The urgent national conversation about racial inequality has taken center-stage once more in recent weeks, as protests against police brutality and racism have erupted across the U.S. in response to the death of George Floyd May 25 in Minneapolis.
However, it’s not just in law-enforcement where discrimination rears its head. A recent study found that only 3.2 percent of executive or senior-level positions are occupied by African-Americans, even though that demographic comprises 13 percent of the U.S. population. The overall black unemployment rate is consistently higher than the white unemployment rate, as well.
A new survey by the personal-finance website WalletHub ranks the 50 states and the District of Columbia in terms of employment and wealth. Its data points compare white and black Americans in measures including annual income, unemployment rates, home ownership (used as a proxy metric for wealth) and other key metrics that used data from the US. Bureau of the Census.
Overall, Connecticut ranked No. 34 nationally among states with the highest measurements of economic racial equality. The highest-ranking state was New Mexico, while the District of Columbia ranked lowest among the 51 measured political units. No New England states ranked in the top or bottom ten except for Vermont, which WalletHub ranked No. 8 for highest economic equality among the races.
The WalletHub survey measured the median annual income gap between black and white households, labor-force participation rates, unemployment rates, the home-ownership rate gaps, poverty rates by state and rates of homelessness.
The entire survey and its methodology may be viewed HERE.
