Race Rankings
Texas slips slightly in national rankings for racial integration and progress
Each year as Martin Luther King Jr. Day approaches, WalletHub does its annual check-in on racial progress across America.
After measuring the gaps between black and white citizens across 21 key indicators of equality and integration in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, the personal finance site has determined that Texas is slipping — slightly.
Last year, the Lone Star State was ranked second overall. This year, it's fallen to fourth in racial integration, behind New Mexico, Hawaii, and Wyoming.
But the news isn't all bad — Texas ranks second overall in racial progress, in a promising spot behind Wyoming.
To reach these standings, WalletHub totaled the states' scores in employment and wealth, education, social and civic engagement, and health.
Texas also shows up in the top five for lowest gap in percentage of adults with at least a high school diploma and the lowest voted turnout gap for the 2016 presidential election (in a five-way tie for first in both).
According to a 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center, 45 percent of Americans say the U.S. hasn't done enough to give black Americans equal rights to white Americans. In addition, 58 percent of Americans think race relations are "generally bad," and 53 percent think they are getting worse.