(cross posted from the National Equity Atlas)

For 95 years, the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo has been committed to realizing its vision of a vibrant, inclusive region with opportunity for all. Our foundation makes the most of its clients’ generosity by bringing together seemingly different groups to develop collaborative solutions that realize this vision in Western New York. Now, more than ever, there is momentum to take on the region’s longstanding challenges and reverse the decline of the past decades.  

One of our key community goals is to improve racial equity. Approximately 90 percent of all board-directed resources support communities of color. While racial equity stands on its own, it is also a critical factor in addressing our goal to improve educational achievement for low-income students. Other goals include enhancing and leveraging significant natural resources (using an environmental justice perspective), and strengthening the region as a center for architecture, arts and culture by ensuring that all children have access to consistent arts instruction.

Key Equity Data Points Driving Our Work

Data that is disaggregated by race and ethnicity plays an important role in grounding our work and, in combination with storytelling, helps to inform our key initiatives. Powerful data points that drive our portfolio include the following:

• The Buffalo Niagara region ranks 98th out of 100 metros in black/white equity and 89th in Latino/white equity (from the U.S. Census)
• People of color are disproportionately clustered in urban centers and Buffalo is the third poorest city in the U.S. (also from the U.S. Census)
• Population growth in the region is driven mainly by foreign-born people of color, recent immigrants to America (from City Vitals 2.0)

Our foundation selected these three data points very intentionally to make the case for increasing racial and ethnic equity, especially as a driver for economic growth. As communities of color grow as a share of the population, it is even more urgent to dismantle racial barriers and ensure all of our residents can access the educational and economic opportunities they need to contribute to the region’s revitalization, resilience, and prosperity.

Our Racial Equity Framework

We also adopted a framework introduced by PolicyLink to close the racial wealth gap through seven strategies:

1)     Fortify the cradle-to-career pipeline

2)     Reconnect the long-term unemployed

3)     Grow businesses owned by people of color

4)     Build power among a workforce comprised of people of color

5)     Open up access to economic opportunities in high-growth sectors

6)     Build wealth in communities of color

7)     Leverage urban resurgence to grow income and wealth

We adopted this framework because it articulates the community-level strategies needed to support a stronger regional economy that decreases our racial disparities and increases the equity dividend: the benefits to our whole region that will come from expanding opportunity for all. The framework also gave our board a new way to evaluate their work and investments.

Investing in a Data-Driven Equity Strategy: Say Yes Buffalo

Equity data plays a major role in several of foundation-supported initiatives that bring together stakeholders across multiple sectors to advance the seven strategies. One of the Community Foundation’s most powerful data-driven cross-sector partnerships is Say Yes Buffalo, which is aligned with the PolicyLink strategy to fortify the cradle-to-career pipeline. “Recognizing the clear link between future economic prosperity and educational achievement, the Foundation committed to launching Say Yes Buffalo in late 2011,” said Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker, President and CEO of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo. “Say Yes Buffalo is an unprecedented, cross-sector partnership, focused on increasing post-secondary completion rates for urban youth.”

While the driving force behind Say Yes Buffalo is a universal scholarship program offered to students in the Buffalo Public Schools, financial aid for college is just one component of the effort, which seeks to remove all barriers to educational success. To the academic, health and behavioral challenges our students face, Say Yes Buffalo and its partners are putting people and programs run by respected community-based organizations directly into the Buffalo Public School buildings. For example, in 2014 with the help of Erie County and the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, 19 schools now have an on-site mental health clinic to provide students and families easy access to social and emotional supports.  

To date, Say Yes Buffalo has provided scholarships for over 1,500 high school students and after just the first year, the number of Buffalo Public High School graduates enrolling in two and four-year institutions increased by 9-percentage points.

