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Income, Wealth & Poverty

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Income, Wealth & Poverty

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    Hispanic Household Wealth Fell by 66% from 2005 to 2009

    Median household wealth among Hispanics fell from $18,359 in 2005 to $6,235 in 2009—a 66% decline. This was larger than the decrease for black households (53%) and white households (16%), according to an analysis of newly-available Census Bureau data by the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends project.

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    Lifetime Earnings of College Graduates

    A new Pew Research Center analysis, using Census Bureau data, estimates that the typical adult with a bachelor’s degree (but no further education) will earn $1.42 million over a 40-year career, compared with $770,000 for a typical high school graduate.

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    Home Sweet Home. Still.

    The collapse of the U.S. housing market has not shaken the public’s confidence in the investment value of homeownership.

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    One Recession, Two Americas

    For a narrow majority of Americans (55%), the Great Recession brought a mix of hardships, usually in combination: a spell of unemployment, missed mortgage or rent payments, shrinking paychecks and shattered household budgets, but for the other 45% of the country, the recession was largely free of such difficulties.

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    Walking Away

    Nearly six-in-ten Americans say it is “unacceptable” for homeowners to stop making their mortgage payments, but more than a third say the practice of “walking away” from a home mortgage is acceptable under certain circumstances. Homeowners whose home values declined during the recession and those who have spent time unemployed are more likely to say that “walking away” from a mortgage is acceptable.