A tale of two cities

by: Jeremy Burton

Tue Aug 17, 2010 at 17:12:48 PM EDT

Five years after Katrina and 4 months after BP, all is not well in the Big Easy.  A recent Kaiser Foundation report is being hailed by the Times-Picayune as evidence that the city is moving in the right direction, but Lance Hill from the Southern Institute for Education and Research sees a darker picture in the data.  He writes:

Some of the responses were broken out by race and they provide some useful insights into the difference of opinions between black and white storm victims and the different ways they continue to experience the impact of the storm.

From the report:

Compared to whites, African Americans in Orleans Parish…

--are more likely to say that both their own lives (42% vs. 16%) and the city in general (66% vs. 49%) have not yet recovered from Hurricane Katrina;

--are more than twice as likely to be living in a low-income household (61% compared to 24%);

--are more likely to report having had trouble paying for food or housing over the past year (both 31% vs. 8%);

--are more likely to report being uninsured (25% vs. 10%) and to have had problems paying medical bills (29% vs. 13%);

--are substantially more likely to report worries, such as the 64% who say they are very worried their children won’t be able to get a good education, compared to 18% of whites, and 59% who say they are worried health care services might not be available when needed (vs. 21% for whites);

--are more likely to see the city as a bad place to raise children (51% vs. 35%).