After 25 years of blue policies, the wealth gap between whites on the one hand and African Americans and Hispanics on the other has barely budged

The St. Louis Fed researchers said it’s not differences in age or education levels that explain the racial and ethnic wealth disparities; these persist even if you’re looking at older and better-educated blacks, Hispanics and whites. Part of the story here is the disproportionate effect the foreclosure crisis had on African Americans. Black families were in some cases stuck with riskier loans than whites, and when the crisis hit a lot of their wealth was wiped out. Since then, many blue cities with large minority populations have been hit particularly hard by financial problems. When Detroit, a majority African-American city long ruled by blue politicians, needed to raise money recently it foreclosed on tens of thousands of homes. Then there is the overall decline in clerical and some government jobs, which have long been a staple of African-American middle-class employment — a decline likely to continue, given the sorry finances of state and local governments across the nation.