By Avery Bleichfeld, April 8, 2026
Changing federal policies could worsen the racial wealth gap, experts at a hearing hosted by the State’s Joint Committee on Racial Equity, Civil Rights and Inclusion said.
“Today’s hearing is about more than naming the problem, it’s about deeply understanding the role federal policy plays in creating the disparities and what Massachusetts can do to fight back,” Sen. Liz Miranda, co-chair of the joint committee, said at the hearing.
At the heart of the hearing was a question about how the Trump administration’s policies — including the passage of the One Big Beautiful Act, newly-imposed tariffs, and the rolling back of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts — could impact the wealth gap, the trend that households of color tend to hold less wealth than their white counterparts.
Nationwide, the median white household holds about six to seven times more wealth than the median Black household, and about five times more than the median Latino household. A 2015 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston posited that in the Greater Boston area, white households had a median wealth of $247,500, while Black households had a median wealth of $8.
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“The federal government’s policies are on purpose,” said Viviana Abreu-Hernández, president of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, a think tank focused on state budget and tax policies. “This is not by mistake. The federal government is cutting close to $1 trillion in social services because it gave $1 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthiest and the corporations in the United States.”
