Black Lives Matter protesters gather in Wade Park to protest for Black lives and against US President Donald Trump ahead of the first presidential debate on September 29, 2020 in Cleveland, Ohio. (AFP photo)

The average wealth of Black families is less than 15 percent of White families, says the US Federal Reserve.

The revelation came in new data from the Federal Reserve Board’s triennial Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) released Tuesday.

The median wealth of white families was $188,200, compared with only $24,100 for Black families.

Among families in which the survey respondent identifies as white non-Hispanic, income is substantially higher than for all three other race and ethnic groups-Black non-Hispanic, Hispanic, and other or multiple race families, the report said.

This is while the US could add about $5 trillion to its gross domestic product (GDP) over the next five years if it addressed the gap between the Blacks and Whites, according to a CitiBank report released earlier this month.

Our overarching goal for the Citi GPS series is not only to tackle the key opportunities and challenges of the 21st century, but also to address complex societal questions and to not shy away from difficult subjects, said Citi Vice Chairman Raymond J McGuire. As such, we believe we have a responsibility to address current events and to frame them with an economic lens in order to highlight the real costs of longstanding discrimination against minority groups, especially against Black people and particularly in the US.

The latest report was released as the country’s African Americans were fighting against rampant police brutality and racial injustice in an election year.