(Cross-posted from Huffington Post)

Later this month, the world's top financial and economic policymakers will pow-wow at the Federal Reserve Bank annual meeting in Jackson Hole to determine whether it is time for the Fed to roll back recession-era policies—e.g. a near-zero benchmark interest rate—put in place to support job growth and recovery.

This would be the wrong decision for the communities that are still struggling to recover and the wrong decision for America. Advocates for higher interest rates point to an improving job market as a sign that America has come back from the recession. But many activists, economists, and community groups know that raising interest rates now would stymie the many communities, particularly those of color, that continue to face persistent unemployment, underemployment, and stagnant wages. As the Fed Up campaign, headed by the Center for Popular Democracy, notes in a report released this week, tackling the crisis of employment in this country is a powerful and necessary step toward building an economic recovery that reaches all Americans—and ultimately, toward building a stronger economy for everyone.

The report, "Full Employment for All: The Social and Economic Benefits of Race and Gender Equity in Employment," shares a new data analysis by PolicyLink and the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) estimating the boost to the economy that full employment—defined as an unemployment rate of 4 percent for all communities and demographics along with increases in labor force participation -- would provide. While overall unemployment is down to 5.3 percent, it is still 9.1 percent for Blacks and 6.8 percent for Latinos. Underemployment and stagnant wages have further driven income inequality and hinder the success of local economies. By keeping interest rates low, the Fed can promote continued job creation that leads to tighter labor markets, higher wages, less discrimination, and better job opportunities —especially within those communities still struggling post-recession.

Lowering unemployment to 4 percent for all gender and racial groups (the rate of overall unemployment in 2000 when the economy was last at full employment) and increasing labor force participation rates would mean that 14.3 million more Americans are employed, 9.3 million fewer would live in poverty, GDP would increase by $1.3 trillion, and the government would receive an additional $261 billion in tax revenue, according to the report.

Full employment would also have an enormous positive impact on racial inequities in income. Currently, only half of workers of color make at least a living wage ($15/hour), compared to 69 percent of white workers, and median household income within communities of color is significantly lower compared to white households. With full employment, Black households would see their incomes rise 13 percent, Latino households would see a 9 percent increase, and Native American households would see a 19 percent increase.

Armed with this data, which was compiled as part of ongoing economic research by PolicyLink and PERE's National Equity Atlas team, Fed Up will host its own meeting in Jackson Hole, featuring presentations by this team, activists, economists, and community organizers. This meeting, concurrent with the Fed's, aims to put pressure on the Federal Reserve to acknowledge those communities of color still mired in the recession and take up policies that will bring full employment to all. While Federal Reserve policies are not the only solution to boosting employment among those communities so often left behind, they are a vital and necessary step towards building a stronger, more inclusive American economy.

(Cross-posted from National Equity Atlas)

In the face of widening inequality and persistent racial economic gaps, Mayor Marty Walsh is implementing a new approach to achieving shared economic prosperity in Boston. Bolstered by the support of a powerful advocacy coalition and detailed data on financial inclusion, in 2014 Mayor Walsh opened a new Office of Financial Empowerment. “Whatever it is that we’ve been doing for the past 10 to 20 years may have helped,” program director Trinh Nguyen told Next City, “but it’s not denting inequality and access.” The Office of Financial Empowerment aims to move the city forward by providing financial empowerment services to those who need them most: low and middle-income Bostonians who’ve not benefited from recent growth.

Financial vulnerability is widespread and bad for Boston’s economic future

Family Assets Count, a coalition of local financial empowerment advocates along with national institutions CFED and Citi community development worked to bring financial security and detailed data on financial instability across Boston’s diverse communities to the city’s attention. Family Assets Count defines financial instability as the inability to cover basic expenses for three months after a major life disruption like a job loss or health crisis. An inability to save and invest in the future is not only harmful for individual families, it contributes to the rising inequality that is threatening sustained economic prosperity.

