Persistent skin tone and wealth stratification among new immigrants in the United States

This study builds upon recent research on skin tone inequality in the United States that explored the relationship between skin tone and wealth. One of the issues we know little about is how the skin tone-wealth relationship may have changed over time, both for net worth and particular investments. To address this gap, we use the New Immigrant Survey 2003 and 2007 and document the persistence of skin-tone inequality for wealth over time, which stands in contrast to prior work on income that found skin-tone inequality worsened over time. The central advantage of expanding our understanding of immigrants' financial well-being to include wealth is that it provides a broader perspective of the monetary resources that immigrants accrue. And with this perspective, the larger financial picture provided by a focus on wealth suggests that, although skin-tone inequality has persisted over time, it has not grown worse.