Wisconsin named Worst U.S. State for African Americans

WISCONSIN -- The old saying is that "it's hard to be humble when you're from Wisconsin," but the results of a new study offers truly humbling news: Wisconsin is the worst state in the country for black Americans.

National financial news and opinion website 24/7 Wall St. ranked all 50 U.S. states in terms of black and white inequality. Wisconsin ranked dead-last. Minnesota was next-to-last, Illinois and Iowa weren't all that far behind in terms of futility.

What Makes Wisconsin So Bad?

Here is the study's key findings for Wisconsin, and how it compares with national averages:

Home ownership rate: 25.8% (10th lowest)> In the U.S. today, 71.0% of white individuals and families own their homes, in stark contrast with the black home ownership rate of 41.2%.

Black incarceration rate: 4,042 per 100,000 (3rd highest)> In the U.S. For every 100,000 black people nationwide, 2,306 are incarcerated, versus just 450 white prisoners per 100,000 white Americans.

Black unemployment rate: 11.1% (9th highest)

Income Disparity

The median annual income of black households in the state is just $26,053, much lower than the median for black families nationwide and equal to just 46.5% the median income of white Wisconsin households of $56,083.

Education Disparity

Similarly, while 29.9% of white adults in Wisconsin have at least a bachelor’s degree, 12.8% of black adults in the state have completed college. This is also much lower than the bachelor degree attainment rate among black adults nationwide of 19.7%.

Unemployment Disparity

The unemployment gap between black and white state residents is also troubling. With a white jobless rate of 4.1%, the state’s job market is relatively strong for the white population. For black Wisconsin residents, however, the unemployment rate is 11.1% — higher than the national unemployment rate for all black Americans.

How Wall St. 24/7 Arrived at their Ranking

They used 2014 data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) on median household income, poverty, high school and bachelor’s educational attainment rates, and homeownership rates — each broken out by race. Unemployment rates for 2015 came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Incarceration rates came from the Prison Policy Initiative, a Massachusetts-based think tank, and are as of 2010, the most recent year for which data is available. Also from 2010, the percentage of the population that is disenfranchised came from the Sentencing Project. From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we considered age-adjusted mortality rates and infant mortality rates.