Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, this paper updates and extends previous research on the racial wealth … gap in the United States. We explore several hypotheses that help explain differential wealth accumulation by racial … to the literature. We find that observable factors account for the entire wealth gap between white and Hispanic families …

but narrowed between Hispanics and (non-Hispanic) whites. When the definition of wealth is expanded to incorporate Social … Security and defined benefit pension wealth (both the discounted sum of future benefits), the wealth gap is sharply reduced …, especially for the ratio of median wealth. The Black/white and Hispanic/white disparity in Social Security wealth lessened …