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  • If I asked you: would you rather have over a million dollars or 160 thousand in thirty

  • years, what would you choose?

  • Now consider this: what if, for every dollar you earned, someone else earned two? How about

  • if for every dollar of wealth you gained, someone else gained six?

  • In 1983, whites in their thirties had an average net worth of 184,000 dollars. Today, these

  • whites, who are in their early sixties, have accumulated 1.1 million dollars in wealth.

  • In contrast, blacks have seen their wealth go from 54,000 dollars to 161,000 and Hispanics

  • from 46,000 dollars to 226,000. The racial wealth gap grows sharply with age.

  • Over the past three decades, wealth disparities continued to worsen. Though the United States

  • is one of the wealthiest countries, to many Americans this prosperity remains out of reach.

  • Blacks and Hispanics, who strive to make a better life for themselves and their families,

  • do not have the same asset building opportunities. They are less likely to own homes and retirement

  • accounts, so miss out on these traditionally powerful wealth building tools.

  • Wealth is where economic opportunity lies.” Setting up automated savings, drawn from your

  • income, allows you to build wealththrough education, your home, or your retirement savings.

  • Lack of assets, on the other hand, means a difficult life -- when a rainy day hits, youre

  • unable to pay bills and don’t have enough food to eat.

  • Our social safety net targets the day-to-day costs of living. But without fair policies,

  • such paths to building wealth vanish. Today, these avenues are harder to access because

  • it’s tougher to qualify for home loans. To make matters worse, wealth disparities

  • are passed from generation to generation. Black and Hispanic families are five times

  • less likely than white families to inherit money that can help with down payments on

  • a home. In order to narrow the racial wealth gap, we need to lower the barriers to building

  • assets.

  • Here’s where things stand: in 2009, over half the 400 billion dollars the federal government

  • spent encouraging families to build assets went to the top 5 percent of income-earners.

  • Meanwhile, low-income families received next to nothing.

  • Now imagine you have the same opportunity to earn income and gain financial security

  • as anyone else. If that’s the course we want to set, wealth is where the economic

  • opportunity lies.

If I asked you: would you rather have over a million dollars or 160 thousand in thirty

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