Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word weal, which is from an Indo-European word stem. The modern concept of wealth is of significance in all areas of economics, and clearly so for growth economics and development economics, yet the meaning of wealth is context-dependent. A person possessing a substantial net worth is known as wealthy. Net worth is defined as the current value of one's assets less liabilities.
Economic inequality is an umbrella term for a) income inequality or distribution of income, b) wealth inequality or distribution of wealth, and c) consumption inequality. Each of these can be measured between two or more nations, within a single nation, or between and within sub-populations.
Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power. As such, stratification is the relative social position of persons within a social group, category, geographic region, or social unit.
The American upper class is a social group within the United States consisting of people who have the highest social rank, due to a lineage associated with wealth, pedigree, and economic wealth. The American upper class is distinguished from the rest of the population due to the fact that its primary source of income consists of assets, investments, and capital gains rather than wages and salaries. The American upper class is estimated to include 1–2% of the population.
The African-American middle class consists of African-Americans who have middle-class status within the American class structure. It is a societal level within the African-American community that primarily began to develop in the early 1960s, when the ongoing Civil Rights Movement led to the outlawing of de jure racial segregation. The African American middle class exists throughout the United States, particularly in the Northeast and in the South, with the largest contiguous majority black middle-class neighborhoods being in the Washington, DC suburbs in Maryland. The African American middle class is also prevalent in the Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Antonio and Chicago areas.
Social inequality occurs when resources within a society are distributed unevenly, often as a result of inequitable allocation practices that create distinct unequal patterns based on socially defined categories of people. Differences in accessing social goods within society are influenced by factors like power, religion, kinship, prestige, race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, and class. Social inequality usually implies the lack of equality of outcome, but may alternatively be conceptualized as a lack of equality in access to opportunity.
William Edward Spriggs was an American economist who was a professor of economics at Howard University, chief economist for the AFL-CIO, and Assistant Secretary of Labor for Policy in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2012.
The term Jim Crow economy applies to a specific set of economic conditions in the United States during the period when the Jim Crow laws were in effect to force racial segregation; however, it should also be taken as an attempt to disentangle the economic ramifications from the politico-legal ramifications of "separate but equal" de jure segregation, to consider how the economic impacts might have persisted beyond the politico-legal ramifications.
Housing inequality is a disparity in the quality of housing in a society which is a form of economic inequality. The right to housing is recognized by many national constitutions, and the lack of adequate housing can have adverse consequences for an individual or a family. The term may apply regionally, temporally or culturally. Housing inequality is directly related to racial, social, income and wealth inequality. It is often the result of market forces, discrimination and segregation.
In the United States, despite the efforts of equality proponents, income inequality persists among races and ethnicities. Asian Americans have the highest median income, followed by White Americans, Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans. A variety of explanations for these differences have been proposed—such as differing access to education, two parent home family structure, high school dropout rates and experience of discrimination and deep-seated and systemic anti-Black racism—and the topic is highly controversial.
In the United States, racial inequality refers to the social inequality and advantages and disparities that affect different races. These can also be seen as a result of historic oppression, inequality of inheritance, or racism and prejudice, especially against minority groups.
William A. "Sandy" Darity Jr. is an American economist and social sciences researcher. Darity's research spans economic history, development economics, economic psychology, and the history of economic thought, but most of his research is devoted to group-based inequality, especially with respect to race and ethnicity. His 2005 paper in the Journal of Economics and Finance established Darity as the 'founder of stratification economics.' His varied research interests have also included the trans-Atlantic slave trade, African American reparations and the economics of black reparations, and social and economic policies that affect inequities by race and ethnicity. For the latter, he has been described as "perhaps the country’s leading scholar on the economics of racial inequality."
The Review of Black Political Economy is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1970 publishing research on the economic status of African-Americans, the African diaspora, and other non-white marginalized populations. It is affiliated with the National Economic Association and is published by SAGE Publishing. Individual memberships can be acquired through membership in the National Economic Association or through direct subscription.. The journal focuses on research that can inform policies to reduce racial, gender, and ethnic economic inequality. The journal is also a member of the Committee on Public Ethics (COPE).
Trevon D'Marcus Logan is an American economist. He is the Hazel C. Youngberg Trustees Distinguished Professor in the Department of Economics and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Ohio State University, where he was awarded the 2014 Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. In 2014, he was the youngest-ever president of the National Economic Association. In 2019, he was the inaugural North Hall Economics Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2020, he was named the inaugural director of the National Bureau of Economic Research Working Group on Race and Stratification in the Economy. His research mainly focuses on economic history, including studies of African American migration, economic analysis of illegal markets, the economics of marriage transfers, and measures of historical living standards, with an emphasis on racial disparities in the United States.
Jessica Gordon Nembhard is an American political economist. She has published books and articles in major economics journals. She is currently Professor of Community Justice and Social Economic Development in the Department of Africana Studies at John Jay College, City University of NY.
The National Economic Association (NEA) is a learned society established in 1969, focused on initiatives in the field of economics.
Baby bonds are a government policy in which every child receives at birth a publicly funded trust account, potentially with more generous funding for lower-income families 1 million per person born until 2025. Economists William Darity and Darrick Hamilton proposed the policy in 2010 as a mechanism to reduce the racial wealth gap in the United States. A 2019 analysis of the proposal by Naomi Zewde projects that baby bonds would reduce the median racial wealth gap between white and black young Americans from a factor of 16 to a factor of 1.4.
Rhonda Vonshay Sharpe is an American economist who is the founder and current president of the Women's Institute for Science, Equity, and Race (WISER). She is a feminist economist who has been a faculty member at an extensive list of colleges and universities and served as president of the National Economic Association from 2017 to 2018.
Patrick Leon Mason is an American economist who is a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst.
James B. Stewart (born 1947) is an American economist who is professor emeritus of Labor and Employment Relations, African and African American Studies, and Management and Organization at Pennsylvania State University. In 2021, he was awarded the Samuel Z. Westerfield Award, the highest award of the National Economic Association.
