Historical Harms and Racial Wealth Inequality: Evidence from Homeownership and Retirement Savings Accounts

This study examined the relationship between historical racial harms experienced by families and racial wealth disparities, focusing on homeownership and retirement savings account ownership. Using data from the SEED OK experiment, we found that historical harms are associated with lower wealth ownership among Black families. This association is potentially confounded with current socioeconomic inequalities. Notably, redlining is negatively associated with homeownership, while no individual historical harm indicators were significantly associated with retirement savings account ownership. These findings underscore the importance of considering historical harms in addressing racial wealth inequalities. Future research should develop comprehensive measures of historical harms and examine their impacts on various wealth indicators. Policy should be designed to avoid reinforcing existing inequalities, take into consideration of the heterogeneous nature of the historical harms-wealth connection, and create conditions to begin reducing inequalities.