Saturday, March 3, 2012

Hispanics confront an income gap of at least 35% in every major metropolitan area across the United States

That's the disparity between per capita incomes for whites and Hispanics in 95 large metros, according to an On Numbers analysis of federal data. Los Angeles is the worst market for Hispanic earning power, despite the fact that two of every five residents in the region are Hispanic. The income gap in L.A. is 67.2%. Canton, Illinois, is dead-last among markets of all sizes, with a disparity of 82.5%. Palm Bay-Melbourne, Florida, has the smallest discrepancy of any major market, with per capita incomes of $19,396 for Hispanics and $29,829 for whites. That means a typical Hispanic resident of Palm Bay-Melbourne earns $650 for every $1,000 earned by an average white resident, a gap of 35.0%. The runners-up among major markets are Knoxville, Tennesee, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, both with gaps of 38.1%. (A major market is defined as any metropolitan area with a population of more than 500,000.) Hispanics actually outearn whites in three small markets: Parsons, Kansas, Branson, Missouri, and Houma, Louisiana. But whites hold a financial advantage of more than 50% in 429 metros and micros.

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