Did Katrina Discriminate?

The question of whether poor black people bore a disproportionate share of Hurricane Katrina's devastation is complex. You'd expect poorer people to be at a disadvantage, since their houses are likely of lesser quality, fewer would have cars, and those that did might have less money for gasoline. My earlier post reported on a Knight-Ridder study that indicated that the death and destruction cut more or less proportionally across socioeconomic and racial lines. This Los Angeles Times article professes to bear this out, but the story has conflicting data. For example, the Times says that 298 of 528 bodies recovered were from poor parts of town. That's over 56 percent. Yet people below the official poverty level are said to account for 25 percent of the city's residents. Moreover, not all the bodies have been identified with respect to race and residency. For more, here's an analysis by Benjamin Kilpatrick of the LA Times article. Who knows what more complete data will show?

Hat tip: Roderick T. Long.