New Jersey’s Racial Wealth Gap Isn’t Getting Better, Study Says

NEW JERSEY — The “racial wealth gap” in New Jersey isn’t getting any better, a new study says.

Financial information website WalletHub recently released a list of 2023's “States with the Biggest and Smallest Wealth Gaps by Race/Ethnicity.” New Jersey ranked as the state with the 12th-highest gap – the same spot it occupied in 2022. Read More: NJ Has One Of America's Worst Racial Wealth Gaps, Study Says

To reach their conclusions, researchers compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 21 key metrics, including the median household income gap and the unemployment rate gap. According to WalletHub:

“Because white people comprise the majority of the American population at 63 percent, we chose this racial group as our benchmark with which to measure the gap with minority, nonwhite populations, including black people, Hispanics and Asians. To determine the overall ranking of each state, we selected the biggest gap between racial groups for each metric. For instance, if the income gap in California is 20 percent between white people and black people, 30 percent between white people and Hispanics and zero between white people and Asians, we used 30 percent for that metric for California. We took this approach in order to draw attention to the areas where the biggest gaps exist.”

See the full report and learn about its methodology here.

Here were the 2023 statistics for New Jersey, researchers said:

• Biggest Median Household Income Gap (most disadvantaged group) – 39.41% (Black people)
• Biggest Homeownership Rate Gap (most disadvantaged group) – 50.40% (Hispanics)
• Biggest Poverty Rate Gap (most disadvantaged group) – 181.67% (Hispanics)
• Biggest Educational Attainment Gap (most disadvantaged group) – 52.45% (Hispanics)

Overall, the District of Columbia had the highest gap in the study, followed by Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota.

Send news tips and correction requests to eric.kiefer@patch.com. Learn more about advertising on Patch here. Find out how to post announcements or events to your local Patch site.