Thread by @capitalandmain

As protests continue across #Minnesota and #Minneapolis it's important to remember the state's racial disparities in poverty rates are among the worst in the country. #GeorgeFloyd
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Despite having an overall poverty rate that sits below the national average, the poverty rate (27.2 percent) for African Americans is almost four times the white poverty rate in the state.

This phenomenon has been dubbed “the Minnesota paradox” by Samuel L. Myers Jr., director of the Roy Wilkins Center of Human Relations and Social Justice at the University of Minnesota. @HHHSchool

“We know that a history of discriminatory practices in access to opportunity, education, housing, and other policies, going back to our earliest days as a state, means that people of color face extra hurdles to economic opportunity,” writes Betsy Hammer of @MNBudgetProject

While economic issues are not directly related to policing or criminal justice policies, it's difficult not to see the connection between the state's significant racial economic disparities and the feeling of injustice driving this uprising. #Minneapolisprotests

In sum: Minnesota ranks toward the bottom in terms of racial equity in earnings (41st) and in unemployment (44th). Until these issues are adequately addressed, inequality will persist in the North Star State.
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