A biennial analysis of data on Wisconsin's economy
offers a grim view of growing disparities between white and black
residents. "Our state is a relatively good state for white people,"
said Laura Dresser, research director of the center and co-author of
the report. "Our state is a relatively bad state for black people." In
fact, on several measures, Wisconsin has the largest gaps between white
and black residents in the country, according to the report, including:
Child poverty. In 2000, African-American children were six times more
likely than white children to be living in poverty, a higher rate than
in any other state, exceeded only by Washington, D.C. Milwaukee
poverty. Nearly a third of Milwaukee's black residents lived in
poverty, seven times higher than the rate for white Milwaukeeans - a
greater disparity than in any other U.S. metropolitan area. Education.
The gaps in math and reading test scores between black and white
eighth-graders were larger in Wisconsin than in any other state in
2003. Wisconsin eighth-graders also had the biggest racial difference
for scores on the national science test when it was last administered
in 1996. Incarceration. In 2001, 4,058 of every 100,000 black residents
in Wisconsin were in prison, the highest rate in the nation.
Unemployment. Wisconsin's black residents had an unemployment rate of
19% in 2002, four times higher than the rate for white residents, the
biggest divergence in the country. [more ]
Survey indicates people in Milwaukee area choose segregation [more ]
Thomas
M. Shapiro, a professor at
Brandeis University, says racial inequality is increasing. The
average black family, Shapiro reports, has 10 cents worth of wealth for
every dollar that whites have. Blacks as a group are poorer than
Hispanics. They are far poorer than
Asians, who are at the same economic level as whites or higher. [more]
]
