In the light of an increased numbers of shootings involving black Americans at the hands of white police officers, 24/7 Wall St. has done an index of the worst cities in the United States for black Americans and the results are interesting to say the least.
Before we get into the actual ranking, we should say a thing or two about the methodology that was used to come up with the index. The people who did the index took into consideration eight different measures. They looked to the U.S. Census Bureau for the latest (2014) numbers on median household income, homeownership rates, unemployment rates, poverty and the high school and bachelor’s degree attainment rates.
They also looked at latest The Sentencing Project’s incarceration rates. In addition to this, they also factored in the age-adjusted mortality rates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the period between 2009 and 2013, the latest available. It should also be pointed out that metro areas with less than 5 percent of black residents were not included in making the index.
According to this index, the absolute worst city for black Americans in the U.S. is the Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis metro area in Michigan. In this metro area, the percentage of unemployment of black Americans is more than 17 percent, whereas while the median unemployment rate in the area is only 6 percent. High school attainment is also extremely skewed, with almost 95 percent of white people finish high school and only slightly above 80 percent of black people. White area households reported a median income of over $60,000 while black area households reported only $25,646.
Rockford, Illinois is the second worst city for black Americans according to 24/7 Wall St. with an even more dramatic difference in unemployment figures. Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI is the third worst city with median household income difference being among the greatest in the country.
The next two metro areas on the list are the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI at #4 and Grand Rapids-Wyoming, MI in #5. Peoria, Illinois; Lima, Ohio; Kankakee, Illinois; Des Moines-West Des Moines, Iowa and Waterloo-Cedar Falls, Iowa round off the top 10.
You have probably already worked out for yourself that all of these cities, literally ALL of them are in the Midwest. Keep in mind that the entire country was subjected to this study. We leave it to someone smarter than us to elaborate on this.
