In Twenty to One: Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs between Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics, the Pew Research Center reports that the median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households. The July 2011 report analyzes newly available government data from 2009. These lopsided wealth ratios are reported to be the largest since the government began publishing such data a quarter century ago and roughly twice the size of the ratios that had prevailed between these three groups for the two decades prior to the Great Recession that ended in 2009. The report can be found at http://pewsocialtrends.org/2011/07/26/wealth-gaps-rise-to-record-highs-… and

A new study, The College Payoff, released this August from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and Workforce finds that “African Americans and Latinos lag behind Whites and Asians at all levels of educational attainment.” This race/ethnicity gap persists even among the most educated workers; African Americans and Latinos with Master’s degrees don’t exceed lifetime earnings of Whites with Bachelor’s degree. At the graduate level, however, the study finds that Asians make more than all other ethnicities, including whites. The study finds that the interaction between four basic rules hold sway in how education and earnings interact in U.S. society. These include: “Rule 1: Degree level matters; but Rule 2: Occupational choice can trump degree level in higher earnings; but Rule 3) While occupation can sometimes trump education, degree level still matters most within individual occupation, but Rule 4: Race/ethnicity and gender are wild cards that matter more than education or occupation in determining earnings.” The executive summary of the study is available at http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/collegepayoff-summary…