Calculating the wide racial wealth gap on this Juneteenth.

From Marketplace, I'm Nancy Marshall Genser in for David Boncaccio.

This Juneteenth, we're taking a look at the racial wealth gap in the United States.

A Census Bureau report from earlier this year found that in 2021,

white households were 10 times wealthier than black households.

Let's look now at efforts to close the gap.

Kizia Williams is CEO of the Black Upstart, a program to support black

entrepreneurs. She joins me now. Kizia, part of the racial wealth gap is a gap in business ownership. Is that what you've seen?

Absolutely. One of the statistics that we teach with the Black Up Start is that currently there are 3.12 million black entrepreneurs,

but only 134,000 of them have the capacity to employ at least one person.

And those 134,000 black-owned employers

employed just 1.3 million people.

And so when we look at those numbers,

African-Americans are one of the only groups that don't produce the same amount of jobs that is proportional to the percentage of our population which is around 13%.

So there is a deficit there, but there has also been studies that have been incredibly

encouraging, such as black women are the fastest growing segment of entrepreneurs.

Why are black women right now more likely to start a business?

Black women are receiving more education and so we're going into those white collar jobs which

by the way is not easy to get. I've never been called back for an interview with my

full name on a resume so So my full name, K,

just to get a call back. I've never gotten through the final round of an interview

with my natural hair out. My hair has always had to be straight in order to get across that that finish line.

...