The coalition uses data from the CFED Assets and Local Opportunity Center to provide local estimates of financial vulnerability and catalyze new conversations about financial security in cities across the country. They provide two primary measures of financial instability: liquid asset poverty and asset poverty. A family is liquid asset poor if they don’t have enough in their savings to live above the poverty line for three months; they are asset poor if they don’t have enough net worth to live above the poverty line for three months.

Family Assets Count, Financial Insecurity in Boston Data Profile

Demographic shifts in Boston make financial inclusion an economic imperative

The City of Boston has undergone a profound demographic shift over the past several decades and is now a majority people-of-color city. Yet Boston’s communities of color are far more likely to be financially insecure: 69 percent of Black households and 75 percent of Latino households are liquid asset poor compared with 29 percent of Whites. Latinos are the fastest-growing population in the city but they also have the highest rates of liquid asset poverty at 75 percent. Without strong and effective financial inclusion strategies, Boston’s economic future looks bleak.

Asset poverty by Race & Ethnicity

Family Assets Count, Financial Insecurity in Boston Data Profile

Mayor Walsh leads on financial inclusion

Given Boston’s growing economy, creating pathways to opportunity and prosperity for the 46 percent of Bostonians who are financially insecure is an economic and moral imperative. In an interview with WBUR, one of Boston’s National Public Radio news stations, Mayor Walsh said: “We have a city that is doing very well [and] a lot of people are doing well in our city, but we still have half our residents that aren’t and we have to really try and assist them and help them prosper during these good economic times.” 

The Office launched three Financial Opportunity Centers in partnership with United Way and Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). These centers provide a range of services including: financial coaching, job search and advancement support, tax filing support, and help applying for benefits. Two similar centers, run by United Way, demonstrated significant results last year. According to the City of Boston, “77 percent of clients at those centers who completed pre- and post-assessments reported increases in one or more of the following measures: net income, net worth, or credit score.”

The power of data in the hands of a strong coalition

Financial insecurity data can be paradigm-shifting for communities and policymakers, like Mayor Walsh, who want prosperity for all but don’t have a clear picture of who’s being left out and which communities need to be lifted up to get there. Community advocates in the Midas Collaborative have been working toward equitable growth and financial security for all residents knowing full well the extent of the city’s existing inequities. The Family Assets Count data helped make the problem urgent and undeniable. Margaret Miley, executive director of the Midas Collaborative, said “the data provided an opportunity to frame the urgency of the problem and to focus a broad group of stakeholders for action.”

CFED Project Director Solana Rice said that Family Assets Count data profiles, like the profile of Boston, create “an opportunity for our partners to reframe and reposition themselves for new partnerships.” The Midas collaborative and Family Assets Count found a new partner in Mayor Walsh who cited the Family Assets Count data in his announcement of the office. You can watch a video about how partners lifted up data to influence Boston’s financial inclusion strategy [here].

Following in Boston’s lead, financial inclusion strategies are ramping up across the country. Family Assets Count is partnering with organizations in nine other cities to implement some of these municipal strategies for financial security, including: Chicago, Houston, Miami, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Oakland, the Bronx (New York City), and Newark. In addition to working closely with these 10 cities over the next two years, Family Assets Count features estimates of financial inclusion for thousands of cities and counties on their online mapping tool — find out how your city is doing [here].

Making our tax system fair should be a top priority for people who care about shaping an equitable California — where revenue comes from can impact equity just as much as where we choose to invest it. And at a time when California is searching for new revenue to make up for cuts in education, housing, and the social safety net,  a new coalition of civil rights, religious, community, and labor groups is dedicated to rebuilding our state by working to close tax loopholes and make the commercial property tax system more fair.

Make It Fair has determined that the best way to create a revenue stream for the state to help close gaps in funding for essential programs and expand opportunity is to assess commercial and industrial property at fair market value. Taking this step will close loopholes and ensure that big corporations and wealthy commercial properties pay their fair share of property taxes.

