A new study shows Minneapolis-St. Paul leading the nation in a category no one is celebrating: of 19 major metropolitan areas, the Twin Cities metro area has the widest gap in unemployment rate between blacks and whites.

During 2011, the jobless rate for African Americans in the Twin Cities averaged nearly 18 percent, more than three-times that of white residents. That’s by far the biggest disparity of all the metropolitan areas covered in a study from the Economic Policy Institute.