The State of Black California reports on the social and economic status of Blacks in California and its major metropolitan areas including the Inland Empire, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose. It examines how Black Californians fare in relation to whites and other major ethnic groups along, economic social and health related dimensions. The report uses an Equality Index, an objective tool to compare the degree to which blacks enjoy equal conditions relative to those of whites and other ethnic groups. The Equality Index was developed by Global Insight, Inc., a highly-regarded international consulting firm. The report was prepared for the California Legislative Black Caucus by Steven Raphael, Goldman School of Public Policy University of California, Berkeley and Michael A. Stoll, School of Public Affairs University of California, Los Angeles. The Equality Index provides a summary measure of overall wellbeing using a single index to represent performance on a number of economic, housing, health, education, criminal justice and civic engagement outcomes. Whites are used as the baseline group in calculating the Index, and they have a constant score of 1.00. A score of less than 1.00 means that the racial or ethnic group is faring poorly relative to whites, while a score of greater than 1.00 indicates that the racial or ethnic group is faring relatively better.