Ensuring the economic success of women of color has never been more crucial to America's future. Though women of color make up a large and growing share of the workers, breadwinners, and entrepreneurs that are driving local and regional economies, they are consistently paid less than all other groups of workers — White women, men of color, and White men [see graph above]. Further, women of color are all too frequently employed in low-wage jobs that fail to provide family-supporting wages or basic benefits such as paid parental and sick leave.

"More than 70 percent of women of color are either the sole or co-breadwinner, making their economic security inextricably linked to that of their family," said Fatima Goss Graves, vice president for education and employment at the National Women's Law Center.

Tackling the disparities in pay and employment facing women of color will require policies at the national, state, and local level that link these women to the education, workforce training, business support, and work opportunities necessary to thrive. Several cities and states have taken pioneering steps to enact the types of policies and programs that lift up women of color workers, providing models for other local, state, and federal initiatives. These local successes center around four policy priorities:

(1)   Improve the quality and wages of low-wage jobs: Because women of color are disproportionately employed in the low-wage sector and live in or near poverty, strategies to raise the floor on low-wage work can have immediate impact for these women and their families. Effective policies to raise the floor include those that encourage workplaces to invest in their workers (e.g., programs that upgrade workers' skills and pay) or make it easier for workers to organize and collectively bargain for better pay and working conditions. "You are seeing some companies recognize the value of investing in their workers — that it is valuable for workers to feel good about their workplace and be able to fill their roles at home," Goss Graves said.

Policies that directly establish higher standards for wages and working conditions, such as increasing minimum and living wages, eliminating the sub-minimum tipped wage, and providing paid sick leave, child care supports, and retirement savings are also vital to increasing the pool of quality low-wage jobs. In September 2014, after a two-year campaign by community, labor, and civil rights groups, the Los Angeles City Council approved a living wage ordinance to raise the minimum wage for the city's hotel workers to $15.37 an hour. This will raise pay for 13,000 low-income hotel workers, most of them women and people of color. 

(2)   Create pathways for women of color to access good jobs: Women of color often face barriers to accessing "middle-wage" jobs that offer career pathways but do not require a four-year degree, such as those in construction or some health care. Targeted and local hiring policies for public investments can increase access to middle-wage jobs for women of color, as can workforce training strategies that connect women of color to apprenticeship programs and workforce training programs in high-growth industries.

The Washington State's Home Care Worker Training Partnership is the nation's first large-scale career pathway program for home care aides, training 40,000 aides a year in 200 classrooms across the state and online, providing instruction in 13 languages. The partnership runs the nation's first registered apprenticeship for more advanced training so that aides can increase their earnings and move up the career ladder.

(3)   Support women of color to become entrepreneurs: Despite many barriers to quality employment, women of color are the fastest-growing segment of entrepreneurs and job creators, numbering 1.4 million workers and generating more than $220 billion in revenues in 2013. At the same time, numerous studies show that women of color have a harder time getting business loans or equity investments than their White and male counterparts. Policies that increase access to affordable capital, support business development for entrepreneurs of color, and leverage government procurement policies to link women of color-owned businesses to government contracts are all effective strategies for supporting these entrepreneurs, and helping them create employment opportunities within their communities.

The New Orleans Regional Transit Authority has dramatically increased contracting with firms owned by women and people of color from 11 to 31 percent as part of a new commitment to equity.  

(4)   Ensure girls of color can succeed in school and access science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and careers: Higher education (at least an associate, if not a bachelor's degree) is a critical stepping stone for success in the 21st century job market, but girls of color often face challenges accessing high-quality preK-12 public education and are more likely to attend schools that lack STEM-related courses. Many girls of color are also subject to overly harsh school discipline measures that result in disproportionately high rates of suspensions and expulsions, reducing their learning time and ability to thrive in school, according to Goss Graves. Policies to eliminate the use of harsh school discipline measures, increase access to high-quality public education and STEM courses, and supplemental programming that exposes girls of color to STEM-related skills and experiences are key to setting girls of color on a track toward later career success and financial stability.

