In recent years, the net worth of minority households have plummeted drastically. Photo: Pew Research Center

Equality has been one of the defining tenets of the United States since its establishment. Yet it's disparity, not equality, that is on the rise.

According to data recently analyzed by Pew Research Center, the wealth gap in the U.S. has grown drastically in the past few years. More disturbingly, these wealth disparities are not just between the traditional categories of rich and poor but between whites and minority groups.

The Pew Research Center report, based on 2009 figures, indicates that "the median wealth of white households is 20 times greater than that of black households and 18 times greater than that of Hispanic households." It also acknowledges that the housing bubble and subsequent Great Recession are somewhat to blame, as the crises had "a far greater toll on the wealth of minorities than whites."

For minorities, things have been getting worse fast. Check out the declines in net worth of minority households between 2005 and 2009 (See graph above). Since 2005, they've all more than halved while the net worth of white households — already the highest total — fell by only about 16 percent. Why have minorities seen greater declines in wealth than whites? The answer is two-fold, says the Pew Research Center: different investment choices and regional demographics.

Minority households experienced greater losses because they are more dependent on home equity as a source of wealth. As noted above, housing values started to fall sooner than stock prices and, unlike the stock market, the housing market has not begun to recover. Hispanics and Asians were further affected because they are disproportionately likely to reside in states that have been among the hardest hit by the housing crisis: California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona.

Reliance on a singular financial asset, such as a house, increases risk of losing everything and that's just what happened. Families lost everything — their homes, their one major financial holding. In fact, it seems that the system is slated against those less wealthy. Instead of easing the burden on lower income families, enabling them to make sound financial decisions, and helping to improve their economic status, many U.S. policies favor the wealthy. And lower income families are not getting their due even after lifetime contributions to public programs like social security, according to an article from Forbes

While the income inequality between whites and minorities has fallen over the years, the wealth gap has remained large, says The Washington Post. And there are no breaks for the poor. After coughing up 12.4 percent of their income for social security and paying years upon years on home mortgages, these hardworking Americans now have little to show for it. Is that what we mean by equality?