The article says that this was a one time lucky happenstance and that things will go back to the way it has been historically. It says that black households didn’t get as hard hit in the pandemic because they lack substancial diversified investments, and that did nothing to lower the racial wealth gap.

From your article:

“A blip?

Experts cautioned that just one study focusing on a short time frame might not represent a sustainable bridging of the racial wealth gap.”

“I don’t think it signifies any true bridging in racial wealth inequality,” Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, chief of organizing, policy and equity at National Community Reinvestment Coalition, said in an interview. “What we want to see is substantial homeownership increases, long-term home value increases, income and maybe in 401(k)s and stocks.”

Meanwhile, any progress seen during recent years could be unwound if the economy is tipped into a recession on the back of aggressive rate hikes.

“If we do have a recession this year, I think that’s going to reverse some of it,” Bryson said. “Historically, the gap between the Black and non-Black unemployment rate tends to rise as the economy enters recession.”

“One factor contributing to the slight shrinking in the wealth gap is actually the fact that the assets of Black households are much less diversified.”

“Because of their lower exposure to the stock market, Black Americans didn’t experience huge fluctuations in their equity holdings amid the wild swings on Wall Street in 2022. The S&P 500 tumbled nearly 20% last year for its worst annual loss since 2008.”

This is similar to how the original study shows a significant decrease in the racial wage gap during the 2008 recession. it wasnt correlated with any significant economic gain in the black community, but simply a reflection of the fact that they had less to lose.