Black Girls CODE is a San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to training and empowering girls of color to become leaders and innovators in computer science and technology. In the three years since its founding, it has served more than 3,000 girls ages seven through 17 and opened seven chapters around the country.

For more data on women of color in the economy, such as the percentage of people of color who earn $15 an hour or more, see the National Equity Atlas.

Read the rest of the May 15, 2015 America's Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model issue.

Over the last 10 years, payday lenders have proliferated within low-income communities nationwide, advertising themselves as a quick and easy way to make ends meet. In reality, these loans, with onerous fees and interest rates in excess of 100 percent, cost low-income workers billions a year, and often trap borrowers in a long-term cycle of debt.

Despite their predatory nature, these lenders can seem a necessary service to cover expenses for those who lack access to traditional financial products and are trying to get by on paychecks that are too small to begin with.

President Obama recently traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, to announce that the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will propose new rules to limit the predatory practices of payday lending. While this is welcome news for many, some aren’t waiting for federal rules before taking local action.

One organization at the forefront of this fight is the Alabama Asset Building Coalition (AABC). Among AABC’s many areas of work is challenging the predatory nature of the payday lending industry in the state through consumer education and legislative advocacy. America’s Tomorrow spoke with AABC’s Executive Director Mike Milner on how predatory payday lending has been stripping wealth from Alabama families.

How does predatory lending affect the Alabama economy?

$48 million is pulled out of the state of Alabama annually through the payday lending industry. For every $1 that is paid to a high-cost lender, $2 is taken away from the local economy due to lower consumer spending and additional debt burdens leading to bankruptcy.

Dr. Lonnie Hannon III at Tuskegee University has researched the impact of payday lending in Alabama, particularly in communities of color. He showed that payday lenders target low-income communities of color because they don’t have the best credit and are considered easy pickings. The challenge with this population is that because of their lack of income, payday loans were being used to make ends meet, as opposed to being used for an emergency.

When did payday lenders come to Alabama?

Payday lending came to Alabama in 2003, when the state legislature created the Deferred Presentment Services Act, which allowed for up to 436% APR on these small loans. That means that a $500 loan could cost a person over $2,000. Originally the law said that the borrower cannot have more than one $500 loan open at a time; however there was no process set up to verify any outstanding loans. A borrower would borrow $500 here and then maybe two weeks later go down the street to borrow another loan. The normal customer has at least five loans. People were owing thousands of dollars and using their entire paycheck to refinance these loans, driving many people into bankruptcy, having already low wages garnished, and more.

I live on the eastern part of town in a nice middle-class neighborhood. Within a mile radius, there was a thriving area with grocery stores and restaurants, a very popular area. Then the payday lenders moved in and in many cases, they would move in right next to each other. There might be 14 or 15 of them in one neighborhood. Eventually other retail stores started moving out, grocery stores started closing. The commercial bank moved out, payday lenders moved in. This was a booming area years ago — the negative economic effect of payday lenders has been devastating to the community.

Why did you choose to focus on payday lending?

We held listening sessions all over Alabama, talking to individuals and businesses about what they needed to build assets. As we talked to low-income people, payday lending became more prevalent. It was the opposite of asset-building, it was asset-stripping out of communities. This issue is just as important as teaching someone how to save. Low-income people really need to be in the mainstream of financial services for their borrowing and lending. The problem is that the payday lending industry targets those with less access to credit and who tend to be the most vulnerable. So we began our campaign three years ago to try to increase consumer protections through the state.

How are you addressing payday lending?

Out of all of this we created a policy organization, the Alliance for Responsible Lending in Alabama, which includes a number of powerful organizations, such as the YWCA, AARP, and NAACP.

To date, we’ve been able to get an administrative ruling from the State Banking Department that ensures borrowers are not taking out multiple loans at once. That rule is set to go into effect in June of 2015.

Overall, we see our role as being the educators on the issue. We have explained to folks across the state the challenges of payday lending. We also developed a 101 booklet and a video, explaining the issue. We use those as educational training tools, we work with our partners to have town hall meetings and workshops across the state.

