Income Inequality Still a Serious Problem
There was no severe decline when it came to the income inequality index, but there was also a lack of progress. “The Black-White Income Equality Index rankings were relatively stable between 2014 and 2015,” the report explained of its extensive list of major cities ranked by income inequality. In some communities, Black household income tumbled by more than 5 percent. Even in the best cities for income equality “the median Black household [had] 71 cents for every dollar of median white household income.” Other cities had even lower numbers where the gap equated to Black residents only having 42 cents on the dollar when compared to their white counterparts.
Black Citizens Disproportionately Unemployed in Metro Areas
Many metro areas have significant numbers of Black residents, but many of these residents are left struggling to find work. The State of Black America report looked at several major metro cities across the nation and found that employment inequality was a problem that plagued many of these cities. “With an index of 65 percent, the smallest Black-White unemployment gap was in the Providence-Warwick, RI-MA metro area where the Black unemployment rate was 13 percent and the white rate was 8.5 percent,” the study reads. These troubling numbers are a part of why economic progress has been slow based on these reports.
