CO Residents Among Most Prosperous In America–If They're White

COLORADO – Prosperity is one of those words that means something slightly different to everyone. But a new report suggests Colorado is one of the best states in America when it comes to the ability for residents to become prosperous – unless they are in a minority racial group.

The organization Prosperity Now published its annual scorecards to determine where Americans are most — and least — able to build wealth, avoid poverty and create a more prosperous future for themselves. In the report, all 50 states and Washington, D.C. receive a rank in three categories: outcome rank, racial disparity rank and scorecard rank. Outcome rank shows how a state is doing for its residents overall, without accounting for racial disparities. Racial disparity rank looks at just that — gaps across 26 outcome measures between white residents and residents of color.

While Colorado ranked high in "outcome" and "scorecard," our state scored in the bottom 10 for racial disparity.

The authors stressed that structural inequality means race and ethnicity play an “outsized” role in economic well-being, thus black, Latino, Native American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander people fare worse across all outcomes and issues. The final scorecard rank blends the outcome and racial disparity ranks together, with outcome accounting for 60 percent of the rank.

Here’s how Colorado ranked:

• Scorecard rank: 14
• Outcome rank: 7
• Racial disparity rank: 42

The rankings were based on an analysis of 78 measures spanning five categories: financial assets and income; businesses and jobs; homeownership and housing; health care; and education. It also assessed each state for 28 policies that promote financial security.

Regional Disparities

The scorecard rankings show a sharp regional divide, with states in the South tending to perform worse while states in the West, Northwest, Midwest and parts of the Northeast perform better. Vermont placed No. 1 overall in the scorecard rankings, followed by Hawaii and New Hampshire. Here are the top 10 states in scorecard rankings:

1. Vermont
2. Hawaii
3. New Hampshire
4. Washington
5. Utah
6. Virginia
7. Massachusetts
8. Wyoming
9. Iowa
10. Oregon

Louisiana, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama and Washington, D.C. fell into the bottom five on the rankings, followed by Georgia, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Texas and Pennsylvania.

Overall, the authors stressed that national headlines suggesting America’s economy is booming fail to capture the reality on the ground. The recent government shutdown, they said, illustrated just how financially vulnerable most people really are in 2019. Government workers went without pay for several weeks and were forced to take drastic measures to make ends meet. This included selling belongings to pay bills and turning to food banks to feed families.

This level of financial vulnerability is all too common in America, the authors said, particularly for people of color who were “by and large left out of the economic recovery from the last recession.”

“The data from the 2019 Prosperity Now Scorecard shows that there are millions of families
either struggling to make ends meet or just one emergency away from a financial disaster,” the authors wrote.

Among the starkest findings: 40 percent of American households don’t have a basic level of savings. These “liquid asset poor” households don’t have enough money and assets put away to live at the poverty level for three months should their paychecks be interrupted. Moreover, that number was 57 percent for people of color.

Solana Rice, director of state and local policy at the organization, said in a release that state governments and administrators play a large role in protecting most households. The report shows many have “failed to live up to the task.”

“States should enact policies to strengthen the economic resilience of people of color, particularly Black, Latino and Native American populations,” she said.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.

Photo credit: Shutterstock

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