A new statewide survey of Massachusetts households has found that the median family net worth sits at $374,000 — but that headline number masks a chasm along racial lines, with white families holding a median net wealth of $549,200 compared to just $7,800 for Black families and $1,200 for Latino families. Nearly one-third of Black families in the state reported zero or negative wealth, according to the survey, and roughly 40 percent of Massachusetts renters fall into that same category, compared to just 1 percent of homeowning families.
The findings come from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's 2025 Mass ECHOS report, which surveyed more than 5,000 Massachusetts residents between March and December of last year in partnership with The Boston Foundation, the Barr Foundation, the Eastern Bank Foundation, and the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The study examined both assets and debts in a single dataset, and as reported by The Boston Globe, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander families in the state reported a median net wealth of $305,000, though that group also showed steep internal variation — with net wealth at or below $14,200 for those at the 25th percentile.
Homeownership Emerges as the Dividing Line
The Boston Fed study found that living in a rural area, owning a home, and holding a graduate degree were all associated with high net wealth. Homeowners statewide held an estimated median family net wealth of $790,500 in 2025, more than double the statewide median, according to the same Federal Reserve Bank of Boston report. Rural families reported median net wealth of $465,000, while city-dwelling families reported just $110,000, per the Globe's reporting.
Homeownership rates themselves diverge sharply along racial lines. White households in Massachusetts owned homes at a rate of 70 percent, compared with 39 percent for Black households and 32 percent for Latino households, per census data cited by the Globe. Black and Latino families statewide reported being unable to cover a $400 unexpected expense, and Massachusetts families overall lack enough money on hand to cover that same emergency cost.
A 29-Year-Old Security Guard's Story
Samuel Gomes Rodrigues Jr., a 29-year-old Northeastern University security guard who earns $800 per week and lives with his parents in Brockton, told the Globe that the plight of people of color is too often blamed on people of color themselves. His circumstances echo a broader pattern researchers found: educational attainment tracks closely with wealth, as Massachusetts residents holding a graduate degree reported a median family net wealth of $947,400 and earned roughly double the income of those with only a bachelor's degree, according to GBH.
Nicole Obi said that $7,800 in median wealth is not enough to start a business or earn a college degree without debilitating debt, the Globe reported. Andre Perry put the dynamic more bluntly, telling the paper that wealth begets wealth. Tom Callahan said racist lending policies contributed to the racial wealth disparities documented in the survey, while Pablo Willis said Latino families have been hit especially hard by rising living costs and stagnant wages. Belinda Román added that language and financial literacy challenges affect many Latino households navigating these same pressures.
How This Compares to the 2015 Study
The Mass ECHOS report updates the themes of the Boston Fed's widely cited 2015 “Color of Wealth in Boston” study, which famously reported a median net worth of just $8 for U.S.-born Black Bostonians and sparked years of public debate. But researchers emphasized that the two surveys used differing methodologies, meaning the results cannot be directly compared to calculate a statistical trend over the past decade, per the same Boston Fed report as relayed by GBH. James Jennings said closing the racial wealth gap will require improvements not just in homeownership but in education, jobs, and healthcare, the Globe reported.
The disparities aren't confined to Massachusetts. Nationally, Black families had median wealth of roughly $45,000 in 2022 and Latino families had $62,000, compared with $285,000 for white people and $536,000 for Asian people, according to the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances cited by the Globe. An Americans for Tax Fairness analysis found that Latino wealth as a share of national wealth declined more than 20 percent between 2016 and 2025. Black adults nationally were also more likely to experience layoffs last year and reported a decline in financial well-being, while the federal budget package known as the “big beautiful bill” cut Medicaid, SNAP, and Pell Grants while providing tax benefits to wealthy families, per the Globe's reporting.
Business Leaders Push for a Housing Crisis Declaration
Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce CEO Jim Rooney called the divide “the proverbial tale of two economies,” according to the Globe, and has publicly called on state policymakers to formally declare a housing crisis in Massachusetts following the release of the wealth data, per GBH. Regional business leaders argue that severe housing unaffordability is driving outmigration among younger residents and deepening racial wealth gaps, GBH reported. Massachusetts lost more than 100,000 residents to domestic outmigration between 2021 and 2023, driven primarily by high regional housing costs, according to Boston Indicators data cited by the Affordable Housing Month Association.
The cost pressures are well documented elsewhere. Massachusetts homeowners with a mortgage paid a median monthly housing cost of $2,755 in 2024, ranking among the five highest such costs in the nation, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Meanwhile, a MassINC Policy Center analysis found that less than half of residents in the state's 26 Gateway Cities owned their homes as of 2023, with renter-occupied housing growth outstripping new owner-occupied units over the prior decade.
City Hall's Response
In Boston specifically, local homeownership rates stood at 30 percent for Black households and 17 percent for Latino households as of mid-2025, compared to 44 percent for white households, according to Boston.gov, with median home prices in Greater Boston approaching $1 million around the same time. The city designated $3.1 million for housing stabilization and down payment assistance and set aside $10 million within its $110 million Accelerator Fund specifically for homeownership projects in its fiscal year 2026 budget, per the city's own accounting.
The Boston Fed report's authors wrote that the findings can help move the state “toward an economy in which everyone has a chance to participate and contribute,” per the report itself. The Boston Fed also found wide socioeconomic disparities within ethnic groups, not just between them — a nuance researchers say complicates any simple narrative about which communities are struggling and why.
