National Equity Atlas: February Update

Dear Equity Atlas users,

Greetings! Please see below for a round-up of additions to the National Equity Atlas in the last quarter of 2015. 

We also have a favor to ask: If you have been using the Atlas, would you write a short testimonial about what you used it for and what impact it had/what you liked about it? We have a specific opportunity to share a user testimonial in a new national resource, and an ongoing need to document how our data is informing community action. Please share your two-sentence testimonial here.
 

New Data

  • In October, we added the 100 largest cities to the Atlas, increasing the number of geographies represented to 301! Check out our webinar releasing the data.
  • We added gender and race/ethnicity breakdowns to two economic indicators: Unemployment and Wages: Median (gender is also available for the Wages: $15/hr indicator).

 

New Reports

  • We analyzed the potential economic gains of true full employment for the Fed Up Coalition. Our series of fact sheets (for the U.S. as a whole and 12 metros) illustrate the improvements to employment, income, GDP, poverty, and tax revenue if everyone who wanted a job could find one — regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender.

 

In the News

  • Matt Vasilogambros of the National Journal analyzed the racial wage gaps in America’s metros using Atlas data, reporting on the continued gaps even among highly-educated workers and the worst and best regions for Black, Latino, and Asian workers on this measure.
  • In January, the Chicago Tribune used Atlas data — revealing that by 2020, 47 percent of Chicago’s jobs will require an associate’s degree or higher, yet only 29 percent of U.S.-born Latinos and 28 percent of U.S.-born blacks in the area currently have that level of education — to frame a story about strategies to prepare young people of color for the jobs of the future.
  • The Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) invited Atlas team member Sarah Treuhaft to write about the Atlas and the practice of combining data with narrative for policy change on its blog.

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Data In Action

 

Webinars

 
Thank you for using our data and being a part of the movement to build an equitable economy!

The Equity Atlas team at PolicyLink and PERE

Indicator Update: Unemployment Data Now Disaggregated by Both Gender and Race

The National Equity Atlas includes historical data on unemployment at the national, state, regional, and city levels. We have recently updated this indicator to provide more detailed information on unemployment by gender as well as race/ethnicity; here’s an overview of the unemployment data available in the Atlas and how you can use it.

What it measures

The unemployment rate reported in the Atlas is calculated as the number of people ages 25–64 who are out of work divided by the number who are in the labor force, defined as working or actively seeking employment (over the last four weeks). No data is reported for demographic subgroups with insufficient sample sizes.

Atlas users can compare unemployment by gender both within and between racial groups, and track trends over time, with data going back to 1990.

What it shows

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the unemployment gender gap (the difference between female and male unemployment rates) “virtually disappeared after 1980–except during recessions, when men’s unemployment rates always exceed women’s.” This is reflected in the data for the United States presented in the Atlas with the overall gender gap near zero in both 1990 and 2000, but with men’s unemployment rates exceeding women’s by 0.6 percentage points in 2012. (Because the data reported for 2012 represents a 2008-2012 average, these figures span the period during and immediately following the Great Recession.) In our 2012 data, women’s unemployment was lower than men’s in 45 states (plus the District of Columbia), 61 of the 100 largest cities, and 110 of the 150 largest metro areas.  

The newly disaggregated data also show that in each gender group, unemployment remains significantly higher among people of color. Nationally, unemployment for White men was 7 percent, compared with 10 percent for men of color. Among women the gap was even greater: 6 percent unemployment for White women and 10 percent for women of color. Of course, these figures vary greatly among different regions. For example, the tables below list the regions with the lowest unemployment rates among men and women of color.

The Atlas makes it easy to dig a little deeper and compare rates of unemployment across different racial and gender groups. The following chart displays more detailed information for the Anchorage, AK metro region, which has one of the highest gender unemployment gaps in country:

Unemployment rate by race/ethnicity and gender: Anchorage, AK Metro Area, 2012

To explore this data for another region, city, or state, visit the National Equity Atlas.

1.       Click on Indicators in the navigation bar;

2.       Select the Unemployment indicator under Economic Vitality;

3.       Select “By gender” in the breakdowns underneath the chart.

You can also learn more about strategies for addressing inequities in employment and where to find supporting data, and check out “Full Employment for All: The Social and Economic Benefits of Race and Gender Equity in Employment”—a report prepared by PolicyLink and the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE).

Chicago Tribune Cites Atlas Data on Changing Demographics and Educational Needs for Digitized Economy

In today’s Chicago Tribune, Mark Caro and Kathy Bergen use data from the National Equity Atlas to describe Chicago’s changing demographics and the widening skills gap the city will face in the coming years (“Chicago's future hinges on retooling schools for digital age”). Four years from now, in 2020, 47 percent of all jobs in the Chicago metro area will require at least an associate degree—but less than a third of Latinos and African Americans in the area have attained that level of education. Because people of color will make up almost half of the region’s population by then, Caro and Bergen explain, city leaders must act now to better meet the education and job-training needs of tomorrow’s workforce. They describe model solutions from around the country, like the innovative curriculum at Dalton High School in Dalton, Georgia, and the apprenticeship program at Siemens’ manufacturing plant in Charlotte, North Carolina. Read the story here and then visit the National Equity Atlas to learn more about education requirements and job readiness in your region.

Now on the National Equity Atlas: Median Wages by Gender

 

We are excited to introduce new data on the National Equity Atlas: our median wages indicator is now disaggregated by gender as well as race. Here we will describe what the indicator measures, discuss some related national trends, and show you how to get more information on the gender pay gap and what can be done to address it.

