The median net worth of white households is 20 times greater than that of black households and 18 times greater than that of Latino households, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center, which attributes the increase to the decline in the housing market and the ensuing recession. From 2005 to 2009, inflation-adjusted median wealth fell by 66 percent among Latino households and 53 percent among black households, compared with just 16 percent among white households. From Pew:

As a result of these declines, the typical black household had just $5,677 in wealth (assets minus debts) in 2009, the typical Hispanic household had $6,325 in wealth and the typical white household had $113,149.

Moreover, about a third of black (35 percent) and Hispanic (3 percent) households had zero or negative net worth in 2009, compared with 15 percent of white households. In 2005, the comparable shares had been 29 percent for blacks, 23 percent for Hispanics and 11 percent for whites.

Further, “these lopsided wealth ratios are the largest since the government began publishing such data a quarter century ago.”

Wealth, or net worth, refers to an individual’s or a family’s total assets, such as bank account balances, savings and real estate, minus total liabilities, such as mortgages, debt and outstanding medical bills. As the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) points out, “along with wages and income, wealth is another key measure of economic security and well-being since it strengthens a family’s ability to withstand job loss or other economic distress.”

As EPI reported earlier this year, the richest 5 percent in the United States now own 65 percent of the nation’s wealth—making the wealth gap even more unequal here than the already gaping income gap.