The cities where African-Americans are doing the best economically
Atlanta ranks number 1 in 2014 as best city for African-Americans
The U.S. may have its first black president, but these have not been the best
of times for African-Americans. Recent shootings of unarmed black teenagers
and the murder of two New York City police officers have inflamed racial
tensions. A Bloomberg poll in December found that 53% of respondents
believed that race relations have declined since Obama was elected in 2008.
Even if the results were not skewed by the immediate, impassioned
responses to the recent tragedies, the persistent economic gap between
whites and blacks is a more serious and deep-rooted problem. The
unemployment rate for African-Americans stood at 10.4% in December, more
than twice that of whites, as it has been formost of the past 40 years.
Blacks’ real median household income ticked up to $34,598 in 2013, roughly
59% that of whites’, a ratio that has also not varied much since the Census
Bureau began tracking this data in 1967.
Where African-Americans took a significant step back in recent years was in
household wealth, which plunged 31% during the recession, including a steep
35% decline in their retirement assets, which the Urban Institute suggests
was partially due to the unemployed drawing down savings to cover living
expenses. The wealth of white families fell a comparatively mild 11% from
2007-10.
Yet economic conditions for African-Americans vary widely throughout the
country. We decided to look into which of America’s 52 largest metropolitan
areas present African-Americans with the best opportunities.
We weighed these metropolitan statistical areas by three critical factors —
homeownership, entrepreneurship, as measured by the self-employment
rate, and median household income — that we believe are indicators of
middle-class success. Data for those is from 2013. In addition, we added a
fourth category, demographic trends, measuring the change in the African-
American population from 2000 to 2013 in these metro areas, to judge how
the community is “voting with its feet.” Each factor was given equal weight.
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Source:
www.newgeography.com
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