Website: R.I. 3rd worst for black Americans

24/7 WALL ST. SAID Rhode Island is the third worst state for black Americans due to factors including high unemployment. / COURTESY 24/7 WALL ST.
24/7 WALL ST. SAID Rhode Island is the third worst state for black Americans due to factors including high unemployment. / COURTESY 24/7 WALL ST.

PROVIDENCE – The website 24/7 Wall St. says Rhode Island is the third worst state for black Americans for reasons ranging from low home ownership rates to high unemployment.
The website said that the home ownership rate among blacks is 29.4 percent, putting it at the 10th lowest in the country. That compares with a home ownership rate for whites of 67.2 percent. Unemployment for blacks also is 16 percent, ranking it 6th highest among the states.
Rhode Island had the third highest unemployment rate in the nation in October at 7.4 percent.
And while typical black households earned 62.3 percent of the white median household income across the country, black Rhode Island households made just 52.5 percent of what white households made in the state. The white median household income in Rhode Island was approximately $60,000 in 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau; nationwide, white median household income was $56,300.
Last year, there also were 234 more deaths per 100,000 people among the black population in Rhode Island than among the white population, “nearly the largest gap nationwide,” the website said. Approximately 6 percent of Rhode Island’s population is black.
More than 23 percent of black Rhode Islanders lived in poverty last year, while less than 11 percent of white residents lived in poverty, again among the larger gaps nationwide, the website stated.
The worst state for black Americans, according to 24/7 Wall St., was Wisconsin. Minnesota, Rhode Island, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Connecticut, New Jersey, Kansas and Arkansas comprised the rest of the bottom 10.
Read the list here.

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