March 3, 2022
NEWARK – The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice today released Making the Two New Jerseys One: Closing the $300,000 Racial Wealth Gap in the Garden State.
The new report reveals that while New Jersey is one of the most prosperous states in the nation, it is also characterized by some of the starkest racial and economic inequities. The Institute will be discussing these findings at a virtual event tonight, described below.
“There are Two New Jerseys. Just as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. identified Two Americas over fifty years ago, today the Garden State is characterized by two economic extremes,” said Laura Sullivan, Director of the Economic Justice Program at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice and primary author of the report. “In one New Jersey, made up disproportionately of Black and Brown households, families struggle to make ends meet. In the other, predominately white families have substantial wealth and financial reserves to weather the economic uncertainties of life and support mobility for their children. This is the definition of injustice.”
The racial wealth gap between Black and white households in the U.S. is about $160,000, a substantial disparity, but one which pales in comparison to the gap in New Jersey.