What are you planning for next?

We’re hopeful for having new legislation that in some way reduces the interest rate. In the meantime, we believe that we have a responsibility to educate the community and to look at alternatives to payday lending that doesn’t gouge people.

How does this relate to the national conversation on predatory payday lending? What can be done to address this problem?

President Obama came to Birmingham, Alabama, a few weeks ago to announce the rule currently under consideration at the Consumer Financial Protection Board regarding payday lending. Before his announcement, he met with our group. We were very honored.

I’m excited about the proposed new rule, especially the affordability piece. Anything that can be done on a national level that would reduce the number of payday lending institutions, or push them out of the business. I think that is something that would help reduce the number of people using payday loans.

A long-awaited and hard-fought measure to fight housing discrimination, create housing choice, and bring new investments to disadvantaged communities faces an uncertain future under a bill amendment passed this week in the U.S. House of Representatives. The amendment prohibits HUD from implementing and enforcing the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule (AFFH) rule, which is due out within a month. While this amendment would be a major barrier to bringing much-needed opportunity to low- and middle-income people, it’s still uncertain whether it will be signed into law. Watch our recent webinar on why AFFH is vital to communities, and read Director Sarah Treuhaft’s article in Rooflines, “Seizing the Moment to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing.” And stay tuned for more on how you can support efforts to further fair housing, housing choice, and much-needed investment in neglected communities.

Read the rest of the June 11, 2015 America’s Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model issue.

When national media swarmed Baltimore this April to cover the protests and unrest that followed the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray while in police custody, 4th District City Councilman Bill Henry found himself addressing a packed room of media personnel.  Yet just 19 hours earlier, when he had stood at the same podium to announce a new resolution to increase funding for school and after-school programs, not a single reporter covered the story.

To Henry, this media silence highlights a larger challenge facing Baltimore — while there is seldom the political will or funding for programs that invest in disadvantaged youth, the city has an ever-increasing budget for policing them.  The police budget has tripled over the last 20 years, and the overall city budget has doubled, but parks and recreation funding (which funds many school-related and after-school activities) has decreased by a third.

Decades of disinvestment in the low-income neighborhoods of East and West Baltimore have left youth in these communities cut off from the infrastructure that would allow them to thrive: a safe and healthy living environment, quality education and employment opportunities, and positive after-school, weekend, and summer activities. As a result, more than one in five Black youth ages 16 to 24 in the region are disconnected, meaning that they are neither in school nor working — more than double the proportion of White youth in the region.

While addressing the issues plaguing many low-income communities and communities of color in Baltimore will require a diverse set of approaches, Henry and other education advocates are focusing on school and after-school programs as central targets because they help ensure that these youth are educated, healthy, and ready to thrive in the workforce. Such investments are essential for breaking intergenerational cycles of poverty and improving the economic prosperity of these neighborhoods and the entire city of Baltimore.

How are investments in youth programs related to the current policing climate in Baltimore?

We are where we are because for the last quarter of a century we have put all our resources into the policing and prison and criminal justice side of the public safety effort, and we’ve disinvested in the youth development side of public safety. If you give kids things to do [after school], and you give their parents opportunities for jobs and housing so that they can provide a stable family structure, then there’s more of a chance they’ll stay on track towards meaningful employment or further education. They will be less likely to drop out of school.

In the 1980s, Baltimore had almost a hundred rec centers — now we have 41.  The kids then do things people in the neighborhood don’t want them to do, so we send the police to get them — at a dramatically more expensive rate than it would have been to just give them something to do in the first place.

What school and after-school programs are you currently advocating for?

We have a community school program in Baltimore that serves 45 schools, where a community school coordinator works with the school, the community, and other stakeholders to leverage existing resources for the students and knit the school tighter to the surrounding community. That program has seen continual cuts to its budgets, [despite the fact that] the mayor promised in the last election to double funding on after-school programs during the course of her term. This year was the first time the budget wasn’t cut, so community organizers agreed that this is an opportunity to push for that funding increase, from the current $6 million to $10 million. This would take us from providing after-school programs from 4,000 students to 6,000 students, and would take us from 45 community schools citywide to 60. The resolution [for this funding increase] was co-sponsored by all 14 members of the city council and we voted unanimously to adopt it. The mayor still has to make a determination on it by no later than June 25.

You’ve spent years advocating for these programs. Why is it so difficult to get money in the city budget for these types of investments?

It would be cheaper to do more investment in the front end for kids and their parents, but the difficulty in implementing that comes from fear, quite frankly. I haven’t run into anyone in government who doesn’t acknowledge that it makes more sense and is more cost-effective to invest in the front end [for these youth]. But, for the past quarter century most elected officials, and all mayors, have responded to the segment of our community that is afraid. In Baltimore we have the uncomfortable combination of people who are most likely to vote being older people who are least directly connected to these youth, and the tool that politicians use to make them feel safe is more police.

Has the dialogue about investing in youth changed since the uprising?

In the aftermath of the uprising, the message that several of us [in the city council] have been pushing for a while is starting to spread wider: just because we’re not spending the money on the police department, that doesn’t mean we’re not spending it on improving public safety. Giving kids other things to be doing after school, on weekends, and in the summer is a tool for public safety. It used to be that no one would say that we can move money out of policing to pay for youth development, but since the uprising, there’s been a larger awareness that our police department has significant room for improvement, and that may not require that it spend all the money it has been spending. The best we [as advocates and organizers] can do is to show that when we talk about youth development, the same money could be spent more efficiently and produce useful outcomes, compared to just putting more money in the police department budget. That isn’t always easy because it’s easier to track how many arrests you make, but it’s impossible to measure the kids who don’t commit crimes because they’re coming to a rec center after school.

Read the rest of the June 11, 2015 America’s Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model issue.

Good jobs are the bedrock of a thriving community. While millions of new jobs have been added to the economy in the years since the recession, these jobs have not necessarily delivered on the promise of economic recovery for the communities that need it most.

This is the crucial challenge that an innovative new philanthropic venture is taking on in Oakland, California. By providing growth capital and hands-on technical assistance, Fund Good Jobs aims to marry two important goals: first, provide much-needed funding to small businesses with the potential to scale, and second, enable and incentivize these businesses to provide quality job opportunities. In the process, the group hopes to change how traditional capital markets invest in businesses, and turn around an economy that is stalling from a lack of good-paying jobs.

"We wanted to change the investment and financing space for small business," says Sean Murphy, president and managing director of Fund Good Jobs. "We chose the name ‘Fund Good Jobs' because we want to highlight our mission from the beginning."

Working with local entrepreneurs through the Bay Area-based business development organization Inner City Advisors, Murphy says he witnessed first-hand the many barriers to growth that local businesses face. Too small for standard venture capital investments and too large for micro-financing, these businesses often lack the capital, mentorship, and networking connections necessary to realize their potential as engines for local jobs.

"The companies we invest in may not be the next Twitter, but are good businesses that can create good jobs locally," says Murphy.

What defines these "good jobs"? Through discussions with those in the community, Murphy says that Fund Good Jobs has developed an evolving definition of this goal, including pay at a livable wage for the area, health-care and retirement benefits, opportunities for professional development and wealth building, and a positive work culture. Through a partnership with local workforce agencies, Fund Good Jobs and Inner City Advisors connect businesses to qualified candidates who are unemployed or underemployed, to ensure the jobs go to the people who need them most, and to maximize these businesses' economic impact in low-income communities.

Founded in 2013, Fund Good Jobs has invested $1.1 million in three Oakland-based businesses, leveraging a combination of private and philanthropic funds. They estimate that these businesses, which are all owned by women and people of color, have created 75 full-time, part-time, direct and indirect jobs in the area.

One such job went to Osvaldo Casalongue, a former surveyor from Los Angeles who lost his job during the recession.

"Construction stopped [and] it was very difficult to find a job," he says.  Then in October 2009, he came to work in an Emeryville warehouse for Back to the Roots, an urban farming company that was Fund Good Jobs' first investment recipient. Casalongue is now the warehouse manager, overseeing the operations team for the company, which makes at-home mushroom and aqua-farming kits, as well as locally sourced breakfast cereals.

Making job growth work for those left behind

Despite a growing job base following the recession, many Americans are still struggling to regain a financial foothold.

The jobs that are coming online pay less and often require a different skill set than those lost during the recession; they also tend to be located farther away from the low-income communities and communities of color who need them most. As a result, unemployment rates within these communities remain disproportionately high and nearly half of American households have seen their incomes continue to fall in post-recession years.

These statistics are a sobering reminder that the sheer number of jobs is not always as important as the quality of those jobs, and who can access them.

Back to the Roots is a good example of the way that Fund Good Jobs has sought to tackle this issue by partnering with businesses that already have a commitment to local impact — "in their DNA," as Murphy puts it — and then helping them create more, and better jobs, for those in the community.

"We always wanted to provide medical benefits for our employees and stay committed to hiring those who needed work the most," says Back to the Roots Co-Founder Nikhil Arora, but as a new company, he says they struggled to find money in the budget to provide all the benefits they would have liked.

The $650,000 Back to the Roots received from Fund Good Jobs not only helped them expand at a crucial time (they had just launched a second product); the funding was structured to promote these pro-employee, pro-community measures. As with all companies in their portfolio, Fund Good Jobs writes certain requirements and benefits into the agreement, such as lower interest rates or rebates for companies that provide comprehensive benefits, hire those with barriers to employment, or implement other "good job" measures.

"Because our interest rate will decrease the more we support good jobs, it was a good kick in the butt to do it," says Arora, noting that Back to the Roots recently achieved full health coverage, adding vision and dental coverage to the employee plan.

In addition to the training, mentorship, and capital provided by Fund Good Jobs, the company occupies a seat on the boards of the businesses in which it invests, to provide guidance and ensure that these businesses keep "good job" measures at the forefront of their growth and development.

"Investors usually have board seats so they can drive control [over company decisions], we use it to drive our mission," Murphy says.

Though this funding model is still in its nascent phases, Fund Good Jobs hopes to one day adapt their approach for regions throughout the country.

"There's growing interest and excitement in investing differently, but we have a long way to go to getting those investments to the street and to the communities we want to impact," Murphy says. Building off initial seed funding from three local foundations, he says they're trying to turn that first $2.5 million "into $25 million and beyond, but it's going to require getting all the players — community, philanthropy, business, policy — at the table."

Read the rest of the April 30, 2015 America’s Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model issue.

The Bay Area is already a majority people-of-color region, and communities of color will continue to drive growth and change into the foreseeable future. The region’s diversity is a tremendous economic asset – if people of color are fully included as workers, entrepreneurs, and innovators. But while the Bay Area economy is booming, rising inequality, stagnant wages, and persistent racial inequities place its long-term economic future at risk.

Read more on Buzzfeed>>>

There is a national discussion taking place on the status of low-income boys and men of color and PolicyLink has been deeply engaged in this discussion -- lifting up data, tools, and successful program models and polices working in community to improve academic and social supports for this population. At the same time, PolicyLink is also working to improve access to financial security for low-income communities and communities of color.  Financial security refers to a household or individual's full set of financial resources -- assets such as savings for an emergency or retirement -- that are needed to have stability and access economic opportunity throughout the course of a lifetime.

Engagement with both 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.

National demographic trends indicate that people of color will soon become the majority. Yet historically, people of color have not been able to build generational wealth. A new brief from PolicyLink, Building Financially Secure Futures: An Approach for Boys and Men of Color (flip thru the pages below), underscores the growing racial wealth gap in the context of a changing America. It examines the economic and financial challenges facing boys and men of color over the course of a lifetime and lifts up asset-building strategies that can be integrated with targeted services for this group. It also highlights successful practices that are already addressing financial challenges at a community level for this population, and draws from these practices to inform policy recommendations that can be implemented at state and local levels.

Check out our webinar archive, "Understanding the Role of Assets in Efforts for Boys and Men of Color,"  which discusses this very important work and new brief.

Our next webinar is slated for May 19, please look out for that announcement soon.

(cross-posted from The Hill)

The tax reform debate that will invariably accompany the 2016 campaign will undoubtedly include many of the same arguments from the right as we heard in 2012: too-high taxes on the wealthy are stifling economic growth; the poor “don’t pay taxes.” These conceits are still prevalent among Republicans — a report from Pew Research last month found that a third of Republicans feel that the poor don’t pay their fair share of taxes, while over half of them feel that they themselves pay too much.

The irony of such sentiments is that our tax system is holding our economy back — not because it hinders the wealthy, but because it favors them, and in so doing, furthers our nation’s growing economic inequality.  In other words, our tax code is supporting the rich to get richer, and the poor to get poorer.   While this may sound like added rhetoric, the numbers show how the status quo primarily benefits the wealthy.

To understand why this is, let’s take a look at actual tax expenditures — over a trillion dollars in tax revenue that is given back to taxpayers in the form of deductions, exclusions, favorable tax rates, and other subsidies. Over half of these expenditures, approximately $560 billion, are designed to incentivize certain activities such as buying property, investing in the stock market, or saving towards retirement.  The problem is however, that very few Americans can access these incentives – mainly just the wealthy.  That’s right, most of federal expenditures, dollars that would otherwise go to the federal budget, are being used subsidizing wealthy households.

In 2013, the top one percent of households received more benefits from these subsidies than the bottom 80 percent of households combined, according to a study by national nonprofit CFED. So while the average household in the top one percent could buy a car with an averaged $23,000 they take home each year in tax benefits, low-income households in the bottom 20 percent could just about buy a tank of gas at $77 per household.  So if you are part of the forty percent of Americans, and/or the two-thirds of people of color who don’t have enough savings to cover a short-term financial setback were your income to be interrupted, short of a couple tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), this year’s tax season won’t help you much. If you’re in the top 2 percent of earners, tax subsidies may help you get towards the 1 percent.  

Because the structure for incentives goes toward those who need it least, and largely leaves behind those that need it most, our tax policies are widening the wealth gap, and adding to already growing economic inequality.

And this inequality has a much broader impact on our economy than many would like to admit. Over the past few years, economists from the IMF, the OECD, even Morgan Stanley and Standard & Poor's have repeatedly documented the dampening effect income inequality has on our nation’s growth, with one analysis finding that our GDP would have been seven percentage points higher between 1990 and 2010 if income inequality hadn’t grown during the same period.  

So how can we build a tax code that promotes better economic mobility for all income levels? We need to take a hard look at the subsidies that we provide households through capital gains rates, deductions, and exclusions – a minute fraction of which ever reach low-income households and households of color.  On the other hand, we know that tax credits, such as the EITC or Child Tax Credit do, lifting millions of people out of poverty each year. We need to preserve and expand these tax credits, and create new, accessible credits that offer public matching funds (e.g. Financial Security Credit) or turn deductions into credits (e.g. home mortgage tax deduction). We can also support policy reforms that expand access to tax-incented savings through automatic enrollment in retirement funds (e.g. Automatic IRAs) and new products to promote savings (e.g. the President’s new myRA).  

So while candidates dust off their talking points on the debate around the carpet and drapes of our nation’s tax code (e.g., who pays higher tax rates) those who care about economic mobility for low and moderate income families should be advocating for an “Extreme Make Over: Tax Edition”: structural changes to our tax system that would put expenditures to work for all of us, not just the wealthy.

(cross-posted from Living Cities)

In order to achieve dramatically better results for low-income people, faster, we need to prioritize equity. Democratizing equity data is one step forward.

