LANSING, Mich. (WOOD) — Tuesday marks 50 years since the race riot erupted in Grand Rapids, and a new report shows there’s still a startling gap between the financial health of Michigan’s white households and their minority counterparts.
The report released Tuesday by Prosperity Now concludes that if they lost their source of income, approximately 38.2 percent of Michigan households wouldn’t have enough liquid assets (i.e., cash) to even live at the poverty level for three months. If you factor in other assets, that number dropped down to 29.2 percent of Michigan households that wouldn’t make it for three months.
When broken down by race, the number of minority households that couldn’t make it for three months without a consistent income was about double that of white households.
The report also concluded about one out of three Michigan households are in dire financial need, with 26 percent of Michigan households struggling to cover basic needs, making it nearly impossible to save.
“To put those numbers in perspective, for a single person, that’s about $3,000 in savings,” said Michigan Economic Impact Coalition program director Ross Yednock. “For a family of four, it’s $6,000 in savings.”
The Michigan Economic Impact Coalition tells our Lansing sister station WLNS that more than one-third of Michigan families are living paycheck-to-paycheck, and they are just one emergency away from a financial crisis.
“We’re not talking again living high on the hog,” said Yednock. “We’re talking just getting by and these families, you know are right on that brink.”
The report also showed the median net worth of white households in Michigan is $91,030, compared to $4,338 for households of color. When that number was further broken down, the average net worth of black households was $2,780.