Unveiling Inequities: Visualizing Wealth Disparities in America, City by City

The Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy at The New School has partnered with Graphicacy to transform their extensive data on racial wealth disparities into compelling visual narratives. Through innovative scrollytelling, data visualization and motion graphic videos, Graphicacy worked to make this critical information accessible to a wider audience.

As the founding director of the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School, Dr. Darrick Hamilton has dedicated his career to examining how unjust social stratification impacts both individuals and communities.

Since 2014, the Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy has amassed a mountain of research and published numerous studies detailing the structural inequalities affecting this massive wealth gap, based on race and ethnicity.

Dr. Hamilton and the Institute had conducted their insightful research in several cities, but they wanted to make the roughly 50-page reports more accessible and digestible to a general audience. They turned to Graphicacy to develop a visually engaging website, bringing more than 10 years of research to life and illuminating the differences in the wealth divide across select American cities through the Color of Wealth.

Chicago Provides the Starting Point

Dr. Hamilton approached Graphicacy to work with the Institute after he saw a project in development that will launch in 2026 with the Stone Center for Inequality Dynamics at the University of Michigan.

“Our team was excited about the opportunity to partner with Dr. Hamilton to share the intricate story of racial wealth disparities, based on the impactful research in the Color of Wealth reports. By using visual storytelling and data visualization, there was the potential to make key data points more accessible and engaging for a broader audience.” said Carni Klirs, Creative Director, Data Visualization at Graphicacy.

Originally, the Institute only wanted Graphicacy to create Color of Wealth visualizations for their Chicago report. But as their collaboration thrived, Dr. Hamilton asked Graphicacy to apply their digital storytelling expertise to six more cities’ reports:

• Baltimore
• Boston
• Los Angeles
• Miami
• Tulsa
• Washington, DC

Graphicacy created a dynamic visual home for the research at Colorofwealth.org.

While the site focuses on seven cities for now, “we’ve been so pleased with the results that the new goal is to scale nationally,” said Dr. Suparna Bhaskaran, a cultural anthropologist and the Director of Research Partnerships at the Institute who’s worked on the Chicago Color of Wealth project since the beginning.

Visualizing Wealth Disparities

The Color of Wealth project sets itself apart from other studies by focusing on specific, location-based racial and ethnic wealth rather than income.

Moreover, nationwide data sets about racial and ethnic wealth don’t examine the historical or structural causes for the disparities. “There’s scant information on such wealth that captures it effectively, at a granular level,” Suparna said.

“Wealth is a very important indicator. More than income, it’s wealth that determines someone’s ability to make investments in the future, pursue higher education, or buy a house,” said Elaine Chang, the Director of Technological Innovation for Justice at the Institute.

“We’ve found we can paint a more precise and telling picture by focusing on a specific place, with a specific racial history, and collecting very detailed data, not just about wealth position but education, debt, home values, all these nuanced aspects,” Elaine said.

“People are pursuing the American dream,” she continued. “But that dream isn’t the same for everybody.”

To illustrate the structural and historical context for these wealth disparities in Chicago, Graphicacy “kept the message simple and clear with bar charts,” Carni said. “And to help people interpret more meaningfully, we added little touches like dynamic color coding and shading.”

“Likewise, arrows show gaps between wealth amounts compared to the overall population of a city,” Carni continued. “It’s clean and easy to navigate, read, and understand.

“Having the charts with animations and the takeaways right next to them matches our needs exactly,” Elaine added. “Carni and his team made this research not only accessible but highly engaging.”

Creating a Shareable to Expand Reach

As the launch day for the Color of Wealth website approached, the Graphicacy team partnered with the Institute’s communications team to help get the word out and connect with a larger audience: a short collage-style, motion graphic video that recaps the Chicago story in under two minutes.

The idea came about “organically, following discussions on how we could help the Institute with social media shareables,” said Jeffrey Osborn, Creative Director, Visual Storytelling at Graphicacy. “We saw video as just the right medium for further sharing of this story in a very engaging and accessible way, so we offered it to them despite having little time.”

Working with their animation and editing partner, Margaret To, under a tight deadline, Graphicacy created a video that concisely explains the difference between wealth and income, adds in supporting data visualization and humanizing historical context, and ends on a hopeful note.

Rather than hire a voice actor for the narration, Graphicacy enlisted Dr. Hamilton, who was able to add details and thoughtful emphasis to portions of the script. “He’s the voice and face of the Institute, so it helped personalize the message,” Jeffrey said.

“Graphicacy’s brief video smartly captures the essence of key points from our 55-plus page report,” said Dr. Bhaskaran. “It not only transmits the information concisely, but its powerful visualizations help people understand — and hopefully inspires them to act.”

Graphicacy’s motion graphic video collaborators: Margaret To — Director / Designer / Animator, Kari Pieterse, — Animator, Tomas Wischerath — Sound Designer / Engineer

Graphicacy helps organizations like yours tell informative, provocative, inspiring stories using facts, figures, and trends to show audiences why your mission matters — and what their role is in the fight.

That’s the power of visual storytelling. It draws people in and connects them to the issue and your work on an emotional level. It creates an experience they can’t look away from. And it invites them to do something about it.

Graphicacy has created data visualizations and infographics for top-tier organizations and companies, domestically and internationally, including the Pew Charitable Trust, Everytown for Gun Safety, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and many others.