State Plates
The Montana Income Plate
In Montana, income is where the atlas's population counts meet household economics. This plate places Black Montana in the national income geography: the benchmarks below are the published national figures for Black households, and Montana's own distribution figures — 13,000 Black residents, 1 percent of the state — give the scale of the community those national patterns describe within the state's borders.
The National Pattern
The income figures take their local meaning in Montana, where the table's state rows set the population this benchmark describes. Median household income is the most widely used single measure of a population's economic position, and for Black households in the United States the Census Bureau's annual income report places the figure at $56,490. An atlas benchmark earns its place by locating Montana, never by ranking it.
For Montana, the national benchmark is a yardstick, not a description; the description is the state's own distribution, tabled below. Household income counts the combined money income of everyone aged 15 and over living in the home — wages, salaries, self-employment income, Social Security, pensions, interest, and cash benefits — before taxes. Two sides frame the comparison here: the national midpoint, and the households of Montana.
The income figures take their local meaning in Montana, where the table's state rows set the population this benchmark describes. The national median household income in the same report is $77,719. Against that benchmark, the Black median of $56,490 is about 73 cents on the dollar. Locating Montana is the benchmark's purpose; ranking it is not.
Reading This Plate
How to read this plate: the state rows are the published census figures for Montana; the benchmark rows are the published national figures, labeled as benchmarks. In Montana, the plate makes no state income estimate of its own — it sets the state's population, counted exactly, beside the national income record, measured exactly, which is the honest first step of any income geography.
The Population Behind the Plate
In Montana, that national income pattern is read against the state's own households, whose published share and count stand in the table below. The 25th Infantry — a Black regiment — garrisoned Fort Missoula from 1888, and from there its soldiers conducted the Army's celebrated bicycle experiments: in 1896 and 1897 the 'Bicycle Corps' rode from Missoula to Yellowstone and then to St. Louis, 1,900 miles in 41 days, testing bicycles as military transport and generating national press — the riders' photographs are among the iconic images of the Black regulars. For Montana, general material earns its place in an atlas only when it sharpens the local record, which the table below states.
The income figures take their local meaning in Montana, where the table's state rows set the population this benchmark describes. Read for Montana, no Montana city holds a Black population large enough to form a census-visible community in the mainland sense. The point of the benchmark is position: where Montana stands, stated before anything is made of it.
Filed in this series as The Montana Income Plate, the plate below states the published record for its subject and reads it closely. A note on this plate's figures, stated once and plainly: Black share of the state population (alone): 1%; Black share, alone or in combination: 1.2%; Black residents, alone or in combination: 13,000. In Montana, what the sources publish, the plate reports; what they do not, it leaves alone.
What follows is the plate the atlas files as The Montana Income Plate. How this plate is read, for Montana: begin with the map, whose shading bands the published Black share into the legend's five classes, then turn to the table, which states the measures in figures — Black share of the state population (alone): 1%; Black share, alone or in combination: 1.2%. In Montana, that is the whole of the plate's claim, and it is enough for a reference.
In Montana, the record behind this plate of Montana is published, not estimated by this atlas: U.S. Census Bureau, Income in the United States (Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement); American Community Survey. The table's benchmark row for Montana states its basis in its label — the comparison rests on the same measure on the same basis.
Two further figures complete the plate's account of Montana: Black residents, alone or in combination: 13,000; United States benchmark — Black median household income, Census Bureau annual report: $56,490. In Montana, stated together with the measures above, they fix the population this plate describes — its size, its share, and its standing against the national record — and they are the figures the surrounding text interprets, neither rounded further nor carried beyond what the source publishes.
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Black share of the state population (alone) | 1% |
| Black share, alone or in combination | 1.2% |
| Black residents, alone or in combination | 13,000 |
| United States benchmark — Black median household income, Census Bureau annual report | $56,490 |
| United States benchmark — Black median household income per $1 of the national median | 73 Cents |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Income in the United States (Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement); American Community Survey. Method: Figures are drawn from the published federal sources named on this page, for the geography named; tile shading bands the published Black population share into the five legend classes. Counts are rounded as published by the source agency, and national benchmark rows are labeled with the basis they are published on.