“The leadership of the Community Foundation has set the groundwork for the transformational work of Say Yes Buffalo,” said Alphonso O’Neil-White, chair of the Say Yes Buffalo Scholarship Board. “Say Yes Buffalo and its partners are committed to implementing data-driven programming to enhance Say Yes Scholarships by removing barriers that prevent students from being academically successful.”

This holiday season, shoppers across the United States are expected to spend over $616 billion, an amount higher than the Gross Domestic Product of most other countries. Despite their flat wages, Americans are generous when it comes to gift giving, and the sheer amount of our spending creates power to shift the economy toward equitable growth. Here are four ways to put your hard-earned dollars to work for equity this holiday season:

1. Shop locally. On average, for every $100 spent at a national chain store, only $14 stays in the local economy. In contrast, for every $100 spent at independent retailers, $48 — more than three times as much — stays in the local economy. Likewise, shopping locally creates over four times as many jobs as shopping at online retail giants like Amazon. Supporting local businesses helps build community wealth, encourage entrepreneurship, and create jobs locally. Shopping locally can also provide valuable support to businesses owned by people of color and women and create a reality where business owners reflect the makeup of the communities they support.
    
2. Shop ethically. Not every business values profit over people. Many businesses make it a priority to treat their workers well, employ environmentally sustainable practices, and help build stronger communities. For dining out this holiday season or gift certificate ideas, the Restaurant Opportunities Center has a National Diner’s Guide that provides information on wages, benefits, and the promotion practices of the most popular restaurants in at least nine major cities. Certified benefit corporations voluntarily meet high standards of governance, workforce treatment, environmental impact, and community involvement — you can find a full list of these companies here. There are also union and other ethical shopping guides.
    
3. Shop at businesses owned by people of color and women. Entrepreneurship rates among people of color and women are high — African American women in particular are starting new businesses at six times the national average. Yet, these businesses often struggle to grow and stay in business. Deliberately shopping at businesses owned by people of color and women helps provide steady demand and business stability, which in turn, helps these businesses thrive. Supporting businesses of color leads to job creation in communities of color because minority-owned businesses tend to have more diverse workforces than White-owned businesses. Finding these businesses often takes just a little bit of work. Some places to start: Take a look at this list of 50 gift ideas from Black-owned businesses. Or this Silicon Valley Latino business directory.  Many states and regions have directories listing businesses that are owned by people of color or women that you can look up.
    
4. Give an alternate gift. Making a donation or volunteering in someone’s honor can help support organizations that work year-round to build a more equitable economy, such as youth job-training programs and worker organizing centers. See the story above for organizations that were covered in America’s Tomorrow over the last year, or browse our archives for ideas of organizations to support.

As the holiday season approaches its final days, there is much we can do as consumers to help build a more equitable economy. May this holiday season bring time for both reflection and action to advance equity in the New Year.

Read the rest of the December 22, 2014 America’s Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model issue.

In theory, tax code–based public subsidies should help all families save and invest, but instead, wealthier households receive most of the benefits. In fact, a recent analysis of the largest wealth-building tax subsidies found that the top 1 percent of households received more benefits from these tax code–based subsidies than the bottom 80 percent combined.

The new PolicyLink brief, Building an Equitable Tax Code: A Primer for Advocates, answers key questions about tax expenditures: What are they, how do they work, and who benefits? In addition, since the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) does not collect tax data by race, the primer uses data related to the distribution of benefits by income quintiles and the demographics of each quintile to provide a rough approximation of how different racial and ethnic groups do or do not benefit from the different categories of tax expenditures.

Key Takeaways include:

• Exclusions, itemized deductions, and preferential rates largely benefit the wealthy, while credits, especially refundable credits, are more beneficial to low- and middle-income households.
• The majority of households of color do not benefit from exclusions, deductions, or preferential rates.
• Tax policies are more likely to help lower-income households if they: turn deductions into credits; turn nonrefundable credits into refundable credits; and provide savings incentives in the form of public matching funds.

The brief provides policy recommendations to make the tax code more equitable, such as turning deductions into refundable credits and providing savings incentives.