What it measures

This indicator reports the median hourly wages (in 2012 dollars) of full-time wage and salary workers ages 25–64, by gender and race/ethnicity.  As the chart below illustrates, you can compare wages by gender both within and between racial groups, and track trends over time with data going back to 1990.

 

Above: Median Hourly Wage by Race/Ethnicity and Gender, United States

National trends

Nationwide, full-time working women now earn $0.86 for every dollar earned by their male counterparts, compared to $0.71 in 1990; this seems like encouraging progress, but according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, 40 percent of that progress is explained by declining wages among men. The data in the Atlas support this conclusion: while women’s wages have risen by about 6 percent over the last few decades, men’s wages have fallen by nearly 13 percent. In addition, research has shown that the women continue to earn less than men not only because of differences in education, occupation, and family needs, but also as a result of gender discrimination and bias in the workplace. Across the U.S., White women earn about $0.79 for every dollar earned by White men, and the gaps are even larger for most women of color:

As the new data in the Atlas clearly indicate, gender pay gaps can’t be understood in isolation from racial pay gaps. Exploring some national trends can show how these dynamics are interconnected:

  • Overall, men earn more than women in all 50 states, all of the 150 largest metro areas, and 98 of the 100 largest cities. Nationally, men earn more than women within each racial group, and this trend holds true for the majority of metros and cities as well.
  • White women earn more than women of color in all 50 states, all of the 150 largest metros, and all but one of the 100 largest cities (excluding Hialeah City, Laredo City, and  Portland-South Portland-Biddeford, ME Metro, for which there are insufficient data to make such a comparison). These inequities persist even among women with similar levels of educational attainment. College-educated women of color, for example, earn an average of $23 per hour, compared to $28 per hour for White women with the same level of education.

 

New in the Atlas: City-level data

The greatest gender wage equality has been achieved at the city level, particularly in places where White women earn the most and men of color earn the least compared to White men—meaning the cities with the smallest gender pay gaps have some of the steepest racial pay gaps in the country.

Let’s take a closer look at Los Angeles as an example. In L.A., one of only two cities in the U.S. where women’s median hourly wages are slightly higher than men’s, men of color earn less than half the pay of their White counterparts: 

Above: Median Hourly Wage by Race/Ethnicity and Gender, Los Angeles 

White men are paid dramatically more than all other workers in the city of Los Angeles: White women earn $0.83, women of color earn $0.50, and men of color earn just $0.47 for every dollar earned by White men. Differences in education, occupation, and experience account for some but not all of these disparities; this is why the disaggregated data presented in the National Equity Atlas and other data tools like Clocking In (produced by Race Forward) are so important and powerful: they can help advocates and policymakers push forward creative, multidimensional solutions by showing how economic and social inequities are multilayered.

Strategies for reducing gender wage gaps

It is clear that city, state, and national leaders should focus on strategies that will address both gender and racial wage gaps, such as increasing the minimum wage, enacting living-wage laws, guaranteeing paid sick days, preventing wage theft, ensuring fair scheduling, and targeting economic development and workforce efforts to grow high-opportunity sectors that provide pathways to good jobs for people without four-year degrees. More specifically, strong protections against gender wage discrimination, like California’s new equal pay statute, can help ensure that workers are fairly compensated regardless of their gender.

 

How to get the data for your community

Visit the National Equity Atlas to explore data for your city, region, or state:

1.       Click on Indicators in the navigation bar;

2.       Select the Wages: Median indicator under Economic Vitality;

3.       Select By gender in the breakdowns underneath the chart.

Higher Education Doesn’t Close the Wage Gap for People of Color

In two recent National Journal articles, Matt Vasilogambros uses data from the National Equity Atlas to explore how the wages of workers in America’s 150 largest metro areas differ according to race/ethnicity and educational attainment (here and here). The Atlas provides data on median hourly wages broken down by race/ethnicity and level of education.

Overall, White workers earn more than people of color in every metropolitan area in the country—and the same pattern holds true within each category of educational attainment. (There are a handful of metro areas, most of which have incomplete data on the wages of workers of color, where Asians edge out Whites for the highest average pay.) Vasilogambros notes that “this gap in earn­ings between races and eth­ni­cit­ies is well-doc­u­mented, as are its reas­ons: Work­ing-age people of col­or tend to be young­er, have less ex­per­i­ence in skilled labor, and are less edu­cated than whites.”

While it is true that median hourly wages tend to rise with increasing educational attainment, so do racial wage inequities. According to Valerie Wilson, the dir­ect­or of the Eco­nom­ic Policy In­sti­tute’s Pro­gram on Race, Eth­ni­city, and the Eco­nomy, wage gaps have grown the most for college graduates. Data from the National Equity Atlas show that these hourly wage gaps are greatest (around $7 per hour) in cities like San Jose, San Francisco, and New York, where average levels of education and median wages are much higher. The narrowest gaps—still around $2 per hour—are seen in metro areas where the median pay for all workers is far below the national average. As Wilson puts it, “Things tend to equal out at the bot­tom, un­for­tu­nately.”

Sarah Treuhaft, the dir­ect­or of equit­able growth ini­ti­at­ives at Poli­cyLink, underscores the significance of these wage inequities, which are expected to grow as U.S. demographics continue to change. “It im­pacts the over­all eco­nomy,” says Treuhaft. “If people are not earn­ing as much pay, they have less money to save, to edu­cate their child, to spend in the eco­nomy, which fosters more eco­nom­ic activ­ity. Over­all, that ra­cial gap in wages adds up to a big gap in eco­nom­ic prosper­ity for the re­gion.”

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