For over a decade, the Prosperity Now Scorecard has stood as a trusted online data and advocacy tool. The Scorecard brings data to the center of discussions on how we can build an economy that works for everyone, with information on household financial health, racial economic inequality, and the policy landscape. For our 2023 release, the Scorecard highlights the realities that communities faced throughout the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impacts of an economic system with deep-seated structural barriers to collective prosperity. It also validates our faith in the possibility for radical economic change.  

The data show that positive change and persistent structural inequalities co-exist. 

While we can celebrate the narrowing of the national homeownership gap and the national household income gap between White households and households of color, these are only pieces of what makes up the total wealth of a household. Net worth is a more comprehensive measure that we look at on the Scorecard to gain insight into wealth today.  

Over the past five years, net worth in the United States has increased. However, this increase has not been equitably shared by all racial and ethnic groups, and the success of this trend is undermined by a persistent gap between the higher net worth of White households compared to households of color. Closing this gap is crucial to achieving racial wealth equity. The persistent wealth gap shows that each state must be given the right tools to be able to identify economic inequality and address it at its source. 

So, this time, we’re doing some things differently. 

The Scorecard is built upon two things – data and insights. Traditionally, Scorecard data has been presented by ranking states against each other to show how well states are achieving comparatively equitable outcomes for all residents.  But all states have work to do, and all states are functioning under different circumstances.  

To address this, the 2023 Scorecard speaks to these differences, giving each state the insight they need to prosper. By showing how each individual state changes over time, the 2023 Scorecard is positioned to show which states are successfully advancing racial economic justice for all residents (regardless of where they started), and which states allow racial inequality to remain unchanged.  

This year, we are also putting the numbers in greater context. 

Our Applied Research team works hard to make sure that all our data is accurate, reputable, and best able to serve communities. However, we are often limited by the sample sizes of available data. One of the ways we are communicating data reliability is with margins of error that tell us how much we can trust the numbers. Larger margins of error tell us we should be less confident that the data accurately represents the population, and smaller margins of error tell us that we have a more precise representation of the whole population. Including margins of error on the Scorecard is one more tool we have added in 2023 to ensure users can be informed and effective advocates for racial economic justice.  

We’re just getting started! 

Prosperity Now has been a steward of economic empowerment for over 40 years, but it is our commitment to racial economic equity and the persistence of structural barriers that drives us forward. This is the mission that drew me to join Prosperity Now’s Applied Research team, and that motivates our team to tell the story of wealth in America through data and findings. Be on the lookout this year for some exciting news on the long-term direction of the Scorecard that will help us provide even more targeted insights to guide every state down the road to prosperity!