National Equity Atlas Update

 

Dear Equity Atlas Users,

The Atlas is a living resource, and as such, we are happy to share new features, upcoming webinars, and data-in-action posts that add equity data to the national dialogue about growth and prosperity.

New Neighborhood Maps Added to the Atlas
Today we are launching interactive neighborhood-level mapping for four indicators on the Equity Atlas: people of color, race/ethnicity, unemployment, and disconnected youth. These new maps allow you to visualize data by county or by census tract as well as by city, region, or state. You can also toggle back and forth between different years to see how the geography of opportunity has changed over time and create custom maps using the race/ethnicity and neighborhood opportunity filters.

These maps can help inform targeted hiring and workforce development initiatives as well as infrastructure investments. Learn how they work in the latest data-in-action post which provides a step-by-step guide to this new feature, as well as examples of how to use these maps in your advocacy. You can also register for our 30-minute webinar on November 2 for a live walk through.

Welcoming America Webinar
On October 7, Angel Ross from PolicyLink and Justin Scoggins from the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) participated in a Welcoming America webinar about immigration and equitable economic development. Participants examined the economic indicators to get a sense of how immigrants are faring in their communities. The archive of the webinar is available on the Welcoming America website.

“Chart of the Week” Series
Every week, we post a new chart drawing from the Equity Atlas related to current events and issues. There are three new posts in our “Chart of the Week” series: a neighborhood-level look at unemployment in St. Louis, an examination of “jobless growth” in Ohio, and a look at working poor in Pittsburgh related to last week’s p4 conference.

Thank you!

The National Equity Atlas team at PolicyLink and the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE)

Chart of the Week: Addressing Working Poverty Critical for Equitable Development in Pittsburgh

To add equity data to the national dialogue about growth and prosperity, every week the National Equity Atlas team posts a new chart from the Equity Atlas related to current events and issues.

This week, PolicyLink joined more than 600 participants at the second p4 conference in Pittsburgh to discuss how to create a new sustainable, innovative, and inclusive model for development designed to establish Pittsburgh as a city of the future. This includes acknowledging how historical and institutionalized practices of discrimination continue to impact the economic and health outcomes of people of color today.

To provide additional context for the conference and the p4 initiative moving forward, this week’s chart looks at working poverty by race/ethnicity and gender in the city.

As the chart shows, Black women have the highest rates of working poverty in Pittsburgh. One in five Black women ages 25 to 64 is working full time with a family income less than 200 percent of poverty compared with 15 percent of Black men and just 8 percent of White men. Black women are three times more likely than White women in the city to be working poor. Asian women are the least likely to be working poor.

Equitable development requires an intentional focus on eliminating these racial inequities and barriers, and making accountable and catalytic investments to assure that the lower-wealth residents connect to economic and ownership opportunities. To learn more about an equitable development strategy that works to ensure that everyone participates in and benefits from the region’s economic transformation—especially low income residents, communities of color, immigrants, and others at risk of being left behind—read the new PolicyLink report: Equitable Development: The Path to an All-In Pittsburgh.

To view how working poverty varies by race/ethnicity and gender in your community, visit the National Equity Atlas, select the “By gender” breakdown, and type in your city, region, or state. Download the chart and share it on social media using #p4pgh and #equitydata.

Chart of the Week: Jobless Growth in Ohio

To add equity data to the national dialogue about growth and prosperity, every week the National Equity Atlas team posts a new chart from the Equity Atlas related to current events and issues.

A couple weeks ago, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released its third estimate of second quarter growth in gross domestic product (GDP). Real annualized GDP growth for the nation was 1.4 percent in Q2 up from 0.8 percent in Q1. While GDP is often the measure of economic health and well-being, the nation's recovery from the Great Recession has been characterized as a "jobless recovery," in which job growth has lagged behind GDP growth. In a typical post-recession recovery, macroeconomic indicators of recovery like GDP growth are often accompanied by job growth and declining unemployment, but this hasn’t been the case for many states and regions across the country. To provide context for this new release in one of this year’s election battleground states, this week’s chart looks at post-recession GDP and job growth in Ohio compared to the national average — an Atlas indicator that was just updated today!

While Ohio’s GDP grew faster from 2009-2014 than that of the U.S. as whole, job growth in the state lagged behind. GDP increased by an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the state compared with 1.8 percent for the nation overall, but jobs grew at an annual rate of only 0.9 percent in Ohio compared with 1.3 percent in the U.S.

