Blacks and Hispanics lose wealth during recession.

No shit? Did Sherlock Holmes take up bloviating for the AP.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The enormous wealth gap between white families and blacks and Hispanics grew larger after the most recent recession, a private analysis of government data finds.

White households had a median net worth of greater than $88,000 in 2002, 11 times more than Hispanics and more than 14 times that of blacks, the Pew Hispanic Center said in a study being released Monday.

Blacks were slowest to emerge from the economic downturn that started in 2000 and ended in late 2001, the report found.

When has this not been the case. African Americans, are always the last to benefit and the first to be tossed off the ship. Just when that community was making economic inroads in the Industrial North during the late fifties and eaarly sixties, they were the first community to lose jobs to automation.

20 years later, these problems would hit the poor white community, and bring a lot of working class people into the republican party. Using a combination of social issue distraction and unvarnished appeals to racism, the republicans were able to convince large swathes of people to bvote against their own self interest. The scariest thing about the median net worth numbers is the disparity, and also noted is the fact that the hispanic community has eclipsed the African American community, once again demonstrating that as long as you are not an immigrant of color, it usually does not take more than a couple of generations to start up the ladder of prosperity.

Net worth accounts for the values of items such as a home and car, checking and savings accounts, and stocks, minus debts such as mortgage, car loans and credit card bills.

Greater wealth means a greater ability to weather a job loss, emergency home repairs, illness and other unexpected costs, as well as being able to save for retirement or a child's college tuition.

Net worth = stuff you own - debt. Greater wealth = less likely to starve, better health care and educational opportunities. Thanks for the lesson, this shit would never had occured to me.

Only white homes recouped all their losses between 2001 and 2002. Both Hispanics and blacks lost nearly 27 percent of net worth between 1999 and 2001; the next year Latinos had gained almost all back (26 percent) though blacks were up only about 5 percent.

Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, said the accumulation of wealth allows low-income families to rise into the middle class and "have some kind of assets beyond next week's paychecks."

"Having more assets enabled whites to ride out the jobless recovery better," he said.

Harrison says Hispanics were more insulated from the downturn than blacks, so they took less of a hit. For example, Hispanics made employment gains in lower-paid, lower-skilled areas such as the service and construction sectors.

Blacks were hit hard by job losses in the manufacturing industry and in professional fields, where they were victims of "last hired, first fired" policies, he said.

Where have I heard that before? Rhetorical query I know, sorry about that. And in the meantime the party who has idiots that wonder "why in gods name do Blacks vote for the Democratic Party?" is working overtime trying to disenfranchise voters in the Black community. Not to worry though, permanent tax cuts will right the economic ship of state.