Indeed, a recent report by the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) found that reassessing commercial property at its current value would generate up to $9 billion in additional revenue each year for our state. This is based on recalculating the current market value of land owned by companies like Chevron, whose Richmond refinery was last assessed almost 40 years ago. Right now Chevron is paying taxes on the 1978 value of that land — not what it’s worth today. Statewide, Chevron’s underassessment alone shortchanges our communities by $100 million every year.

State Senators Loni Hancock and Holly Mitchell recently introduced an amendment to the state constitution that will correct this loophole. Act now by contacting your state senator today and expressing support for Senate Constitutional Amendment No. 5 (find out who your senator is by clicking on this link).

Going up against big companies and wealthy commercial property owners will be a challenge. But the large amount of money at stake can help increase equitable investment in California’s low-income communities and communities of color and will make a real difference for kids, seniors, and our shared future.  

Learn more about Make It Fair and add your name to the growing list of endorsers.

Read the rest of the Summer 2015 California Equity Quarterly issue>>>

Since 1991, PODER — People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights — has worked to improve the lives of low-income communities and communities of color within San Francisco’s Mission and Excelsior districts, with a particular focus on Latino immigrants. PODER brings people-powered solutions into the community to support local economies, nurture individual leadership, and speak to community power and culture. 

According to PODER Organizational Director Antonio Díaz, PODER’s origins can be found in the neighborhood’s need for community organizing. “As we got to know the Mission, we realized there was an amazing number of community-based organizations and a wealth of community-serving organizations,” Díaz noted. “However, we got the sense that there weren’t institutions focused on initiating community organizing, engaging folks at the door, and focusing on community priorities by working on solutions together.”

PODER’s unique environmental justice approach organizes low-income communities to recognize and challenge the disproportionate impacts of environmental hazards on their neighborhoods. PODER works on issues such as land use, affordable housing, community planning, and other aspects of the built environment as potential avenues for change.

“Environmental justice organizing has been important, in that we’re able to really speak to different neighborhoods,” said Díaz. “We’ve been especially instrumental in urban areas, which are impacted by poor planning decisions and environmental inequities.”

Most recently, PODER responded to the “tech boom” gentrification in the Mission by working to impede displacement-causing development projects and to bring new affordable housing projects to the Mission and Excelsior neighborhoods. Other PODER initiatives distribute resources to construct urban parks and gardens on publicly owned land, fund urban farming projects, and support and foster local co-ops.

PODER focuses on practical solutions: “As much as it’s important to fight and try to get rid of the bad, we also need to take a proactive stance to bring in the good. That’s manifested in building projects and other people-centered solutions that address the needs of current residents,” he noted.

PODER supports local economies as the key to thriving, sustainable neighborhoods. Through its Working Together Initiative, PODER fosters economic resilience and environmental sustainability by training community members to launch social enterprises or community cooperatives. With the use of a community educational toolbox and advisers from a diversity of sectors, PODER has been able to launch a Co-op Academy and help individuals learn about working cooperatively and to potentially start their own co-op or social enterprise.

Another strength of PODER is the involvement of the community. In order to sustain local leadership, PODER prioritizes recruitment of new members and develops community leaders to support the work through its numerous leadership programs and trainings, such as caminos de lidergazo, convivios, and art and resistance events. PODER also runs civic engagement programs to address immigration rights and engagement, as well as language access.

“Based on past organizing, it isn’t enough to win. How can we continue to ensure community involvement and faith? We engage community stewardship and work to foster community assets in the neighborhood,” said Díaz.

PODER’s maturation has included advocating for government funding to ensure that community members have access to programs that develop their skills and connect them with their neighbors. It has also strengthened its network by joining groups such as San Francisco Rising, the California Environmental Justice Alliance, the Our Power Campaign, and the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance. These alliances help PODER develop tools and stay informed on relevant local and state policies, as well as sustain momentum for further community involvement.

“People recognize the issues in their neighborhood, and when given the opportunity, they step up,” Díaz noted. “This speaks to the rich history of organizing.”

Learn more about how PODER is mobilizing the Latino community for upcoming elections.

Sign up for updates and learn about volunteer opportunities with PODER.

