Homeownership is the single largest driver of the racial wealth gap

Evidence

Research by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy (IASP) at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University followed a group of American families over a twenty-five-year period (1984–2009) and showed that the single largest contributor to the racial wealth gap was homeownership. The homeownership rate for white families in the study was almost 30 percentage points higher than the homeownership rate for black families. Home equity, too, was greater for whites than blacks. These numbers mirror national statistics: 73 percent of white Americans are homeowners, compared with only 44 percent of black Americans. A different study of home sales to lowand moderate-income households between 2000 and 2010—a period that includes the Great Recession—showed that white families gained or lost money depending on when they purchased, but black families consistently lost money, regardless of timing. Homebuying is statistically more likely to lead to a nondeductible loss if you are black than if you are white. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 222

Research by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy (IASP) at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University followed a group of American families over a twenty-five-year period (1984–2009) and showed that the single largest contributor to the racial wealth gap was homeownership. The homeownership rate for white families in the study was almost 30 percentage points higher than the homeownership rate for black families. Home equity, too, was greater for whites than blacks. These numbers mirror national statistics: 73 percent of white Americans are homeowners, compared with only 44 percent of black Americans. A different study of home sales to lowand moderate-income households between 2000 and 2010—a period that includes the Great Recession—showed that white families gained or lost money depending on when they purchased, but black families consistently lost money, regardless of timing. Homebuying is statistically more likely to lead to a nondeductible loss if you are black than if you are white. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 1278

Categorization

• XREF: The timing-independent Black loss (2000–2010) is the load-bearing empirical fact for the saturated-system harm claim that no timing choice lets Black buyers win. — connects to: Home equity dominates older Americans’ wealth regardless of race — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations: How Building a…, 1353
• SHARE: The finding that Black families lost money in 2000–2010 regardless of purchase timing, while whites lost only depending on when they bought, is a precise empirical hook for anyone litigating housing discrimination.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax…, 222; Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations: How Building a…, 1278