Key findings in the profile include: 

• Black unemployment is high regardless of education level: Black residents with a high school diploma are as likely to be unemployed as Whites without one.
• Working poverty is on the rise for Latinos and African Americans, but not Whites.
• Twelve percent of all of Buffalo residents ages 25 to 64 worked full-time but earned incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
• The racial gap in wages is growing. Between 2000 and 2014, White workers saw their median hourly wage increase, while Latinos and African Americans experienced wage declines.
• Black residents are six times as likely as White residents to live in areas without adequate access to a supermarket.
• While 21 percent of Black workers, 15 percent of Latino workers, and 26 percent of Asian or Pacific Islander workers commute to work by bus, only 5 percent of White workers do. Even middle-income Black workers are seven times as likely as their White counterparts to take public transit to work. At the same time, less than one-third of the region’s jobs are accessible by public transit.
• While both race and economic class impact exposure to pollutants, race has a larger effect. In Buffalo, people of color who live above the federal poverty level have higher rates of exposure to air pollution than both White people and people of color who live in poverty.
• The share of adults living with asthma is higher in the state of New York than in the country overall, and higher still in Erie County. Nearly 11 percent of adults in the county have asthma.
• Black residents of Erie County, who are the most likely to live in areas without access to healthy food, face higher obesity rates than Whites. While genetics matter, research shows other important social and environmental factors influence obesity, including toxic stress, income, and education.