Download the brief and join us for a national discussion on this very issue.

PolicyLink, CFED, and the Asset Funders Network, and various co-hosts, are holding a webinar on December 4th that will explore who benefits from federal tax expenditures by income, race, ethnicity, and zip code. The webinar will feature new data and insights from CFED, PolicyLink, and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, along with a discussion about how tax policy proposals expand savings and investment opportunities for lower-income households and households of color.

Where we put transportation investments has such an enormous impact on communities economic and health outcomes.

For example, low-income communities and communities of color disproportionately face conditions that contribute to higher rates of asthma related pollution due to living in neighborhoods located near busy highways and bus depots. Limited access to sidewalks and dedicated paths for biking and walking also make physical activity extremely dangerous and deadly. Moreover, as a result of declining physical activity, rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are much higher in these communities.

The Transportation Equity Caucus has recognized that federal, state, and local transportation investments must be leveraged to yield better health outcomes for low-income people, communities of color, and other disadvantaged groups. In Fall 2014, we hosted a national tele-conference to explore new local and regional efforts to incorporate health equity in the transportation planning process.  Here’s what we learned from our conversation with health equity advocates leading this work:

• Challenges exist to embedding a health equity frame in transportation;
• new tools are being developed to help connect local leaders to data on health equity and transportation; and
• having communities of color and low-income people at the decision-making table is an important strategy for embedding health equity in transportation.

Overcoming challenges to embedding health equity in transportation planning

In Portland Oregon, Upstream Public Health, a member of the Transportation Equity Caucus, is working with TriMet— the regional public transit agency to identify health related indicators that should be used to assess the impact of investments on equity. This would require a monumental shift in how the agency prioritizes its investments. Nonetheless, Upstream and other advocates are committed to continuing to engage and assist TriMet in realigning its goals and normalizing the focus on who will benefit from investments rather than simply focusing only on how much it will cost to make investments that prioritize health and transit equity.

A similar narrative is true for Circulate San Diego— a coalition of local interests groups— in Southern California. Circulate is working to shape the region’s first transportation bill to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Reducing GHG emissions is important for communities of color who have historically been disproportionately exposed to pollutants that increase greenhouse gases. It is important that equity partners like Circulate are at the table to ensure policies that mitigate climate change do so equitably. For this reason Circulate and its partners have developed the Healthy People and Economy Scenario which prioritizes equity, health, and economic opportunity. Specifically, the scenario illustrates how prioritization of investments in walking, biking, and transit in communities of concern can help communities across the region meet greenhouse gas emission goals and improve overall economic and health outcomes for communities. This scenario is one of three being considered, and advocates are hopeful that the scenario will be adopted.

New tools are developed to connect health equity and transportation

Health impact assessments are being used increasingly to assess the potential for proposed state and local transportation policies and projects to advance health equity.  In addition, new tools that connect health equity and transportation help advocates illustrate to planners and leaders the impact that investments may have on promoting healthy and thriving communities of opportunity.

For example, in Nashville, Tennessee, Conexion Americas and Transportation for America are developing a planning tool that will increase the capacity of the metropolitan planning organization to make investments that lead to positive health outcomes, especially for low-income residents and people of color. This tool will help forecast the impact of potential plans on regional health outcomes like obesity and chronic illnesses as well as quality of life, and access to jobs and services. A similar tool, the UrbanFootprint, is also being developed by TransForm for use in major regions throughout California.

