Watch CBS News

Twin Cities Ranked As 4th Worst Place For Black Americans

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The Twin Cities has again been ranked the fourth worst metropolitan area in the nation for black Americans.

That's according to the financial news website 24/7 Wall St., which recently released an article identifying the 15 worst cities for black Americans.

"24/7 Wall St. ranked the nation's metropolitan areas based on racial disparities in income, education, health, incarceration, and white-black achievement gaps in other socioeconomic outcomes using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics," the website said.

The study found that the typical black household in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis, St. Paul and Bloomington) earns $34,174 a year. That is 43.4% of the median income of a typical white household in the metro, which is $78,706. Typical white households in the metro actually make $17,000 more than the $61,363 national figure for white households.

"While white residents of the Twin Cities metro area are better off than white Americans nationwide in a number of measures, the area's black population is worse off by several metrics compared to the black population nationwide," the study said.

While 95.9% of white adults in the metro area have a high school diploma (the largest share of any city in the country according to the study), just 82.2% of black adults in the metro area do. That's below the national black high school attainment rate of 84.9%.

Another notable statistic is that 10.3% of black Americans are unemployed in the Twin Cities, compared to 3.6% of white Americans.

The top three worst cities were ranked respectively as follows: Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis (Wisconsin), Racine (Wisconsin) and Waterloo-Cedar Falls (Iowa).

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.