My latest post on Data Driven Journalism is up an reprinted here.
In my last post,
I reported that Washington, DC had an extremely high rate of 30.83 hate
groups per million residents in 2016 relative to the other 50 states
(the national rate was 2.84 groups per million). DC also had an
exceptionally low percent of the vote for Donald Trump in 2016, at just
4.1%. For these reasons, and other characteristics which make DC
fundamentally different from the other 50 states, I had to exclude it
from a correlational analysis between hate group concentration and
Trump’s percent of the vote. For this post, I will look at other ways
in which DC is an outlier.
According to the most recent Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) from 2015, DC
ranks third in median household income at $70,848 behind Maryland and
Alaska. Yet, the same SAIPE estimate also ranks DC eighth for the
percent of the population in poverty, at 17.4%. This indicates a large
gap between the rich and poor. The high rate of poverty is reflected in
DC’s low life expectancy at 76.53 years, ranking 43rd compared with the
overall US average of 78.86 years. Similarly, DC’s infant mortality ranked eleventh in the country,
at 7 deaths per 1,000 live births compared to the US rate of 5.9 deaths
per live births. Newly released estimates from the Census Bureau for
2015 show DC has the second lowest rate of those without health
insurance at 4.3% behind Massachusetts. These income and health
statistics suggest that DC deviates from the national rates, but not
that it is an extreme outlier – with one exception.
The statistics on crime suggest that DC is an extreme outlier. DC had a violent crime rate of 1,244.4 offenses per 100,000 residents in 2014.
This is almost twice as large as the next highest state, being Alaska
with a rate of 635.8 offenses per 100,000 residents, and more than three
times as large as the US rate of 365.5 offenses per 100,000 residents.
In 2014, it had the highest murder rate of any other state at 15.9
offenses per 100,000 residents.
Last fall, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report released the number of hate crime incidents in 2015 for each state.
Adjusting their numbers for population, DC had a higher rate than any
other state, at 96.69 offenses per million residents. Using the FBI rate
method, this rate would be 9.67 reported offenses per 100,000
residents. As the above graph shows, this hate crime rate corresponds
with DC’s high rate of hate groups. However, this relationship does not
hold up when DC is excluded from the analysis, as can be seen in the
graph below. If DC is excluded, there is no statistically significant
relationship between the concentration of hate groups and hate crimes in
any of the other states, with only 2% of the variability accounted for.
Comparison of DC with New York City
So what factors besides poverty could be driving this relationship?
Compared to the other states DC has the highest population density by
far at 11,157.58 persons per square mile. Because Washington, DC is a quasi-city state, it may be appropriate to compare it to the US’s largest city, New York City (NYC).
In 2015, NYC had 8,550,405 inhabitants over a total of 302.64 square
miles (approximately 488.13 km2) giving the city a population density of
28,252.72 persons per square mile. I don’t have hate crime data for
NYC but I can estimate the hate group rate from the hate group map of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
I counted 36 hate groups in the area, which would give NYC a rate of
4.21 groups per million – a number which is considerably below DC’s rate
of 30.83 groups per million. In 2010, 25.5% of NYCs population
identified as African-American whereas 50.7% of DCs population did. Of
the 21 total hate groups in DC, six of them are black separatist groups
such as the Nation of Islam (28.6%). Of the 36 hate groups in NYC,
eight are black separatist (22.2%). You can scan the other hate groups
in each city here.
Looking at other statistics for NYC, the violent crime rate is 596.7 offenses per 100,000 residents and the murder rate sits at 3.9 offenses per 100,000 residents.
These are considerably lower than DCs rates of 1,244.4 violent offenses
per 100,000 residents and 15.9 murders per 100,000 residents. DC has a
higher median household income at $70,848 than NYC’s $53,373.
Correspondingly, the 20.0% poverty rate for NYC is higher than DC’s
17.4%.
Conclusion
One must be careful to draw grand conclusions from statistics that
compare DC to the rest of the US and DC to NYC. One can look at the
obvious differences DC has with the other states. While it has three
votes in the Electoral College for President, it has no members in
Congress with full voting privileges on laws which may affect them.
Further, as John Oliver explains, they have to pay full federal taxes:
We see Washington, DC portrayed in the media all the time but do we
really notice what goes on there outside of the White House, the Capitol
Building, and the various other federal buildings? DC residents have
been campaigning for full statehood for years but it has been stalled in
Congress. This second class citizenship may or may not explain all of
the statistical discrepancies for DC. The issue definitely merits
further study. There could be many other anomalies regarding DC of
which I am not aware.
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