The large wealth gap between Black and White families in America has persisted for generations—and mayors are determined to find ways to finally address it.
In the most recent Menino Survey of Mayors, 67 percent of mayors said they are worried about the racial wealth gap in their cities. Of those mayors, overwhelming majorities support targeted programs to help Black and Latino residents build businesses and increase homeownership.
When city leaders get down to designing new policies and programs, however, they quickly discover a problem. The data they need to inform their efforts—local-level data on assets, homeownership, and more—can be difficult to find broken down by race.
That’s why Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative launched the Black Wealth Data Center, a new go-to resource for this critical information, in September. The platform features a new Racial Wealth Equity Database and gives local leaders, among other users, free and easy access to data they need to design new solutions aimed at addressing the wealth divide.
“Local leaders need high-quality data disaggregated by race to inform the design of equitable programs and policies,” says Garnesha Ezediaro, who leads Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative. “This new platform aims to ease accessibility to race-based data and empower evidence-based decision making amongst leaders developing racial wealth equity initiatives.”