Although the Great Recession hurt a vast majority of Americans, a new study shows that white Americans are recovering at a much faster pace compared to blacks and Hispanics, who are still suffering from the 2008 economic meltdown.

As a result, the wealth gap has widened along racial and ethnic lines.

According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, the median net worth of wealth among white households has grown 13 times more than black households and 10 times more than Hispanic households from 2007 to 2013.

That means that whites own $13 for every $1 held by African-Americans, increasing the level of inequality to its highest point since 1989, when the white-black gap was 17 to 1, notes Pew researchers Rakesh Kochhar and Richard Fry. Meanwhile, the white-to-Hispanic wealth ratio just over 10 to 1, a level not seen since 2001.

Back in 2007, the median net worth of white households stood at $192,500. That figure then declined during the recession to $141,900 by 2013. However, blacks lost even more, starting at $19,200 in 2007 and falling to $11,000 in 2013, while the mean for Hispanic households dropped from $23,600 in 2007 to $13,700 in 2013.

One factor for the expanding racial wealth gap is that fact that whites are much more likely to own stocks and other financial assets, which have made rapid gains in recent years.

Plus, the home ownership rate for minorities fell from 50.6 percent in 2010, to 47.4 percent in 2012. In comparison, for whites it only slipped from 75.3 percent to 73.9 percent.

Another cause of the widening of the wealth gap is the fact that the median income of minority households fell 9 percent from its 2010 to 2013, compared with a decrease of 1 percent for white households.

"Thus, minority households may not have replenished their savings as much as white households or they may have had to draw down their savings even more during the recovery," states Pew.