare and Crap and Trade, housing market going down more, and the morons want to raise taxes because we are 14 TRILLION DOLLARS IN DEBT!! In the 70's, my father told me the he thought the gov't wanted to divide this country and it would be the haves and the have nots. We all sit around and argue while nothing gets better and we are the ones that suffer. In the early 90's, I visited Hong Kong and they had a maximum 15% flat tax on the wealthiest people and much less on everyone else. They had people on welfare and they made you work. You received housing, food but you had incentive to get back on your feet. I saw some of the people working and they did a great job and got satisfaction from it. In the U.S. it has become "the gov't owes me and I am going to collect." And now the Dems want to register the next 14 million illegals as their voters... Be ready, the second recession will be worse than the first.