UK’S ETHNIC WEALTH GAP: DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GROUPS WIDENS

Wed 23 December 2020:

People of Black African ethnicity in the United Kingdom typically have just one-eighth of the wealth of white British people, an economic think-tank said, calling for reforms to narrow the wealth divide between ethnic groups.

The Resolution Foundation said the differences affected the ability of households to cope with the COVID-19 crisis.

People of Black African ethnicity had on average 24,000 pounds ($32,175) of family wealth per adult, rising to 31,000 pounds ($41,569) for people of Bangladeshi ethnicity and nearly 42,000 pounds ($56,320) for those with mixed white and Black Caribbean ethnicity.

People of white British ethnicity held 197,000 pounds ($264,166) of family wealth per adult, the Resolution Foundation said.

At least half of Black African, Bangladeshi and Black Caribbean ethnicity households held less than 1,000 pounds ($1,340) in savings before the coronavirus pandemic hit.

“Despite significant progress in closing education and employment gaps between different ethnic groups, these wealth gaps are likely to persist,” George Bangham, an economist at the Resolution Foundation, said.

“Even high earners will struggle to save their way to being high wealth, while white British people are much more likely to inherit significant sums than those of other ethnic groups.”

The Resolution Foundation proposed wealth tax reforms, help for first-time homebuyers aimed at young people unable to count on family funds and more generous tax pension tax relief for lower earners.

Pay gap between ethnic minority and white staff

According to The Guardian, In October, Office for National Statistics said in it’s report that median hourly earnings in 2019 for white workers were £12.40 an hour – just more than 2% higher than the £12.11 an hour for ethnic minority workers. The gap is down from a peak of more than 8% in the mid-2010s.

It said there were double-digit pay gaps for four groups of ethnic minority employees – 16% for people of Pakistani descent, 15% for white and black African, 15% for Bangladeshi and 13% for white and black Caribbean.

Halima Begum, director of the race equality thinktank the Runnymede Trust, expressed concern about the findings.

“We are particularly worried to see the figures for Pakistani workers – paid lowest, against other counterparts despite holding higher degree level qualifications,” she said. “The government needs to ask what are the underlying causes for this inequality? We can’t explain it away by degree qualifications or socio-economic factors or ethnicity. Therefore, this suggests that invisible factors are working against South Asians.”

Breaking down the data by gender, the ONS said ethnic minority men earned 6.1% less than white men while ethnic minority women earned 2.1% more than white women.

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