According to the Pew Research Center, the median net worth — that's assets minus debts — of black households decreased by more than 50 percent from 2005 to 2009.
NPR's Robert Siegel traveled to Atlanta — a city that's virtually synonymous with the black middle class — to find out what those numbers mean in the lives of real people. He started in Fairburn, Ga., a cul-de-sac and two-car garage suburb just south of the city.
