Larry Kudlow fights statistics on black-white wealth gap – By Axios Staff (Axios) / June 23 2020
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow says he believes the wealth gap between black and white people has narrowed, and questioned statistics that show the gap now is as wide as it was in the 1960s.
Why it matters: In an interview with “Axios on HBO,” President Trump’s top economic adviser told Axios’ Jonathan Swan that different measures of wealth suggest there has been progress — meaning the advice Trump is getting is out of sync with the conclusion of recent studies.
- “I will not deny there’s a significant wealth gap. I will deny that is not closing. I believe it is,” Kudlow said.
- Kudlow also acknowledged he was surprised “to some extent” by the inequities revealed by the coronavirus — including that African-Americans were dying of the coronavirus at twice the rate of white Americans, and that black-owned small businesses have been shuttering at twice the rate of white-owned small businesses.
Between the lines: One of the most influential recent studies, a 2018 paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, found that the median black household had only about 12% of the wealth of the median white household in 2016, the most recent data available.
- The study found that the wealth gap narrowed in the 1990s and early 2000s, but then widened again after the 2008 financial crisis — when wealth plummeted for black households but stayed about the same for white households.
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