ACT Rochester recently released a report, titled “Hard Facts,” that examined racial disparities in the Rochester region. The report’s findings were stark and troublesome. Across a broad range of different indicators (including health, education, income, and life expectancy), black and Hispanic residents in the Rochester region fare far worse than whites. And the Rochester region has greater disparities, and worse outcomes, than New York State and the United States.
But in contrast to prior reports issued by ACT Rochester that explored poverty in the Rochester region (with a particular focus on the City of Rochester), this study did not identify or assess any comparison geographies. I decided to analyze American Community Survey poverty data, and compare the Rochester region to other communities with at least 10,000 black residents. If one looks at the rate of African-American poverty in the Rochester region relative to other Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) in the United States, a clear pattern emerges.
On at least one key indicator (poverty), the African-American poverty rate in the Rochester region is quite similar to the rate found in other Upstate cities. The difference between Rochester and New York State is largely due to Rochester sharing a state with New York City. The African-American poverty rate in New York City is 21%, substantially lower than the mid-30%’s found in Upstate MSAs.
More broadly, African-American poverty rates are highest in the rural South and the Rust Belt North. The high poverty rate among blacks in Rochester is similar to the rate found across the Midwest and Upstate New York.
The ratio of black-to-white poverty (black poverty rate divided by white poverty rate) is another important measure of racial disparity in a community. Regions with higher poverty ratios are more economically segregated than those with ratios closer to one. Rust Belt communities such as Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Buffalo have some of the highest ratios of black-to-white poverty in the Country. Somewhat surprisingly (to me at least) the Minneapolis-St. Paul MSA had the highest racial disparity of any MSA with at least 10,000 black residents. This is somewhat explained by the extremely low rate of white poverty in that community (just under 7%), but it remains troubling that black residents do not share in the overall affluence of that region. In the visualization below, regions with higher black poverty are shaded dark red, while those with low black poverty are shaded green.
As noted above, the highest rates of black poverty are found in the rural South and the post-industrial Midwest (stretching across the Erie Canal to Albany). And those regions also have the greatest racial disparities in poverty. But what about those regions with comparably lower racial disparities in poverty? The lowest Black poverty rates (while still high compared to whites) seem to be found in growth regions of the country. The Eastern Seaboard, most of the West Coast, Denver, much of Texas, Nashville, and Atlanta all have Black poverty rates below that of the African-American poverty rate throughout the United States (27%).
The scatter plot below presents the Black poverty rate against a MSA’s population growth from 2010 to 2016. It shows that those regions with higher growth rates tend to have lower African-American poverty rates. It also indicates that larger MSAs also seem to have lower black poverty rates.
This contrasts with an extremely weak relationship between regional population growth and the non-Hispanic White poverty rate in an area.
What does this mean for Rochester, and this community’s efforts to reduce the effects of decades of segregation and economic exclusion for black residents? First, we need to study this topic in greater depth. There are undoubtedly lessons to be learned from other communities with lower rates of racial disparity, and commonalities to be drawn from communities that share Rochester’s high rate of African-American poverty. For example, Southern cities under federal desegregation orders were obliged to enact policies that improved economic and social integration. But if this Census data suggests anything, it is that regions experiencing higher levels of population (and economic) growth offer better economic prospects for black residents. Finding ways to grow again is key to reducing disproportionately high poverty among African-American residents in Rochester.
In Part 2, I explore Hispanic poverty in Rochester compared to other regions, and examine this region has a uniquely high disparity in poverty between whites and minorities.
[…] noted in the last post, the racial disparities between Blacks and Whites in Rochester, NY are part of a larger pattern […]