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America's Most 'Unequal' Big Cities Exposed
Thanks in large part to Fed policies, if Neel Kashkari is to be believed, America as a whole has become a significantly more unequal country in the last five years. In fact, as a recent report finds, "if you look at the long-term trend, there's a really steady increase in inequality." But inequality is all about location, location, location; and, as Bloomberg reports, the idea that hard work leads to prosperity is increasingly becoming an American pipe dream, in some places more than others.
Bloomberg ranked big cities - those with populations of at least 250,000 - based on their inequality as measured by the Gini coefficients calculated by the U.S. Census Bureau (a Gini index of zero reflects absolute equality, while an index of one represents complete inequality).
New Orleans is the most unequal city in America, according to the Bloomberg ranking.
Areas with high levels of income inequality also often have diverse populations and high levels of residential segregation, according to a report last year from Mark Mather and Beth Jarosz at the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington-based non-profit group. New Orleans has both of those factors, with blacks making up 60 percent of the population in 2014 and often living in starkly different areas than whites.
"New Orleans has some very clear neighborhood segregation going on," Jarosz said in an interview. "The fact that it is the most unequal among the cities is not terribly surprising."
Inequality happens when there's a concentration of people at the highest and lowest ends of the income spectrum without much middle-ground in between. Big cities are often hotbeds for such conditions because they attract rich individuals who can afford the cost of living — think rents in New York City or Los Angeles — as well as lower-income households who need access to services that large municipalities can often provide.
"You get this concentration both of poverty and of wealth in the same space," Jarosz said.
Places with wide ranges of educational attainment also run into inequality issues, with higher levels of schooling linked not only to a person's ability to get a job, but what type of job and what they'll be paid.
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The U.S. as a whole has become a more unequal country in the last five years, with its Gini index climbing to 0.48 last year from 0.469 in 2009.
"The overall story is that inequality has been rising steadily for about the past three decades," Jarosz said. While changes from year to year are often small or nonexistent, "if you look at the long-term trend, there's a really steady increase in inequality."
Racially diverse cities also often exhibit higher levels of inequality, as minorities have lower incomes and higher poverty rates, Jarosz said. The median income for non-Hispanic white households was $59,622 in 2014, compared to $42,748 for Hispanic families and $35,481 for blacks, according to data from the Census bureau's American Community Survey.
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And New Orleans has been a Left wing stronghold for years. Reap what you so... y'all.
City of Atlanta as well...
Detroit not on the list cuz everybody equally destitute.
A friend of mine used to say: "There's no such thing as a ghetto. There are only ghetto people."
Cincy, Houston, LA....add it to the dozens of other crime infested, Democratic, liberal shitholes across the country.
And no, not defending the GOP either. They suck too...
And it's bad for everybody - rich and poor.
When I go to LA I stay in $10m+ house on Venice Beach. It's hard to fall asleep because of all the homeless /drunk/drag addict surfers etc with roller-boards looking for recycling material in trash cans and making noise all night.
Sometimes they sleep in front of my friends' house, and then take a shit by the front door steps before they leave in the morning.
Ocasionally they brake in.
Compare this to Tokyo (or Serbia) where people often don't even lock their front doors
All the low lying areas on New Orleans that have low income houses should have bulldozed and given back to the water.
They should have just focused on the sections of value.
They could have saved money by giving houses to each resident whose house disappeared under water and saved money. They have done same in other low lying areas of the country, but once again, reverse racism leads to inefficient allocation of scarce resources and the guarantee that blacks in NO will be the bottom of the barrel..
There is a direct correlation between the crime rate dropping in New Orleans and a rise in crime rates in Houston and Dallas. If shown on a timeline, the correlation would show immediately after Katrina.
Lots of Chocolate Cities.
Extrapolate the trends and you'll see that we're all "chocolate" now, and you don't have glance your arse in the mirror to determine that.
Now you tell me. Nice shot of the fruit basket though.
U.S. has become less equal in the last five years? Not possible. We have a post-racial messiah whose mere election solved all that.
Equality is a social construct.
Racist! Sarcasm off.
The Gini Coefficient of Omaha, Nebraska constantly jumps up and down depending on whether Warren Buffet is in town. Should the city tell Buffet to get lost so they can have less inequality?
The lowest possible Gini coefficient is a rural third-world village where everyone earns about $600 a year. Anyone who earns more will leave, and anyone who earns less will starve to death.
wait till the syri-ums come to New Orleans, soon to be called jihad on the bayou
Just like with the boat people in the '70s, you break their country, you bought their refugees.
In my city we just kill ourselves.
No cry for help, we just get it over with.
18.5 per 100,000 - nearly 3 times higher then south Dublin.
Such a nice little city once.
Now a alien place for a once tightly knit Community.
When Cork lads no longer have money for a regular pint and conversation.....
The shock of this crap modernity is just too much.
We now live in a antiseptic world. .
My town is on the list. Here you are either all good or in the shit house. One thing about my area is that some of the people that are in the shit hole put up a front and make it look like they are all good. I call them the $30,000 a year millionaires.
The Gini coefficient. A number that means nothing.
It would be more accurate if it measured inequality in:
1. Hours worked per year,
2. Taxes paid,
3. Crimes committed,
4. Emphasis on education.
Socialists selling heaven and delivering hell.
or crony capitalism
These are just the cities that have not yet lost everyone with some wealth left. In Chicago the money moved out to the suburbs long ago. No money left -now its almost uniformly poor.
Telling the truth with statistics is racist.
I am offended and must now report you to the authorities.