Read the rest of the Summer 2015 California Equity Quarterly issue>>>

(cross-posted from The Hill)

For those of us who have always had easy access to healthy food, a supermarket is probably just a place to buy groceries. But for the millions of Americans living in low-income neighborhoods marked by decades of disinvestment and unemployment, the opening of a local supermarket can revitalize their community — creating new jobs, attracting new businesses, and laying the groundwork for better health.

That is why programs like the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) are so vital. Since 2011, the national Healthy Food Financing Initiative has awarded over $100 million in grants to help bring small and independent grocery stores, farmers markets, cooperatives, and healthy food hubs to low-income neighborhoods — investments that have been a game-changer for the lives and livelihoods of people living in these communities. As the House and Senate continue to mark up their funding bills for fiscal year 2016, it’s imperative that this program receive the funding necessary to continue this work.

That access to supermarkets and other food retailers helps people live healthier lives is a given — more than 300 studies over the past 20 years have documented the link between neighborhood access to healthy food, improved eating habits, and long-term positive health outcomes.  These community-level changes will not happen overnight — as several studies have pointed out, significant changes in dietary intake and obesity can take months, if not years, to play out — but the simple truth underlying these programs remains the same: Without access to healthy food, any other efforts to reduce obesity will fail. With two-thirds of adults and nearly one-third of children ages 10 to 17 overweight or obese in America — and related health care costs exceeding $147 billion annually — we cannot afford to overlook this basic perquisite for health.  

Read more>>>

We are witnessing a major demographic shift to a majority people of color nation, likely by the year 2043. At the same time, the technology sector is flourishing and has become a pillar of our economy. Acting now to connect youth of color—the country’s future workforce—to the growing technology sector is in the nation’s best interest, and an emerging partnership in Oakland is doing just that.

The partnership consists of:

• #YesWeCode, a national effort led by Van Jones that, like Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH coalition, draws attention to the underrepresentation of people of color in the technology sector;
• The Hidden Genius Project, which is pursuing opportunities to scale up its efforts to train Bay Area youth of color to build programming and coding skills;
• The David E. Glover Education and Technology Center, which has been providing technology training for young and older residents in the underserved, low-income East Oakland community for the past 15 years; and
• The Brotherhood of Elders Network, an intergenerational network of African American men with the mission of assisting African American boys to reach their potential, contribute to community, and thrive.

 

The project will get off the ground this summer with an eight-week pilot coding skill building program for 20 youth of color, which will lead to a year-round coding program for up to 50 youth of color at the Glover Center, starting this fall.

On June 19, this unique partnership was featured on MSNBC’s The Cycle during a live broadcast, including a town hall with Oakland residents at the David Glover Education and Technology Center. The town hall conversation was intergenerational, with African American boys—ages 14-18—listening, learning, and asking questions of elders, successful African American entrepreneurs, and a Facebook executive.

The broadcast and town hall also focused on the complementary values and win-win outcomes of the emerging partnership: #YesWeCode brings in a national constituency of interest, Hidden Genius can scale up years of coding experience, the Glover Center has trained low-income communities of color on technology for years, and the Brotherhood of Elders network brings decades of combined experience, wisdom, and political and resource connections—the Brotherhood will also provide youth in the coding cohort with coaching, mentoring, and soft skill development tools.

Equity advocates need to follow and support this partnership—what better time to get on board, when youth of color are our emerging leaders and the technology sector is the major economic engine of the future?

For the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, the inability to obtain a state-issued ID poses a staunch barrier for participating in local economies and community life. Though undocumented immigrants contributed an estimated $10.6 billion in state and local taxes in 2010, lack of identification prevents these residents from accessing services at essential institutions like banks, libraries, hospitals, and schools, forcing many to live on the fringes of our social, political, and economic life. Though pathways to citizenship remain stalled at the federal level, 13 cities across the country are taking the lead on immigration reform with innovative municipal ID programs that can foster inclusion and participation for their immigrant residents and other marginalized groups.

New Haven, Connecticut, led the nation by being the first to issue a city identification card in spite of xenophobic sentiments in the region. Now cities are not only issuing their own ID cards, they are building on this model in ways that help connect those who’ve been living in the shadows to services, resources, and opportunity.

“We are trying to get them out of the shadows so they can feel welcomed in our community and to participate,” says Newark Mayor Ras Baraka who will launch his own city-issued ID program July 1 (read the rest of his interview with Angela Glover Blackwell). “The immigrants who came to these communities actually helped stabilize [the local economy] by opening up stores and engaging in the economy, but they don’t get credit for it,” says Mayor Baraka. Although similar to other ID programs, Newark had to modify local laws to ensure undocumented entrepreneurs could benefit from the program. The city council removed the proof of citizenship requirement needed for street vendor licenses, expanding opportunities in the business sector.

Public safety, lack of access to social and government services, and marginalization are the concerns cities are trying to address with municipal IDs to not only improve residents’ sense of belonging to a community, but to spur local economic growth. When New Haven launched its Elm City Resident ID it did so to address these interwoven challenges. Undocumented immigrants in New Haven were perpetual targets of theft because it was generally known that they did not have access to bank accounts to deposit their checks. Targeted as “walking ATMs” for carrying large amounts of cash with them, most victims did not report attacks to police fearing that, not having a “valid” form of identification would reveal their undocumented status, and, possibly, place them on a path to deportation. Since the municipal IDs establish residency, questions about an immigrant’s status are no longer relevant. The city, however, must have an understanding with the police department about this crucial agreement. To ensure that immigrant residents could open bank accounts, New Haven also worked with several local banks who agreed to accept the cards as secondary proof of identification.        

Measuring the economic gains of municipal IDs

The economic gains of municipal identification cards have yet to be quantified. Since the launch of the first city ID in 2007 in New Haven, cities across the country have added new benefits and features to the card that can potentially have a greater economic impact on the local economy. The municipal ID in Oakland, California, for example, can also be used as a debit card. Although advocates are divided on this benefit due to the various fees associated with the debit card feature, it gets undocumented immigrants closer to accessing much-needed financial services.

Studies have shown positive impacts on the local social, political, cultural, and economic life for the communities that implement ID programs. About 10,000 New Haven residents were using the ID card by 2012. Crime decreased 20 percent in the first two years the card came out. And, most importantly, the card helped foster a sense of belonging among the immigrant population. The direct economic impact was more difficult to quantify. Only 60 people used the card to open bank accounts, but the card has been used by residents to get a bus pass and access other services that may improve economic mobility.

New York City is now the largest U.S. city to launch a municipal ID program. IDNYC, which launched January 2015, is hoping to quantify the economic impact of their program on the local economy. The program has had the largest turnout of any municipal ID program yet. On the first day, all 17 enrollment centers in the city processed more than 1,000 applications. Due to extraordinary demand, the enrollment system is now set up to process up to one million applications annually. As of June, over 250,000 New Yorkers have received an ID, and thousands continue to apply daily. “The main goal of this card was to become an access point to the different amenities and services that the city had,” said Nisha Agarwal, commissioner of NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs.

The card is proving to be a successful access point. It offers various discounts to city events (Broadway shows, sporting events), and free one-year memberships to the city’s top 33 cultural institutions. “Over 15,000 cultural institution memberships have been opened in New York City through May,” according to Agarwal. “There is a sense of an opening of doors and equalizing of access, even in respect to culture in New York City… We are hearing that these [new memberships] are working families for whom it would typically be too expensive to go to some of these institutions.”

In spite of these successes, New York City struggles with one of the original goals that launched the Elm City Resident Card in New Haven — connecting the unbanked immigrant population to the financial sector and resources. New York has not seen the same response to bank accounts as it has had to cultural institutions, according to Agarwal.

Read the rest of the June 26, 2015 America’s Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model issue.

Since his election in 2014, Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark, New Jersey, has been a vocal advocate for equity and inclusion, leading several initiatives to increase access to opportunity for those who are too often locked out and left behind. Two such initiatives are Newark’s municipal identification card program and My Brother’s Keeper Newark (MBKN). The Newark ID program, which will launch this summer, will help undocumented immigrants, the recently incarcerated, and other residents who face barriers to obtaining government IDs connect with vital city resources and engage in civic life. MBKN, which was established in 2014, is a comprehensive program to eliminate the gaps in opportunity and achievement for boys and young men of color in the city.

PolicyLink Founder and CEO Angela Glover Blackwell spoke with Mayor Baraka about these two programs.

Angela Glover Blackwell: You are leading on all the issues that are vitally important to PolicyLink, where our mission is to advance a new generation of policies that achieve racial equity in America. So there are many things to lift up. Municipal ID programs have been used in several cities across the country to help remove barriers to civic engagement for residents, particularly undocumented immigrants. What were the primary drivers in establishing a municipal ID program in Newark?

Ras Baraka: Newark has a very huge population of immigrants and a lot of undocumented residents, who are basically in the shadows. We are trying to make them feel welcome in our community. A municipal ID has incredible social and economic benefits for our city: it allows people to be a part of the infrastructure of our community, to participate in the city services, to report crime without being afraid, to enroll their kids in schools, to put money in the bank, and to open up businesses in our community. It allows them to live without the threat of harassment and intimidation and all kinds of other things that prevent them from being full residents of our city.

Blackwell: Did this program result from a push from the community or was it something that came out of your past community work and engagement?

Baraka: I think it [stemmed from] the President's push around immigration and my ability to connect with other mayors. I went to an event in New York City sponsored by Mayor DeBlasio with a few mayors from around the country. [We talked] about how to push the immigration policy locally and one of the ideas was the municipal ID. I thought that was an incredible opportunity for us in the City of Newark to take advantage of. Our partners here in the city were already doing work on the ground around immigration rights and we brainstormed. We used some of the folks from New York City [who had worked on the NYC ID] to help us think about what it would look like in Newark. And we engaged the community every step of the way.

Blackwell: How does the ID program fit into your larger vision for Newark?

Baraka: America is a country of immigrants… and ex-slaves. My father used to say, “If everybody went back to where they came from, the airports would be crowded!” And a lot of these cities that were suffering economically, the immigrants who came to these communities actually helped stabilize economically by opening up stores and engaging in the economy. They just don't get credit for it. We believe in democracy here in Newark and so we support the idea of people participating fully in democracy and [these IDs] are a way we can offer that to them. This is a progressive thing to do, it's a democratic thing to do, it's the humane thing to do, and so we're trying to get it done.

Blackwell: For years now, the focus of our work at PolicyLink has been emphasizing that equity is the superior growth model for the future. That is, given the deep economic crisis that the nation is still in, and the nation’s shifting demographics, if we get it right for people of color who are the majority in many cities and becoming the majority in the entire nation, then we get it right for the nation and our economy. It seems that you envision the ID as having an economic impact not only for cardholders, but having economic benefit for the larger community — is that right?

Baraka: In America now, its future is inextricably tied to these communities of color. The demographics of this country are not changing — they have changed…even more rapidly than people suspected. And the contribution [of communities of color and immigrants] to the economy, to the social fabric of this nation, is undeniable. In order to save this country, we have to back off of these conservative ideas and policies that are preventing us from taking advantage of the wealth of [human capital] resources that are here in our community.

Blackwell: I want to shift to My Brother's Keeper. You recently launched My Brother’s Keeper Newark in response to the President's call for action for addressing the persistent opportunity gaps faced by boys and young men of color. Newark is still in the process of selecting the specific indicators and the goals that you'll target. In this process, how are you ensuring that the community's voice remains part of the planning and implementation process?

Baraka: We have a [My Brother’s Keeper] board of trustees that is made up of different community partners and community folks that create policy around the initiative here in Newark. We also have regular community meetings with the kids and their parents about some of the things that we're doing. All of those things are important so that the My Brother's Keeper guys are involved in helping us to transform the city.

Blackwell: In Newark, 95 percent of young men of color want to go to college, but sadly only 8 percent actually do. When you're thinking about your interventions in the My Brother’s Keeper work, how do you envision making the crucial link to post-secondary education for these young men?

Baraka: We have something that's called the Newark City of Learning Collaborative where we have set a goal that we're going to make sure 25 percent of our residents have post-secondary degrees [by 2025]. Right now we're at 17 percent overall, and like you said, for African American males, that number is smaller. So we are focusing heavily on galvanizing all of the resources we have in our community to create a pipeline from elementary school to college, especially with these young men. [We use] things like college fairs, after-school programming, mentorship, and tutoring. There’s also an executive order that I signed that allows every individual in every department in the city to spend two hours a week in a K-3 class to help mentor.

Blackwell: That is very exciting! I want to step back and talk about how this initiative fits into the longstanding issues of incarceration and violence. In many Black communities, incarceration and violence have created a legacy of absence because the men — the fathers, brothers, husbands, partners, uncles, earners, leaders, and mentors in the community are either dead or behind bars. As a New York Times article pointed out a few weeks ago, about one in six young Black men are missing from their communities for these reasons. What role do you envision Newark’s My Brother’s Keeper work will play in addressing such a complex and pervasive problem in Newark?

Baraka: Well, My Brother’s Keeper does what some communities in other areas already do: they wrap their services and their arms around their young people, protect them, and raise them collectively. They support them so they become successful, and if they make mistakes — like normal teenagers do — they're able to get back up. I think My Brother's Keeper does that and it sheds light on the dismal data surrounding men of color in this country in terms of graduation rates, employment rates, and college attainment rates. This has not been addressed at a federal level… but this initiative gives us the opportunity to address it, to galvanize resources around this issue and begin to help young men of color navigate the problems that exist in their neighborhood[s] and their lives, and [ultimately], helps them be successful.

Read more about the municipal ID program and how My Brother’s Keeper is advancing economic opportunities for boys and men of color in cities around the country.

Read the rest of the June 26, 2015 America’s Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model issue.

Tuesday, June 30  (11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. PT / 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. ET)
Fines, Fees, and Financial Insecurity: The Impact of Court Involvement on Low-Income Men of Color and Their Communities

There is a national discussion taking place on the status of low-income boys and men of color. PolicyLink has been deeply engaged in this discussion—lifting up data, tools, successful program models, and polices working in community to improve academic and social supports for this population. At the same time, PolicyLink is working to improve access to financial security for low-income communities and communities of color. Engagement with both of these issues on a national scale has surfaced the critical need to ensure that efforts to support boys and men of color include a framework that recognizes and reflects the role financial security plays in economic prosperity for this population and for all people.

This webinar, the second in a series, will discuss the ways in which court-ordered financial obligations—such as fines, fees, and child support—impact low-income households, especially boys and men of color whom are over-represented in the criminal justice system, as well as in civil and traffic courts. Please join us for a dynamic panel discussion on these issues and potential policy solutions.
 

Thursday, July 9  (11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. PT / 2:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. ET)
The Grocery Store Prescription: How Smart Shopping Leads to Healthy Eating

Check Out These Recent Webinar Archives: 
You can also find all archives on our YouTube channel:

• June 17 – Local Food Procurement 101: Policies and Programs
• June 12 – Building Momentum from the Ground Up: A Toolkit for Transformative Change in Policing
• June 11 –  Building an Equitable Retirement System for the 21st Century
• June 9 – Creating Equitable Food Systems with the Healthy Food Financing Initiative

(cross-posted from Buzzfeed)

With a median household income of $110,292, Fairfax County, Virginia, is one of the wealthiest counties in the nation—but not all residents share in this economic prosperity. As its population has grown and diversified over the past 25 years, inequities in income and opportunity have also increased, and are experienced most by communities of color. The following statistics and graphs are taken from The Equitable Growth Profile of Fairfax County—a first-of-its kind analysis of racial and economic equity in Fairfax released June 18.

Read more on Buzzfeed>>>