Academic

Oops, innumeracy in the Oregonian!

By Tung Yin

In a news story about how Multnomah County, Oregon, is "uniquely toxic" for racial minorities, the Oregonian made the following assertion:

Minorities in Multnomah County fare worse on measures such as child poverty, rent burden, incomes and education than minorities in King County, Wash., (home to Seattle) which has a slightly higher number of minorities.

Um . . . hold on a moment.  King County had a 2000 population of 1.7 million people, while Multnomah County's 2000 population was 660,000 people.  So if King County has only slightly more minorities than Multnomah County despite having almost three times as many people, it would mean that Multnomah County is WAY more racially diverse.  But that's clearly not the case.

Obviously, what the news story meant to say is that King County has a slightly higher percentage of minorities, not absolute number of minorities.

, 

Full post as published by The Yin Blog on May 08, 2010 (boomark / email).