Despite Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s self-professed focus on racial equity in Michigan, the Great Lakes State remains among the worst in the country for racial progress.
Researchers at the personal finance website WalletHub recently examined 22 key indicators of equality in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia to produce a ranking of “States That Have Made the Most Racial Progress.”
By examining metrics from median household incomes to standardized test scores to voter turnout, WalletHub created an overall ranking, as well as rankings for four categories: employment and wealth, education, social and civic engagement, and health.
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“It’s encouraging to look at the data and see that some states have made significant strides toward racial equality over the past few decades. For example, Wyoming has closed the racial income gap by 42 percentage points since 1979, and Mississippi has decreased disparity in poverty levels by 27 percentage points since 1970,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo said.
“Several of the states that have made the most racial progress overall have improved so much that they are now among the top 10 most integrated states,” he said. “This change demonstrates that state-level policies and residents’ attitudes regarding equality have grown considerably better.”
That’s more true in some states than others, and Michigan was ranked among the worst.
Overall, the analysis ranked the Great Lakes State 46th nationally, with only Montana, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia less integrated.
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Researchers ranked Michigan 46th for employment and wealth, 40th for education, 36th for social and civic engagement, and 47th for health.
The dismal rankings come despite Whitmer’s best efforts to address racial equity during her two terms as governor, which included two years with a Democratic government trifecta.
A fact sheet about how Whitmer is “delivering on racial equity” notes the work was conducted “with the most diverse cabinet in state history and Michigan’s first Black Lieutenant Governor, Garlin Gilchrist, by her side.”
Amid the pandemic, Whitmer signed an executive directive that recognized racism as a public health crisis and created a Black Leadership Advisory Council to “confront systemic racism head on so we can create a more equitable and just Michigan,” Whitmer said in a statement at the time.
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“This is not about one party or person,” she said in 2020. “I hope we can continue to work towards building a more inclusive and unbiased state that works for everyone.”
In the more than four years since, not much has materialized aside from Whitmer’s appointment of hundreds of Black Michiganders to various boards, commissions, judicial posts and other full-time positions.
Whitmer’s 2020 declaration mandated unconscious bias training for all medical professionals, which has led to fines for folks in the medical profession who haven’t yet completed it.
In May 2022, Whitmer’s Black Leadership Advisory Council produced 11 policy recommendations for the governor that have gone largely ignored. It was the same situation with a second round of BLAC recommendations in August.
Research, meanwhile, shows outcomes for Michigan’s Black residents have only gotten worse since Whitmer took office.
In November, a 2024 March of Dimes Report Card for Michigan showed that while Michigan’s infant mortality rate is well above the national average, deaths among Black residents are sky high.
“The infant mortality rate among babies born to Black birthing people is 2.1x the state rate,” according to the March of Dimes report.
The data, based on the infant mortality rate from 2020-2022, shows 13.4 deaths per 1,000 live births for Black mothers. The statewide rate is 6.4 deaths per 1,000 live births, while the national rate is 5.6.
“Our black birthing patients are four to five times more likely to have complications or severe morbidity or mortality from pregnancy-related things,” Abigail Ramseyer, specialist with University of Michigan Health-Sparrow, told WLNS. “We also know that four out of five maternal deaths are preventable…so we need to be doing things to move that needle to make sure we are providing high-quality care to people.”
It’s a similar situation with education.
“This year nearly half of all Michigan students of color and two-thirds of all Black students in Michigan attend public school in districts with high concentrations of poverty where 73% or more of the students come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, compared to only 13% of Michigan’s White students learning in those same school districts,” according to a 2024 State of Michigan Education Report.
Those findings are part of the reason why the racial “disparity is especially stark in Michigan, where Black children lagged far behind their national peers when it comes to several educational measures — ranking last among 46 states in a state-to-state comparison of well-being for Black children,” according to a 2024 Race for Results report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation cited by WDET.
In Michigan, just 10% of Black fourth-graders can read, or less than half of all other races, Michigan Advance reports.
Many of the issues facing Michigan’s Black residents are tied to poverty, which is most prevalent in the state’s urban areas.
While a whopping 41% of Michiganders as a whole are struggling to afford a basic budget that includes food, transportation, child care, and other necessities, that figure is 63% for black residents, and nearly 80% in several cities, according to a United for ALICE report.