Bringing communities of color and low-income people to the transportation decision-making table

Regional planning bodies and transportation agencies are organizing advisory committees to enable equity advocates a seat at the table in the decision-making process. These committees, however, are only helpful in advancing health equity to the extent that planners allow input and guidance gleamed from them to shape decision-making.  Nonetheless, advisory committees remain an opportunity for advocates and community members to provide input and guidance on how potential plans and investments can lead to outcomes that help create healthy and thriving communities for all, especially low-income communities and communities of color. Two examples include:

• Portland: TriMet’s Transit Equity and Access Advisory Committee provides a formal space for discussion of equity and is an opportunity for the agency to explore how to insert a health equity frame in all of their decisions. The committee also provides a forum for review and discussion of TriMet’s progress in embedding equity in services and planning.
• Nashville: the regional transit authority is also turning to its Citizens Advisory Committee for feedback and recommendations to help ensure its proposed bus rapid transit (BRT) project benefits all. The advisory committee was developed as a vehicle for ensuring all community interests are represented in planning and investments made around the proposed BRT.

So much great work is underway across the country to ensure transportation investments promote healthy, safe, and inclusive communities, and equitably focus on results. This lays an important foundation for using our transportation investments to improve health outcomes for all.

Equity advocates will be watching to see the impacts that these steps have on improving health outcomes.

Cross-posted from Rooflines (Shelterforce)

As housing and community development practitioners, you need little convincing that dismantling racial barriers to economic opportunity—from policing practices to exclusionary zoning—is critical to building stronger, more cohesive communities.

But what about the economic cost of these persistent racial inequities? Might segregated regions not just undermine the country’s moral fabric, but also hinder its long-term economic success, especially as we bolt toward a more multiracial future?

That’s a line of thinking that we’ve been exploring for the past few years with professor Manuel Pastor and his colleagues at the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity at the University of Southern California (PERE); and we just released a new analysis that adds some numbers to our assertion that “equity is the superior growth model.”

We asked the question: How much higher would total earnings and economic output have been in 2012 if racial differences in income were eliminated and blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and other communities of color had similar average incomes (and income distributions) as whites?

Our top-line finding: America’s annual GDP would have been $2.1 trillion higher with racial equity—a 14 percent increase. That’s about the size of California’s economy, the eighth largest in the world.

Drilling down to metros, we found even more dramatic potential gains. The country’s largest 150 regions could collectively grow their GDP by 24 percent by addressing racial inequities, compared with the national gain of 14 percent. Los Angeles stands to gain the most: $510 billion per year. But even the smallest potential gain—in Springfield, Missouri where the population is 91 percent white—is still in the hundreds of millions ($287 million).

In other words, the economic return on racial equity is enormous. What’s more, this “equity dividend”—for people, places, and the nation—will only continue to grow as people of color become the majority.

Now, it's important to note that these are estimates. We were conservative in that we did not include the inevitable “multiplier effect” of increasing incomes for people of color. In reality, more money in the pockets of low-wage workers of color would increase local spending, bolster neighborhood businesses, and create jobs. We also did not factor in the costs of moving toward equity. While some strategies to achieve racial economic inclusion—like removing the question about conviction history from job applications—would cost very little, others—like upgrading public education systems—will certainly have a higher price tag, but are smart, strategic investments.

Though these figures are just estimates, they are useful because they start to reveal just how much stronger America’s regions and states would be with equity. For years, advocates, practitioners, and government officials have asked us for a way to quantify the economic benefits of racial equity.

Now, these figures—and a host of other demographic and equity indicators—are available for all states and the largest 150 metros through the National Equity Atlas—a first-of-its-kind data and policy tool for those working to build a more equitable economy. PolicyLink and PERE built the Atlas to provide community leaders and policymakers with the data they need to advocate for the policies and investments to build a new economy that is inclusive, resilient, and prosperous.

What can be done with the Atlas? Here are a few ideas:

• Pull up a quick snapshot of demographic change and equity in your region or state here. Host a community roundtable to discuss demographic change and your community’s economic future using this information, or start with a staff meeting about this topic.
   
• Access data on your region or state’s housing burden by race, how it changed between 2000 and 2012, and how it ranks here. Download these charts to include in your next conference presentation.
   
• Find out racial differences in homeownership in your region or state, and whether the racial gap is increasing or decreasing here. Share these charts with your social media followers.
   
• Help us evolve this living resource. We plan to add more indicators, geographies, displays, and analyses to the Atlas and are on the lookout for indicators that are available at the regional level and can be disaggregated by race/ethnicity. Share your dream indicators with us.
   

Join us for our launch webinar. On Tuesday, November 18, 3-4 EST, we’ll tour the site and share ideas about how to apply this tool to your work. Please register here.

Ballots are in, and voters showed overwhelming support for measures to build a more equitable economy this election season.

Here’s the quick round-up of the victories:

• Minimum wage increases passed in every city and state – including Arkansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Alaska, and San Francisco and Oakland, California – as did Massachusetts’ paid sick leave initiative.
• California’s Proposition 47 passed with overwhelming support, reducing prison sentences and redirecting the costs of incarceration into important education and reentry programs. Read more about this important victory.
• Voters in Clayton County, Georgia, passed an important sales tax to bring mass transit back for low-income residents.
• Illinois voters passed a state amendment protecting the right to vote.
   

However, several important measures failed to pass, including Oregon’s measure to create a state investment fund for low-income college students, San Francisco’s tax on housing speculation, and Connecticut’s measure expanding early voting.

Read our earlier story on these ballot measures.

Thank you to everyone who voted, and to the countless volunteers who helped get these measures passed. Today, we celebrate the victories. Tomorrow, we continue on the long road for a more just, fair, and inclusive economy.

Equity and opportunity are on Election Day ballots around the country, giving millions of Americans the chance to vote for policies to build a just and inclusive economy.

Here are five ways that you can vote to put our cities, states, and the nation on a path to equitable growth and shared prosperity.

1.  Improve wages and jobs

With Congress stalled on raising the minimum wage, cities and states across the political spectrum are putting the issue to voters. Ballot initiatives in Arkansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Alaska would raise wages up to $9.75 an hour. San Francisco's Proposition J would raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2018, putting the city even with Seattle for the nation's highest minimum wage. Illinois, New York, and cities from Los Angeles to Portland, Maine, are considering legislative action to raise wages.

Oakland's Measure FF considers both pay and job quality: it would set a $12.25 minimum, require sick leave, and allow hospitality workers to keep all wages and tips. Many small business owners have voiced support, saying these provisions would stimulate local spending, spur job creation, increase tax revenues, and boost their bottom lines. "As a restaurateur, I know that better salaries produce higher morale and lowers turnover rates," said downtown proprietor Eduardo Balaguer.

The Alliance for Business Leadership in Massachusetts has cited similar reasons for supporting a paid sick leave initiative, Question 4. It would allow employees to earn and use up to 40 hours of paid sick leave a year.

2. Eliminate barriers to economic inclusion

African Americans are nearly four times more likely than whites to be arrested for drug possession, even though both groups use drugs at similar rates. Criminal records for nonviolent offenses like these create life-long barriers to getting a job, attending college, obtaining a loan, or taking other basic steps toward self-sufficiency and success, hurting our communities and economy overall. That's why PolicyLink strongly supports California's Proposition 47, which aims at dismantling the system of harsh and disproportionate sentencing by reclassifying six low-level nonviolent crimes, including drug possession, shoplifting, and check forgery, from felonies to misdemeanors. Prop. 47 would cut prison costs by hundreds of millions of dollars annually and redirect approximately $1 billion over the next five years to K-12 school programs, substance abuse and mental health treatment, reentry support, truancy prevention, and services for crime victims.

3. Invest in human capabilities

Oregon could become the first state to create a permanent fund to finance student aid for post-secondary education, opening up opportunities for low- and middle-income students and strengthening workforce development. The Opportunity Initiative, Measure 86, would amend the Constitution to create an investment fund whose income would be dedicated to student assistance programs. To maximize the impact of those programs, administrators would be able to design incentives in three areas: critical degrees such as science and technology fields, vocational training, and on-time graduation to reduce college infrastructure costs for the state and student debt. Like most governments, Oregon already sells bonds to finance infrastructure projects like roads. Measure 86 is a novel strategy to allow the state to sell bonds to invest in human capital.

4. Connect communities to opportunity

More than one-quarter of a million residents of Clayton County, Georgia, south of Atlanta, could regain full public bus service, under a measure that would levy a one-cent sales tax to raise $46 million a year for public transportation investments. This has been a priority issue for equity advocates since 2010, when the county — where one in five residents is poor — ended the bus service that so many people relied on to get around. The move sent the community into an economic tailspin: businesses closed, jobs vanished, and property values fell. New transportation investments would help people connect to shopping, services, and employment, revving up the economy.

In San Francisco, where the economy is booming, Proposition G aims to make sure that lower-income residents can participate without being priced out. The measure would create a tax on housing speculation, to be imposed when multiunit properties are bought and resold within five years. The goal is to preserve affordable housing and the vibrant, diverse neighborhoods that have always been the city's lifeblood.

5. Protect voter rights and strengthen democratic participation

A wave of recent laws across the country have restricted voting rights —particularly for low-income residents, people of color, and students —undermining voter participation in important decisions, such as the ballot measures listed above. Two states are voting on Constitutional amendments to strengthen voter rights and participation. Connecticut's Question 1 would expand early voting by allowing greater access to absentee ballots. And in a far-reaching response to growing voter restrictions, the Illinois Right to Vote Amendment would prohibit any law that disproportionately curtails the rights of citizens to register to vote or cast a ballot based on race, ethnicity, language, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or income.

Read the rest of the November 3, 2014 America’s Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model issue.

Data can, and should, play a central role in urban planning. In Denver, CO, the Denver Equity Atlas overlays educational, income, health, and other equity metrics on the new transit network to paint a picture of how transit impacts equity. As a result, the Denver Equity Atlas has helped advocates fight for better transit access, strengthened existing partnerships as well as engaging new partners, and is an important tool for organizing communities.

Using Data to Advocate for Transit

Transit routes that help connect people to the places in which they work are particularly important for low-income families, who heavily rely on public transportation. Using data from the Atlas, advocates were able to save a bus route that served low-income residents but had been slated for closure when the city’s new light rail service opened.

Bringing Partners Together

Mile High Connects, the creator of the original Equity Atlas, see their Atlas as one of the most fundamental tools in forming their equity collaborative. A partnership between private, public, and nonprofit organizations that are committed to developing inclusive, affordable and livable communities within walking distance of public transit, Mile High Connects engaged new partners through the original Atlas. As Dace West, Director of Mile High Connects says, “The first Atlas was a static map and it was instrumental in bringing people to the table, especially the philanthropic community, which hadn’t been as involved in equity work until then. It was a way to invite our public sector partners to take a look at some of the other actions taking place around the region.”

The Atlas is now in its second iteration as an online interactive tool that creates custom maps and summaries of statistics for particular interest areas in the region. The online tool was launched in partnership between Mile High Connects and the Denver Regional Council of Governments, the regional planning office. A Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Sustainable Communities Initiative Grant allowed the planning office and Mile High Connects to deepen their relationship and have joint ownership over the Atlas.

The Atlas also facilitates data sharing and coordination between the two, a benefit that will lead to more equitable long-term planning. “The Equity Atlas is a piece of the story and through the Sustainable Communities Initiative Grant there are a number of ways we are interacting with our MPO, including a longer term Memorandum of Understanding to preserve the work we have done together,” said West. “Over several months, we’ve had the opportunity to explore more ways in which we can work together that go even beyond the Atlas.”

Now that the Atlas is online, Mile High Connect is looking to respond more directly to the interests and needs of their partner organizations, especially when it comes to the data they are most interested in and that they access most frequently. The maps created through the Atlas help provide a visual tool to help advocates make the case for areas that need fresh food or transit connection from housing to job centers, for example. West say, “The Atlas has really provided the ability to visually represent where some of those mismatches are happening.”