Jobless growth indicates that the benefits of an expanding economy are not reaching as many workers and their families as they could be underscoring the importance of growing good jobs for all. Policies that support this kind of growth include building 21st century, resilient infrastructure (with inclusive hiring and contracting), as well as targeting economic and workforce development strategies to grow high-opportunity industries that offer good jobs and careers for people without college degrees.

To view how GDP growth has compared to job growth pre- and post-recession in your region, visit the National Equity Atlas and type in your metro area or state. Download the chart and share it on social media using #equitydata.

Webinar Archive: Special Preview: Neighborhood Mapping on the Atlas

The National Equity Atlas had a beta release for its new neighborhood mapping functionality. To learn how to use it and offer feedback, watch our latest webinar: “Special Preview: Neighborhood Mapping on the Atlas.” Here are the webinar recording and slidesWe encourage you to share then with your network.


Here are some additional mapping tools mentioned during the webinar:

 

Find analyses of our newest data featured below or in the “Data in Action” section; and follow our 'Chart of the Week' series here and on Twitter @PolicyLink using #equitydata:

 

We also invite you to join our next live webinar, "Exploring New Neighborhood Maps Added to the Atlas," scheduled for Wednesday, November 2, at 12:00 pm - 12:30 pm PT. We will release new interactive neighborhood-level mapping for three additional indicators: people of color, race/ethnicity, and disconnected youth. These new maps allow you to visualize the geography of opportunity by race/ethnicity across neighborhoods within your community. Register here.

If you have additional feedback about the new mapping features, please contact Sarah Treuhaft at sarah@policylink.org or visit our “Frequently Asked Questions” section on the Atlas to scan commonly asked questions.
 
Thank you,

-- The National Equity Atlas team at PolicyLink and the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE)

 

Chart of the Week: Mapping Unemployment in St. Louis

To add equity data to the national dialogue about growth and prosperity, every week the National Equity Atlas team posts a new chart from the Equity Atlas related to current events and issues.

If there’s one thing we know the candidates will talk about at the second presidential debate, hosted by Washington University in St. Louis on Sunday, it’s the economy. The most recent data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts unemployment at 5.2 percent for the St. Louis metro area in August of 2016. But if want to see how unemployment varies by neighborhood and race/ethnicity in the region, the most recent data available is 2014 (which reflects a five-year average from 2010-2014). The unemployment rate for the St. Louis metro area was 9 percent in 2014—up from 5.5% in 2000. But this was not the case for all people: the unemployment rate for Whites in 2014 was 7 percent, while for people of color it was more than double that figure: 15 percent.

To provide context on the geography of unemployment within the St. Louis metro area, this week’s chart shows side-by-side census tract level maps of White unemployment and unemployment for people of color in 2014. To view the interactive maps online, check out our new mapping breakdown.

As the map legend describes, the lighter the green, the lower the unemployment rate. The blue census tracts, on the other hand, have an unemployment rate greater than 20 percent.

The map on the left shows White unemployment in the region, and the only blue areas are in North County and St. Clair. There are several tracts near the center of the map that are blank—these tracts do not have enough White people to report White unemployment (the Atlas threshold is at least 100 people in the denominator).

Meanwhile, the map on the right shows unemployment for people of color. It’s an entirely different picture, with several blue tracts throughout the region, including some of the same tracts that were green for Whites (indicating that some people of color experience significantly higher rates of unemployment compared with Whites even when they live in the same neighborhood). The blank census tracts on this map do not have enough residents of color to report unemployment.

In an equitable economy, unemployment would be low and all workers would have similar success in finding work, regardless of race or gender. These maps can support regions interested in addressing these spatial and racial inequities through developing targeted hiring initiatives as part of new development or through smart investments in infrastructure projects. In addition to information about the neighborhood-level unemployment rate, the maps also provide information on the total number of unemployed people. An analysis produced by PolicyLink/PERE for the FedUp Campaign found that if there were full employment in the St. Louis Area in 2015, over 100,000 more workers would be employed—contributing to a $7.8 billion increase in the GDP and $1.7 billion more in tax revenue to strengthen the social safety net.

To view the new maps added to the Atlas for your community, visit the National Equity Atlas and type in your city, region, or state. Download the map and share it on social media using #equitydata. You can read an overview of the new mapping breakdowns added to the Atlas, here.

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