Race, Place, and the Persisting Income Divide in the U.S. Southeast, 2000–2014

Despite economic growth since the recession, the gap between the richest and the poorest segments of the population remains one of the most pressing concerns of contemporary America. This paper uses IR†95/20, IR†80/20, and IR†65/35 ratios to measure the income divides between the richest and the poorest segments in the mid†to†large†sized metropolises of the U.S. Southeast, their variation across ethnicities, and their association with metropolitan level attributes such as diversity, segregation, socio†economic, and other built†environment, and labor characteristics. The income divide ratios serve as the dependent variables whereas principal components along with state†dummy variables serve as the explanatory variables in regressions analyses. The metropolises that are large, diverse, and better educated are the most income†divided whereas those with lower educated people are less divided. Metropolises with larger shares of their labor engaged in primary sectors of economy have higher income divides; this observation also holds true for African Americans and Hispanics. Metropolises that gained in intermixing during 2000–2014 are associated with a lower income divide and vice versa.