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2024 A National Urban League Publication stateofblackamerica.org The Civil Rights Act of 1964 60 Years LaterThe 2024 Equality Index ™ UNDERSTANDING Black–White Equality Index ™ NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE 3 2024 STATE OF BLACK AMERICA® The Civil Rights Act of 1964: 60 Years Later EQUALITY Why does the National Urban League publish an Equality Index? Economic empowerment is the central theme of the National Urban League’s mission. The Equality Index gives us a way to document progress toward this mission for Black and Hispanic Americans relative to whites. What is the Equality Index trying to do? The Equality Index uses pie charts to show how well Black Americans are doing in comparison to whites when it comes to their economic status, their health, their education, social justice, and civic engagement. The Equality Index measures the share of that pie which African Americans get. Whites are used as the benchmark because the history of race in America has created advantages for whites that continue to persist in many of the outcomes being measured. INEQUALITY VSBlack–White Equality Index ™ NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE 4 2024 STATE OF BLACK AMERICA® The Civil Rights Act of 1964: 60 Years Later The 2024 Equality Index of Black America is 75.7%. What does that mean? That means that rather than having a whole pie (100%), which would mean full equality with whites in 2024, African Americans are missing about 24% of the pie. BLACK–WHITE EQUALITY INDEX 75.7%Black–White Equality Index ™ NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE 5 2024 STATE OF BLACK AMERICA® The Civil Rights Act of 1964: 60 Years Later How is the Equality Index calculated? The categories that make up the Equality Index are: economics, health, education, social justice, and civic engagement. In each category, we use nationally representative statistics to calculate a sub-index that captures how well African Americans are doing relative to whites. Each category is weighted based on the importance that we give to each. The weighted average of all five categories is then calculated to get the total Equality Index. EQUALITY INDEX CATEGORY BREAKDOWN 75.7% ● Economics 30% ● Health 25% ● Education 25% ● Social Justice 10% ● Civic Engagement 10%Black–White Equality Index ™ NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE 6 2024 STATE OF BLACK AMERICA® The Civil Rights Act of 1964: 60 Years Later Is it possible to see how well African Americans are doing in each of the categories? Yes. We show this in the tables included with the Equality Index. We estimate an index for each category that can be interpreted in the same way as the total Equality Index. So, an index of 65.6% for the economics category for African Americans in 2024 means that African Americans are missing almost of a third of the economics mini-pie. The figure below summarizes the total 2024 Equality Index and the index in each category for African Americans. BLACK–WHITE EQUALITY INDEX BY CATEGORY 75.7% ● Economics 65.6% ● Health 88.6% ● Education 74.8% ● Social Justice 55.7% ● Civic Engagement 95.6%Black–White Equality Index ™ NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE 7 2024 STATE OF BLACK AMERICA® The Civil Rights Act of 1964: 60 Years Later Is it possible to see how well African Americans are doing over time? Yes. The National Urban League has published the Equality Index of Black America and all the variables used to calculate it since 2005. Equality Index Economics Health Education Social Justice Civic Engagement BLACK–WHITE EQUALITY INDEX COMPARISON > 2005 VS 2024 100 0 PERCENT (%) YEAR ’05 ’24’05 ’24’05 ’24’05 ’24’05 ’24’05 ’24 72.9% 75.7% 56.8% 65.6% 76.2% 88.6% 77.2% 74.8% 67.5% 55.7% 108.1% 95.6%Black–White Equality Index ™ NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE 8 2024 STATE OF BLACK AMERICA® The Civil Rights Act of 1964: 60 Years Later It doesn’t look like there’s been much improvement in the Equality Index. What’s the point? The Equality Index is made up of a lot of different parts. Improvements in one area are sometimes offset by losses in another area, leaving the overall index unchanged. Change often happens slowly. The Equality Index offers solid evidence of just how slowly it happens, making the index an indispensable tool for shaping the policies needed in the ongoing fight against inequality. Not all African Americans are doing poorly and not all whites are doing well. Why doesn’t the Equality Index capture class differences? The Equality Index was created to capture racial inequality. Most of the data points are reported as averages for African Americans and whites. An average is the easiest way to summarize a large amount of information but can mask class differences within each group. While the Equality Index does not detail class differences, it does highlight regional differences in racial inequality through our rankings of metro area unemployment and income inequality (not included this year but available for prior years). The 2024 Equality Index ™ DATA PROVIDED BY IHS MARKIT NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUENext >