A recent analysis featured in the Washington Post finds that, by several measures, there has been little progress in the black-white economic divide since the 1960s.

For instance, in 1968, a middle class white person had on average $70,786 in wealth, compared to a middle class black person's $6,674—or about 10 times more. In 2016, the average middle class white person had about $149,703, while a middle class black person had about $13,024—or about 11 times more. The Post noted that wealth takes into account not just the wages that people earn for work, but homes, stock-market investments and other assets, all of which can theoretically be passed down to new generations.

The gap persists regardless of education levels. For example, among those with advanced degrees, the black-white wealth gap was $100,000 to $600,000. Meanwhile, a black person with either an advanced degree or a bachelor's degree will still have less wealth on average than a white person with only a partial college education. The most equal are those who have no high school degree, but even there, white people still have slightly more wealth.

This wealth gap collides with the fact that the black community has been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Post noted that, right now, only 48.9 percent of black adults are still employed amid widespread layoffs and furloughs. While joblessness abounds all over, black people nonetheless seem to have borne the brunt. The Post also noted that black business owners have been forced to shut down due to the pandemic at a rate twice that of white business owners, and many of these business are unlikely to reopen.