captured by neighborhood level markers of economic hardship, social disorder and concentrated disadvantage (Wilson 1990; Massey and Denton 1993). Other sociological research has called attention to large racial/ethnic inequalities in wealth and in documenting that these gaps reflect, at least in part, the historical legacy of institutional discrimination (Conley 1999; Oliver and Shapiro 2006). While income captures the flow of economic resources (such as wages) into the household, wealth captures the economic reserves that are reflected in savings, home equity, and other financial assets. National data reveal, that for every dollar of wealth that white individuals have, blacks have 9 cents and Hispanics have 12 cents (Orzechowski 2003). These striking disparities exist at every level of income. For example, for every dollar of wealth that poor whites in the lowest quintile of income have, poor blacks have one penny and poor Latinos have two pennies.
