Milwaukee Professionals Association

2005 HOMICIDES - 122 MILWAUKEEANS

Unacceptable.

PHOTO L-Right
Marion Garner and Roxie Robinson light candles to honor their loved ones.

Garner's daughter and Robinson's grandson were among 122 homicides in 2005. Photo by Rick Wood.

The following is part of an article by John Diedrich, Journal Sentinel, METRO Section, December 31, 2005.

"Milwaukee cannot just keep doing the same things and expect that things are going to change very much".

- John Hoffmire,
Director of the Center on Business and Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

By the Numbers
The challenges facing Milwaukee's urban core are unique in their extremes. Although the numbers don't reflect the initiatives under way to rebuild the inner-city economy, here's a statistical snapshot of the city, based on the latest available data:
Milwaukee has the highest rate of black poverty among the nation's 30 largest cities. The 2000 Census said 33.3% of the black population is living below the poverty level, 34% higher than the national poverty rate.
Black family income in Milwaukee was 23% lower than the national figure in 2000. Milwaukee also ranked 49th among the nation's 50 largest metro areas in the disparity in income between blacks and whites.
Milwaukee had the highest black unemployment rate of the major cities surveyed in 2002 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau also found that 59% of Milwaukee's black males 16 and older were idle, and that the city's black unemployment rate was more than three times its white unemployment rate.
In 2003, an estimated 48% of Milwaukee black children under age 5 lived in poverty. Nationally, the Census Bureau estimated that 39% of all black children under 5 were living below the poverty level.
Wisconsin - where three of every four African-Americans live in Milwaukee - has the nation's highest rates of black teenage births and black incarceration, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation and U.S. Justice Department, respectively.