What would close the gap
Eight paths to 2100, one change at a time
Black median household wealth for every dollar of White, 2022 to 2100, in 120 paired runs of a microsimulation that gives every adult a health state. The line is the median run; the shading is where 90% of runs fall. Keep scrolling.
- This step’s path, median run
- 90% of runs
- Earlier steps
- 0.9: the gap counts as closed
1 of 8 · Current conditions
0.21in 2100
The median Black household holds 15 cents for every dollar the median White household holds. Leave everything as it is, and the model’s households drift to 21 cents by 2100.
2 of 8 · Survival parity
1%of the gap
Give Black adults White death rates within each state of health. Fewer deaths, more years to earn and save: about one cent.
3 of 8 · Health parity
8%of the gap
Give them White rates of chronic illness and disability too. Health works through earnings, disability benefits, medical bills, caregiving, and deaths at once: worth a one-time $177,000 per household.
4 of 8 · Social Security levers
3%of the gap
Three Social Security changes, at about $21,500 per Black household-year, most of it paid to White beneficiaries: a few cents.
5 of 8 · Wealth levers
10%of the gap
Equal portfolios, equal fees and interest, matched saving, and the housing-distress return gap closed: almost all of it from the distress gap.
6 of 8 · Every recurring lever
0.58in 2100
All of it together, saving parity included and no one-time payment: 58 cents on the dollar in 2100. With the fitted saving rates kept, 32 cents. In no run does the gap close.
7 of 8 · Plus the earnings residual
2071the gap closes
Close the part of the earnings gap that health does not explain, and the median run crosses 0.9 in 2071. Earnings is the term nothing else replaces.
8 of 8 · A one-time $250,000 transfer
0.40in 2050, 0.21 in 2100
A $250,000 payment to every Black household in 2030, with nothing else changed, buys 40 cents by 2050 and is gone by 2100. Capital without the recurring conditions does not hold.
Each lever on its own
Health is a wealth lever. Social Security is not, for this gap.
The share of the 2022 gap in log median wealth each lever closes by 2100, run by run against the same draw’s baseline. The housing-distress return gap is worth 10% with the other wealth levers; the three Social Security changes 3% at about $21,500 per Black household-year.
- Share of the log gap closed, median across runs
- 5th to 95th percentile across runs
- Reference path or calibrated residual
Each lever on its own, as a run-by-run difference from the same draw's baseline. Saving parity equalizes the model's fitted base saving rates (14.8% for Black and 20.9% for White households), a residual that absorbs what the model leaves out, not a measured condition.
Build a route
Switch the lever groups on and off and read what that route does
Every one of the 128 combinations of the seven lever groups was run on the same 24 draws. Each switch shows what it adds to, or takes from, the share of the gap closed by 2100 given what is already on.
6 of 7 lever groups · ratio of Black to White median wealth in 2100
0.560.46–0.73 in 90% of runs
No run reaches 0.9 by 2100.
- Your route, median run and 90% band
- Current conditions
- All seven groups
- Log gap closed by 2100
- 57%
- Runs at 0.9 in 2100
- 0%
- Median run crosses 0.9
- never
- Public cost per Black household-year
- $21,400
The grid uses 24 draws of 8,000 households per combination, against 120 draws of 20,000 for the paths above, so a combination’s numbers can differ by a point or two from the same path there.
The paper
Years and Dollars: Longevity and the Black–White Wealth Gap in the United States
How to cite
Kirk D, Farrar S. Years and Dollars: Longevity and the Black–White Wealth Gap in the United States. Working paper, v2.1. The Understanding Company, Detroit, MI; October 2026.
Bands are 5th to 95th percentiles across runs (parameter and Monte Carlo draws; calibration and survey sampling are held fixed). Dollars are real 2024 dollars. The saving-parity lever equalizes a calibrated residual, not a measured condition; the story shows the path with and without it.