Living Cities is open sourcing our 2014 annual report, asking folks to respond to the question: “What will it take to achieve dramatically better results for low-income people faster?” This blog is a response to that question. In the coming weeks, we will showcase a diversity of points of view around this question. Learn more about the event and follow the conversation on social media with #NewUrbanPractice.

To see dramatic, sustained improvements in the life chances and outcomes of low-income people, we need to put equity—racial and economic inclusion—at the heart of our strategies for economic growth, competitiveness and prosperity. An inclusive growth model would produce many more good jobs and transform low-wage jobs into good jobs, while creating real pathways for those who’ve been excluded to participate in building a strong, sustainable, next economy. As communities of color become the new majority and the research proves that inclusion and diversity go hand-in-hand with economic strength, equity has become more than the right thing to do: it is an absolute economic imperative.

Data that is disaggregated by race/ethnicity and available at the regional level (and below) is a fundamental building block for advancing inclusive growth. Regions are the key economic units in the global economy and where equitable growth strategies need to be incubated and scaled. Data that describe and track the state of equity in regions can be the spark and fuel for inclusive growth strategies. But while data is now ubiquitous, it is often like Coleridge’s famous line: “Water, water, everywhere; nor any drop to drink.”

PolicyLink and the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity at the University of Southern California (PERE) built the National Equity Atlas to solve this challenge and put relevant data into the hands of those working to create more inclusive, resilient, prosperous regions. At the click of a button, you can access 21 field-tested indicators of demographic change, racial and economic inclusion, and the economic benefits of equity for largest 150 regions, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and nationwide. You’ll also find downloadable and shareable charts, explanations of why the indicator matters for equitable growth, policy ideas and examples, and in-depth profiles for several regions.

We built the Atlas to democratize data and make it easy for you to understand, discuss, and use. We’ve seen how equity data can bring together new cross-sector collaborations, strengthen advocacy, and inform new policies and strategies:

• In Rhode Island, data revealing that communities of color are driving growth in the state yet face major barriers to economic opportunity inspired then-Governor Chafee to open a new Office of Diversity, Equity, and Opportunity focused on inclusive hiring and contracting in government jobs.
   
• In New Orleans (a Living Cities Integration Initiative partner), the stark data point that 52% of the city’s working-age black males—a total of 34,500 men—were jobless prompted Mayor Landrieu to launch an Economic Opportunity Strategy to connect these men to jobs coming online at the city’s major anchor institutions.
   
• In Denver and New York City, advocates used transportation equity data to build broader coalitions and expand transit access for communities of color.
   
• Cross-sector collaborations in Houston, Kansas City, Omaha, Southeast Florida, and in North Carolina’s Cape Fear, Piedmont Triad and Research Triangle, regions are using this data to craft shared narratives about the economic imperative of equity and inform regional development strategies.

 

Data itself is not social change. But data can power the bolder, smarter, more targeted strategies that America’s regions need to leverage their increasing diversity as an asset and secure a bright economic future for all of their residents.

Strong and effective fair housing laws are essential for building prosperity — for people struggling to get by, for local and regional economies that benefit from thriving communities, and for the nation as a whole. That’s why a proposed rule by the Department of Housing and Urban Development is so important. As inequality soars and neighborhoods of concentratedpoverty are on the rise in most American cities, the rule would push municipalities to deliver on the promise of fair housing. By helping to connect low-income families to neighborhoods of greater opportunity, the rule has the potential to spur economic growth not only within these households, but within cities and regions.

The rule, due out this summer, is called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH). It would sharpen the tools that equity advocates and public sector leaders can use to increase investment in high-poverty neighborhoods, fight racial discrimination in the housing market, and add more affordable housing choices in neighborhoods with jobs, good schools, and other essentials. It would do this in three important ways:

(1)  It would make municipalities more accountable to community member needs by requiring resident engagement on fair housing and community development issues.
     
(2)  It would require a data-driven analysis (an "assessment of fair housing") of community conditions and impediments to fair housing, including factors that contribute to areas of racially concentrated poverty and high unemployment (e.g., school performance, transportation access, and toxic exposures).
     
(3)  It would require jurisdictions to tie federal funding — such as Community Development Block Grants and HOME funds — to addressing the fair housing challenges that are identified.

Taken as a whole, the proposed rule would mean that cities, counties, and states must be proactive to ensure all people can live in neighborhoods where they have access to the opportunities and resources we all need to succeed.

This rule is long overdue. It will help turn around the lasting negative impacts of historically discriminatory practices that contributed to the creation of poor neighborhoods of color, and it will reduce barriers that cut millions of Americans off from economic opportunity. This rule can be a powerful tool to advance equitable economic growth for the nation, and here are five reasons how:

(1)  Reducing growth-limiting racial and economic exclusion: Research shows that families living in disinvested and low-income communities have limited economic mobility and reduced future earnings. This effect creates generational cycles of poverty and limited opportunity: For example, two-thirds of Black children raised in the poorest quarter of U.S. neighborhoods a generation ago are now raising their children in similarly poor neighborhoods. This proposed rule has been proven to help direct more investment to neighborhoods that need them and help low-income families move to neighborhoods with more resources. Both the Puget Sound and the Twin Cities regions built off of their fair housing assessments – part of a pilot for the proposed AFFH rule – to focus new infrastructure investment in Native American, African American, African immigrant, Latino and Southeast Asian communities in need of investment. When St. Louis conducted a fair housing assessment, the city foundthat Housing Choice Vouchers were being used primarily in low-income neighborhoods where there were few jobs and community amenities. This assessment helped the city revamp its program to help residents find diverse housing choices that better met their needs.
     
(2)   Connecting people to job opportunities: By encouraging more job investments in high-unemployment communities and promoting transit investments that connect these communities to jobs elsewhere, this rule would help people previously isolated from employment opportunities better engage in the regional workforce and contribute to local economies. For example, Puget Sound used its fair housing assessment to strategically plan for a new food distribution hub and job incubators within historically disinvested neighborhoods where job growth was needed. And a New Orleans assessment that found transit was not serving late-shift schedules for hospitality and healthcare workers led to realignment of services to better meet low-wage, transit-dependent workers’ needs.
     
(3)  Creating jobs: Places that support the development of quality affordable housing and new infrastructure in disinvested neighborhoods also create new jobs both in the short- and the long-term for communities. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that building 100 affordable homes can lead to the creation of more than 120 jobs during the construction phase and roughly 30 jobs in a wide array of service industries once homes are occupied. When coupled with job training, inclusive hiring and contracting practices, and provisions for good wages and benefits, these jobs can help put low-income and unemployed residents on a pathway to good careers and financial stability.
     
(4)  Attracting new employers: Lack of quality affordable housing that connects to transit makes it more difficult for employers to recruit and retain employees, putting the local economy at a competitive disadvantage. In a national survey of more than 300 companies, 55 percent of large companies reported an insufficient level of affordable housing in their area, and two-thirds of these respondents cited this shortage as negatively affecting their ability to hold onto qualified employees. Other survey data suggests that affordable housing availability plays an important role in where new businesses decide to build or expand their operations. In Boston and Chicago, fair housing assessments helped these cities support new affordable homes around growing job centers in order to attract more employers to the area.
     
(5)  Providing low-income families with more disposable income to invest and save: The disproportionate housing burdenon low-income communities and communities of color makes it hard for them to save for emergencies, make long-term investments, or spend money within the local economy on necessary goods and services. Affordable rent and mortgage payments, and access to affordable transportation, can substantially decrease household costs, in some cases by as much as five hundred dollars a month. When families can save on housing and transportation costs, it bolsters their resiliency and financial stability and allows greater spending on health care and education. These investments contribute to greater stability not only for these households, but for the broader economy: a recent study found that every extra dollar going into the pockets of low-wage workers actually adds about $1.21 to the national economy.

The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule is powerful only if we understand it and put it to use. Learn more about the rule in our upcoming webinar.