The 2017 Hispanic-White Equality Index, published by the National Urban League, is an instrumental tool in assessing the progress towards economic empowerment for Hispanic Americans relative to their white counterparts. This index provides a quantifiable measure of how well Hispanics are faring compared to whites in critical domains like economics, health, education, social justice, and civic engagement, conceptualizing these comparisons as shares of a metaphorical pie.

With whites as the benchmark, owing to historical advantages in America, the index reveals a significant gap: Hispanics only have access to 78.4% of the equality pie, indicating a shortfall of over 20% in achieving full parity with whites.