When it comes to building wealth, whites have a vast advantage over their black and Hispanic peers. Writing at Demos, Matt Bruenig dug into the Federal Reserve's latest Survey on Consumer Finances and found a huge wealth gap by race and ethnicity.

In fact, whites are so advantaged that the median wealth among white families headed by someone with less than a high school diploma ($51,300) is larger than that for black families headed by someone with a college degree ($25,900) and Hispanic families with a college degree ($41,000).

White non-Hispanics also fared better than their minority counterparts between 2010 and 2013. According to the Fed's 2013 survey, the median net worth for white non-Hispanic families held steady, growing by only 2 percent, while the median net worth for non-white or hispanic families fell by 17 percent.