A Tool for Organizing Communities

The Atlas can also be an important tool in organizing communities. Stephen Moore, a policy analyst at FRESC, uses the Atlas with community leaders so they can map their own communities and see what impact developments can have on their communities. When a development is proposed, Moore can show community leaders what happened in similar communities. Moore said, “We can show the displacement caused in other communities and say, ‘here’s some information about what these communities used to look like and what they look like now. The median house cost has increased and demographics have shifted. Looking at that neighborhood and looking at your own, what do you think about the kind of displacement that is likely to take place?”

By providing a visual understanding of the change taking place in the City, the Denver Equity Atlas is helping advocates shape how they want their communities, and city, to look and advancing equity through smart, community based urban planning.

On Tuesday, voters in voters in four states—Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota—will decide whether to raise their states’ minimum wages. In Illinois, voters will also cast their ballots on an advisory measure to raise their state minimum. According to an analysis by Ben Casselman at FiveThirtyEight, raising the minimum wage in these five states (by a $0.25 per hour in Arkansas to $1.75 per hour in Illinois) could affect 680,000 low-wage workers. Minimum wage hikes are also on the ballot in the Bay Area cities of Oakland and San Francisco.

Moving the minimum wage closer to a family-supporting “living wage” is a critical policy to move the nation toward inclusive growth. Most of the jobs being added to the economy are low-wage jobs, and nearly everywhere, the minimum wage is simply not enough to make ends meet (the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour). Since low-wage workers are disproportionately workers of color, raising the minimum wage has the double benefit of addressing racial as well as economic inclusion.

Interested in learning some more facts behind these wage debates? The National Equity Atlas is a great source of data on long-term wage trends in states and regions. Here are 12 facts—two about each of these five states and two from the San Francisco Bay Area—drawn from the Wages, Income Growth, and Job and Wage Growth indicators in the Atlas:

ALASKA

#1  Alaska’s full-time workers at the 10th percentile earned about $7,700 less in 2012 than in 1980—a 25 percent decline.

#2  Over the past two decades, Alaska grew low-wage jobs (74 percent increase) much more quickly than middle- (21 percent) or high-wage ones (53 percent).

ARKANSAS

#3  In Arkansas, full-time workers at the 10th percentile earned about $1,700 less in 2012 than in 1980—a 9 percent decline.

#4  Since 1980, the median wage for workers of color in Arkansas has been $13 per hour and the median wage for white workers has been $17 per hour.

ILLINOIS

#5  In Illinois, full-time workers at the 10th percentile earned about $5,000 less in 2012 than in 1980—a 20 percent decline.

#6  Since 1990, Illinois grew low-wage jobs (22 percent increase) much more quickly than middle- (.3 percent) or high-wage ones (7 percent).

NEBRASKA

#7  Nebraska’s full-time workers at the 10th percentile earned about $800 less in 2012 than in 1980.

#8  The median wage for Nebraska’s workers of color in 1980 was $18 per hour; in 2012 it was $13 per hour.

SOUTH DAKOTA

#9  South Dakota’s full-time workers at the 10th percentile earned just $670 more in 2012 than in 1980—a 3 percent raise over more than three decades.

#10  The median wage for both white workers and workers of color in South Dakota today is a dollar less per hour than it was in 1980.

SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND-FREMONT METRO AREA

#11  In the Bay Area, full-time workers at the 10th percentile earned about $2,500 less in 2012 than in 1980—a 10 percent decline.

#12  The median wage for white Bay Area workers has increased from $27 to $34 per hour between 1980 and 2012; for workers of color the median wage only increased from $22 to $23 per hour during that time period.

Follow us on Twitter (@PolicyLink and @PERE_USC) for more facts and charts about wages in these states and regions, as well as others that are debating legislation to raise their minimum wage.