Wealth is a term often used in local and national discourse about inequalities and opportunities. By definition, household wealth (or net worth) is the total dollar value of all assets owned by members of a household minus the dollar value of all their debts. However, an expanded definition, based on what wealth enables and not merely its monetary properties, has the potential to better guide efforts to truly increase well-being and quality of life. The wealth gap, disaggregated by race and class, is well-studied nationally, in no small part due to the abundance of national wealth data and the clear link between wealth and overall financial well-being. But, when it comes to examining local conditions, The Data Center, like many other local organizations across the U.S., has had to rely on proxies for overall well-being such as income, homeownership, and poverty rates rather than holistic measures like wealth due to the absence of local wealth data. Taking this challenge head on, The Data Center developed statistical estimates of assets and debts for the metro area, marking the first time that our region has been able to study gaps in wealth across meaningful demographic breakdowns, and also marking the debut of local research about understanding and closing the local wealth gap. To thoroughly understand the drivers and disparities of wealth, each brief included in this collection aims to fill the current absence of local data on wealth, as well as paint a more comprehensive picture of wealth in our region.
Over the course of several years The Data Center has engaged in extensive conversations across the country about the “Wealth Gap” because we understand the importance of wealth for community resilience. But we’ve found that when you start talking about wealth gaps, people often get, “turned off.” The reasons seem to vary depending on the […]
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For the first time, Greater New Orleans has detailed local estimates of household wealth. This brief details the estimated distribution of household wealth in the New Orleans metro area by examining differences in wealth by age, race, and other demographic variables.
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