Today, Catalyst California’s RACE COUNTS initiative released a critical new report that sheds light on how racist policies and practices across California have devastating outcomes in housing, education, incarceration, and more for the state’s communities of color and provides actionable policy recommendations that can make a difference.
RACE COUNTS serves as the trusted and authoritative source for data-driven insights into racial disparities in California’s 58 counties across seven key issue areas, including housing, education, incarceration, and economic opportunity. It provides a valuable resource for understanding and addressing racial inequalities that persist in our state.
The report homes in on four issues in particular: economic opportunity, housing, education, and incarceration. Many Californians of color are struggling to make ends meet and are caught in a low-wage, high-rent trap. More than half of renters statewide pay 30 percent or more of what little money they make on housing – significantly hindering their ability to build wealth and be prosperous. RACE COUNTS also shows that not only are California’s schools creating worse outcomes for students of color than White students, but they also often push them into the criminal legal system. Statewide, our school systems are less likely to graduate Black, American Indian / Alaskan Native, Latinx, and Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander students than the average California student. Incarceration is the RACE COUNTS indicator with the worst racial disparities, with Black Californians locked up at three times the state average rate. For low-income communities of color, incarceration has been our public systems’ sole approach to creating public safety, and it has proved outdated, ineffective, and racist.
Other key takeaways include:
- Mono County remains the most racially disparate county in California followed by Plumas County (Marin County is now the third most disparate county, down from second).
- Over half of the Northern/Sierra region counties have worse outcomes and higher disparities than other counties within the state.
- The Bay Area continues to have both high performance and high racial disparities. Communities of color do not share in the region’s prosperity and struggle because of it.
- San Diego and Orange County in Southern California are among the five lowest disparity counties in the state.
- Los Angeles, the largest county in California, has below average outcomes but also below average disparities – in most, but not all – cases.