Statistical Abstract #1

Who needs to read anything else? I bet one could maintain a blog for months, if not a full year, just by wandering around in the 2008 Statistical Abstract of the United States. (Hat tip to the indispensable and long-lived Scout Report for the reminder.)

I'll start with Table 104 (PDF), "Age-Adjusted Death Rates by Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin, 1960-2004." In 1960, the age-adjusted death rate per 100,000 people was 1311 for whites and 1578 for blacks. As of 2004, the figures were 786 and 1027.

This is another case of overall improvement without much improvement in equality. If you follow the trends, black people in 2004 had achieved the death rate that white people had back in 1980.

This difference isn't trivial, and it tracks many others. Discussion of black-white racial issues -- when it occurs, which isn't often enough -- can start with this established fact, as opposed to most whites' bland assumption that those issues are all in the past.