We all intuitively know that certain groups of Americans have different access to different sets of resources. This project is an attempt to graph a rough visualization of what those areas of inequal access are and how the different outcomes, relative to each group, relate to one another proportionally.

These metrics were chosen on the basis of how well they represent various struggles and accomplishments. The following data is grouped by race, black/white and by sex, male/female. Eventually it is hoped that this inquiry will include a more robust set of identity markers: age, regional influences, a wider set of racial delineations, and intersectional identities such as sexual orientation and physical disablity.

These charts demonstrate the degree to which one group is suffering in relation to the others. A larger score on the circular chart is equivalent to more suffering. So a score of 1, on the outside edge of the chart, means that the group has the largest barrier to success in this category, while a score of zero, the center point of the chart, means that the group is least likely to suffer from poor outcomes on the metric. For example among these groups Black Women have the highest rate of poverty, represented with a point on the Poverty axis at 1, or the furthest from the center. Conversely White Men are the least likely to suffer from poverty and so they are graphed at the center of the chart, the 0 point. Each axis is internally relational, so that the worst outcome, 1, is the group that sets the upper boundary for the comparison, and the best outcome is represnted as 0, the center of the chart, the group that suffers least on the metric.

Being closer to the center represents a better outcome along the metric, while being further to the outside represents a worse outcome and thus a greater degree of suffering in the particular aspect.

For example, Black Women are the most likely to suffer poverty, placing them at the outermost point on the scale. Conversely Black Women are the least likely to overdose or commit suicide, placing them at the center point as they are least likely to suffer along those metrics. They also have more challenges along the Degree metric, with a higher percentage unable to attain a bachelor's degree.




White women do well relative to the other groups and have the least amount of suffering along four of the seven metrics. They are the group most likely to have a bachelors degree, they have the longest average life span and they are the least likely to be murdered or incarcerated.




White men, while the least likely to suffer poverty, are the group most likely to suffer overdose or to commit suicide. If the latter two metrics are removed, they have the best overall outcome.




Black men as a group suffer the highest number of barriers to life success in the US. They are the group most likely to be murdered or incarcerated, and the group wth the shortest average life span and the least likelyhood of being afforded the ability to earn a college degree.




Unweighted categories mean that the total area of the chart does not necessarily represent the proportion of each group's total suffering. Yet the arrangment allows some perspective on the various challenges to different groups.




These alternate charts remove two health related outcomes which strongly affect white males: Suicide and Drug Overdose. While every category has multiple and different root causes, these two health metrics are especially difficult to disentangle from one another and would seem to involve different social conciderations than the other metrics.




Each area of suffering has complex and varied causal roots and so it is important to read these charts as wide overviews comparing the group outcomes over disparate metrics, rather than as an argument for the relative quality or equivilency of suffering. A more complete future project would incorporate data on self-reported life satisfaction in an attempt to qualitatively weight the burden across each metric. It would also expand the metrics to concider the suffering imparted by violent crime vicitmization, income and wealth disparities, and the many other avenues of suffering and inequality in the US.




Sources:

  • Overdose, 2013 CDC National Vital Statistics Reports
  • Life Expectancy at Birth, 2015 CDC National Center for Health Statistics
  • Degree (Bachelors), 2015 US Census Current Population Survey
  • Poverty, 2015 US Census Current Population Survey
  • Incarceration, 2014, Bureau of Justice Statistics
  • Homicide, 2015 FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program
  • Suicide, 2014 CDC National Vital Statistics System



  • 2016 Isaac Smith in consultation with Peter Aldhous, UC Berkeley School of Journalism


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