NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- The New York Urban League has released a report detailing the disparities Black New Yorkers still face, across fields including economics, education and criminal justice.
The new report, “The State of Black New York,” highlights the disparities Black residents of New York City face when it comes to economics, education, social justice, health and the "digital divide."
The report, for example, found that nearly one in four Black adults in New York City lived in poverty in 2018, compared to one in 10 white adults. Black students, meanwhile, were three times more likely to test “well below proficiency” than their white classmates in math in third through eighth grades, and two times as likely to test “well below proficiency” in English language arts in those grades.
Silicon Harlem co-founder and CEO Clayton Banks, who contributed to the report — with a focus on the digital divide — told 1010 WINS 40 percent of Black households in low-income communities do not have broadband internet yet, despite the fact that more than 90 percent of homework requires internet access.
Without internet in the home, searching and applying for jobs also become a monumental challenge, he said. Managing health issues has also become a major challenge when many patients are seen via tele-health visits.
Read more about the report’s key findings below:
ECONOMICS
New York City is currently “one of the most racially segregated cities in the U.S.,” the report says, and soaring housing costs and “stagnant” or declining income only makes it harder for low- and middle class families of color to achieve what some call the “American dream.” “Economic advancement can’t be achieved while so many people of color hover around the poverty line,” the report notes.
DID YOU KNOW? According to Robin Hood and Columbia University’s Poverty Tracker, 59% of Black New Yorkers have lived in poverty for at least one of the past four years.
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EDUCATION
In general, people with college degrees are not as likely to experience poverty while dealing with economic and personal hardships, the report says. The majority of New York City’s low-income Black and Latino students, however, “still lack access to highly effective teachers, quality early childhood programming, Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, early college and other rigorous courses,” according to the report.
DID YOU KNOW? In 2018, Black students made up the smallest percentage of public-school students who passed one or more AP exams.
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DIGITAL DIVIDE
Many New York City neighborhoods do not have the infrastructure needed to bring broadband internet into homes, the report says. “Other systemic barriers include costs, credit checks and limited public access to technology and internet, such as in schools, libraries and the workplace,” the report notes.
DID YOU KNOW? Only 54% of households with less than $20K in income have internet in the home.
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SOCIAL & CRIMINAL JUSTICE
New York City has been taking steps to scale back policing and decrease its prison population, but Black people are still targeted when it comes to arrests, and face disproportionately higher rates of incarceration, according to the report. A number of factors have contributed to this situation, the report says, including over-policing in neighborhoods of color, the “War on Drugs,” stop-and-frisk, and broken window policing, the report says.
DID YOU KNOW? Black youth are three times more likely to be arrested for something after suspected than a white person, and to have a juvenile felony or misdemeanor (40%), when compared to white peers (15%).
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HEALTH
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged New York City, Black New Yorkers faced significant health disparities. One in four Black adults in New York City were dealing with health issues in 2018, and people with health issues “are limited in their ability to work, thereby limiting their ability to earn income,” the report says. Mental health is also a significant issue for Black New Yorkers, as Black people “are more likely to experience serious mental health problems, but are less likely to adhere to antidepressants and antipsychotics after diagnosis, receive follow-up visits after hospitalization, and initiate and engage in treatment for alcohol or drug use,” according to the report.
DID YOU KNOW? Today, Black New Yorkers are twice as likely to die of COVID-19 than white people, and currently make up 28% of COVID-19 deaths, despite making up only 22% of the city’s population.
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CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
New York City is home to the country’s largest Black population, but Black New Yorkers are still “at risk of not being counted” in the census, according to the report. Brooklyn is “home to nearly half of the 500 census tracts in New York state most at-risk of an undercount,” the report says. Thirty-three percent of Brooklyn households, meanwhile, didn’t return their census forms, the report adds.
DID YOU KNOW? The Black voting rate matched or exceeded the white voting rate for the first time in American history in 2008 with the election of President Barack Obama.
Read the full report below: