The new book, released June 18, traces the family history of several Black Americans back to the 1800s when the wealth gap was 1.8 cents on the dollar in the post-Civil War era. The authors conducted extensive research using sources including “the Federal Reserve’s Consumer Finance Survey, which asks Americans to provide detailed information about their personal wealth every three years. They tracked the median and mean wealth levels across different racial groups. Even when excluding the wealthiest individuals, major disparities remain, indicating that the wealth gap is pervasive and not just driven by top earners. (Additionally) Reed and Story conducted nearly 400 interviews, weaving the stories of seven Black individuals throughout their book to illustrate the real-life effects of economic disparities.” [Stanford GSB Corporations and Society Initiative]
In a recent WBUR interview, Story notes that the book’s title emphasizes an overlooked statistic that many Black and white Americans underestimate: the typical Black family possesses just fifteen cents in wealth for every dollar held by a typical white family, a disparity that has persisted since the 1950s. Although Black Americans have gained more access to college and homeownership, greater amounts of debt have prohibited many of them from obtaining college degrees and building generational wealth.