Two NC cities rank as top places for Black Americans to thrive financially, study says
North Carolina is home to two cities where Black Americans have the most financial success, a new report finds.
Charlotte and Durham earned top 10 spots on a national list of places where Black residents “fare the best economically,” according to results released this month from SmartAsset.
To determine the rankings, the personal finance website said it studied census data for 129 of the largest U.S. cities. Then, it weighed business and home ownership, median income, workforce participation, education, and poverty rates for Black residents in each location before 2020.
Of the North Carolina cities on the list, Charlotte ranked highest at No. 6. While results show the median income for Black residents in the city was “relatively low,” it scored higher in the other categories.
“More than 30% of Black adults have their bachelor’s degree and almost 4% of businesses in the larger Charlotte metro area are Black-owned — both of which rank within the top 25,” SmartAsset said.
Further down on the list was Durham, which landed the No. 8 spot. The city also received nods for the portion of Black residents who are college educated or run their own businesses.
Both Durham and Charlotte also had among the lowest rates of poverty for Black residents, results show, and some of the highest rates of Black people ages 16 and older participating in the workforce.
In all, Virginia Beach and Grand Prairie, Texas, tied for No. 1 in SmartAsset’s ranking. Raleigh was the only other North Carolina city in the top 35, scoring the 20th spot.
Despite the cities being named places where Black Americans can thrive economically, SmartAsset said families in that group usually have less wealth accumulation compared to white and Hispanic Americans, as well as home ownership rates lower than the typical level.
In 2016, the average net worth for a white family in the U.S. was $171,000 — ten times higher than the average net worth for a Black family, according to The Brookings Institution, which pointed to centuries of discriminatory policies against the Black community as a reason for the disparity.
The SmartAsset report analyzed data from 2019, before businesses across the country closed in March 2020 to help stop the spread of COVID-19. People in North Carolina and beyond lost their jobs or experienced other economic hardships.
While the coronavirus has infected Black North Carolina residents at a disproportionate rate, experts say a lack of communication, skepticism and other factors could have led that group to be underrepresented in the state’s initial vaccine rollout.
This story was originally published February 17, 2021 at 9:40 AM with the headline "Two NC cities rank as top places for Black Americans to thrive financially, study says."
