WASHINGTON (AP) _ The wealth gaps between whites and minorities in the United States have grown to their widest levels since the U.S. government began tabulating them a quarter-century ago. The recession and uneven recovery have erased decades of minority gains, leaving whites on average with 20 times the net worth of blacks and 18 times that of Hispanics, according to an analysis of new Census data.
The analysis shows the racial and ethnic impact of the recent economic meltdown, which ravaged housing values and sent unemployment soaring. It also offers the most direct government evidence yet of the stark wealth divide, a disparity between predominantly younger minorities whose main asset is their home and older whites who are more likely to have 401(k) retirement accounts or other stock holdings.
``I am afraid that this pushes us back to what the Kerner Commission characterized as `two societies, separate and unequal,''' said Roderick Harrison, a former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau, referring to the 1960s presidential commission that examined U.S. race relations. ``The great difference is that the second society has now become both black and Hispanic.''
The median wealth of white U.S. households in 2009 was $113,149, compared to $6,325 for Hispanics and $5,677 for blacks, according to the analysis released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. Those ratios, roughly 20 to 1 for blacks and 18 to 1 for Hispanics, far exceed the low mark of 7 to 1 for both groups reached in 1995, when the nation's economic expansion lifted many low-income groups to the middle class.
The white-black wealth gap also is the widest since census began tracking such data in 1984, when the ratio was roughly 12 to 1.
``What's pushing the wealth of whites is the rebound in the stock market and corporate savings, while younger Hispanics and African-Americans who bought homes in the last decade, because that was the American dream, are seeing big declines,'' said Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in income inequality.
Stock holdings play an important role in the economic well-being of white households. Stock funds, IRA and Keogh accounts as well as 401(k) and savings accounts were responsible for 28 percent of whites' net worth, compared with 19 percent for blacks and 15 percent for Hispanics.
``There's a good chance the wealth gap will widen further,'' Smeeding said, citing the stalled housing market. ``What we need to do is help lower-income people move up.''
According to the Pew study, the housing boom of the early to mid 2000s particularly boosted the wealth of Hispanics, who were disproportionately employed in the thriving construction industry. Hispanics also were more likely to live and buy homes in states such as California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona, which were in the forefront of the real estate bubble, enjoying early gains in home values.
Those gains quickly shriveled in the housing collapse. After reaching a median wealth of $18,359 in 2005, the wealth of Hispanics _ who had derived nearly two-thirds of their net worth from home equity _ declined by 66 percent by 2009. Among blacks, who now have the highest unemployment rate at 16.2 percent, their household wealth fell 53 percent from $12,124 to $5,677.
In contrast, the median household wealth of whites dipped a modest 16 percent from $134,992 to $113,149, cushioned in part by a stock market recovery that began in mid-2009.
``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.''
The latest data come as President Barack Obama and congressional leaders face an Aug. 2 deadline to figure out a deal to cut deficits and raise the debt ceiling or risk seeing the U.S. default on its financial obligations. Democrats and Republicans have been wrangling over proposals that could cut trillions of dollars from programs such as the Medicare health plan, mainly for older Americans, and the government's retirement plan, Social Security; they also are divided over whether to bring in new tax revenue, such as by closing corporate tax loopholes or increasing taxes for the wealthy.
In a White House meeting last week, the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and other black groups urged Obama to resist deep cuts such as in housing assistance or safety net programs including Social Security and Medicaid, a medical program mainly for the poor and uninsured, saying it would disproportionately hurt urban areas with some of the highest rates of poverty and unemployment. The U.S. poverty rate currently stands at 14.3 percent, with the ranks of the working-age poor at the highest level since the 1960s. Some analysts believe the poverty rate will climb higher when new figures are released in September.
``Typically in recessions, minorities suffer from being last hired and first fired. They are likely to lose jobs more rapidly at the beginning of the recession, and are far slower to gain jobs as the economy recovers,'' said Harrison, who is now a sociologist at Howard University. ``One suspects that blacks who lost jobs in the recession, or who have tried to help family members or relatives who did, have now spent whatever savings or other cashable assets they had.''
