evidence: The wealth gap between Black and white Americans has been persistent and extreme. It represents, scholars say, the accumulated effects of four centuries of institutional and systemic racism and bears major responsibility for disparities in income, health, education, and opportunity that continue to this day. [...] Over the past decades, many scholars have examined the Black-white gap in household wealth. But it was in 1995 that sociologists Thomas Shapiro and Melvin Oliver put wealth inequality on the map with their groundbreaking book, "Black Wealth, White Wealth." Their research analyzed the role of wealth, or accumulated assets, rather than that of income in the persistent racial divide. [...] The typical white American family has roughly 10 times as much wealth as the typical African American family and the typical Latino family. In other words, while the median white household has about $100,000-$200,000 net worth, Blacks and Latinos have $10,000-$20,000 net worth. Depending on the year or how it’s measured, those numbers may change, as shown by a report by the Pew Research Center, but the wealth racial gap has continued for decades. "It’s a staggeringly large number," said Killewald.