Cedar Rapids City Council needs Marcus’ scientific experience

In no other Cedar Rapids City Council district is the existence of economic inequality as manifest as it is in the District 3. This can be found from a quantitative analysis of the data from the census tracts that constitute the district.

The population-weighted poverty rate for the district is 37.5 percent for African-Americans, 30.55 percent for Hispanic-Americans and for whites it’s 12.69 percent. The labor market situation is also very problematic because the unemployment rate for African-Americans is 24.73 percent and for whites, it’s 4.55 percent. There is also a significant disparity in the distribution of income because, for African-Americans, the median household income is $15,744. Moreover, there’s also enough data to determine the Gini coefficient, which is an income inequality measure. For the district, it’s 0.597, which is a score that’s worse than Namibia, a country once subject to apartheid. This is not to say that the district is as afflicted as Namibia because New York City has a Gini coefficient value of 0.547, but the concentration of financial capital and the amount of multiplying factors is much different from Cedar Rapids.

The abysmal economic conditions of the district cannot be blamed entirely on Dale Todd, but I’m disconcerted about the lack of progress in areas of acute poverty. To address these problems, the City Council needs more scientific discipline with its decision-makers and policies. Which makes Tamara Marcus, an accomplished climate scientist, a superb candidate to help us through our challenges ahead.

Scott Roland

Cedar Rapids