The net worth of whites is now 20 times higher than for blacks and 18 times higher than for Hispanics, both records. For white households, the median net worth (assets minus liabilities) in 2009 was $113,149. That compares to $6,325 for Hispanics and $5,677 for black Americans.
There are, of course, many reasons for this. While minority families gained from the economic growth of the the 1980s, 1990s and mid-2000s, much of their wealth was tied up in their homes. When the housing market crashed in 2008, so did their net worth. Meanwhile, whites have been helped by the rebound in stock prices in the last two years. Stock market investments, including IRAs, 401(k)s and other market-based accounts, make up 28% of white Americans' wealth, vs. just 19% for blacks and 15% for Hispanics. If nothing else, these data point out the failure of federal welfare and anti-poverty policies to do what they intended: eradicate wealth differences in our country.
Today, some 44 million Americans are on food stamps. In 2007, it was 26 million. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner recently boasted that U.S. issues more than 80 million checks a month. But while the U.S. has more than 70 means-tested welfare programs, the poverty rate today is higher than it was in the late 1960s. How can that be ?
Robert Rector, a Heritage Foundation economist in a recent report, said that most anti-poverty/welfare spending erodes work and marriage,' As a result ... low-income Americans are less capable of self-support than when the War on Poverty began.' ... The road to hell, it's said, is paved with good intentions. But sometimes it's paved with taxpayers' money."
Investor's Business Daily
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