Other findings:
_About 35 percent of black households and 31 percent of Hispanic households had zero or negative net worth in 2009, compared with 15 percent of white households. In 2005, the comparable shares were 29 percent for blacks, 23 percent for Hispanics and 11 percent for whites.
_Asians lost their top ranking to whites in median household wealth, dropping from $168,103 in 2005 to $78,066 in 2009. Similar to Hispanics, many Asians were concentrated in states like California that were hit hard by the housing downturn. More recent arrivals of new Asian immigrants, who tend to be poor, also pushed down their median wealth.
_Across all race and ethnic groups, the wealth gap between rich and poor widened. The share of wealth held by the top 10 percent of U.S. households increased from 49 percent in 2005 to 56 percent in 2009. The threshold for entry into the wealthiest top 10 percent, however, dipped lower: from $646,327 in 2005 to $598,435.
The numbers are based on the Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation, which sampled more than 36,000 households on wealth from September-December 2009. Census first began publishing wealth data from this survey, broken down by race and ethnicity, in 1984.
<한글기사>
美백인-소수인종 빈부격차 20배
(워싱턴 AP=연합뉴스) 미국에서 백인과 소수인종 간의 빈부격차가 약 20배까지 벌어지면서 조사 시작 이래 최대 수준을 기록했다.
26일 미국 인구조사국 자료를 바탕으로 퓨 리서치 센터가 인종별 자산규모를 분석한 결과에 따르면 2009년 미국 내 백인 가구의 자산은 평균(순자산 중간값) 미화 11만3천149달러(약 1억1천900만원)로, 히스패닉계 가구보다 약 18배, 흑인 가구보다 약 20배나 됐다.
이 같은 차이는 퓨 리서치 센터가 같은 조사를 시작했던 지난 1984년 이후 가장 큰 격차다. 경제 활성화에 힘입어 다수의 저소득층이 중산층으로 도약했던 1995년에는 백인과 흑인•히스패닉 간 빈부격차가 약 7배까지 감소했었다.
특히 2009년 히스패닉계 가구의 자산은 평균 6천325달러(약 660만원)로, 2005년에 비해 66% 감소했고, 흑인 가구의 자산은 5천677달러(약 600만원)로 같은 기간 53% 하락했다.
2005년 16만8천103달러(약 1억7천700만원)로 백인 가구를 앞질렀던 아시아인 가구의 자산도 2009년 7만8천66달러(약 8천200만원)로 절반 이하로 감소했다.
그러나 같은 기간 백인 가구의 자산 감소폭은 16%에 지나지 않았다.
전문가들은 중장년층이 많은 백인의 경우 자산 가운데 주식형 펀드예금이나 퇴직연금의 비율이 높은 반면 상대적으로 연령층이 낮은 소수인종은 자산 대부분이 부동산인 점이 빈부격차 확대의 이유인 것으로 분석했다.
실제로 캘리포니아와 플로리다, 네바다, 애니조나주(州) 등 부동산 거품이 심했던 지역에 많이 거주하는 히스패닉계의 경우 지난 2000년대 초.중반 집값 상승으로 자산이 증가했지만, 부동산 경기 침체로 자산이 대폭 감소했다.
아시아인도 부동산 경기 침체의 타격을 크게 받은 캘리포니아주(州) 등 일부 도시에 주로 거주하고 있는데다 최근 미국에 정착한 저소득 아시아인이 늘어난 것도 자산 급감의 이유로 분석됐다.
한편 미국 내 상위 10% 가구의 자산은 2005년 전체 인구 자산의 49%에서 2009년 56%로 확대됐으며, 상위 10%에 진입하기 위해 필요한 최소 자산은 같은 기간 64만6천327달러(약 6억7천900만원)에서 59만8천435달러(약 6억2천900만원)로 감소했다.