National Equity Atlas Update

Dear Atlas Users,

Greetings! As we move into fall, our team is expanding. We are happy to welcome Joanna Lee and Arpita Sharma to PERE, and are also excited for Huibin (Amee) Chew to join PolicyLink as an American Council of Learned Societies Equitable Economy Fellow, beginning September 4.
 

New Community Data Projects
Over the next year and a half, the National Equity Atlas team will be working with five community organizations and coalitions in New Mexico and Mississippi on data projects to advance equitable growth locally. The partners and their projects include: the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty (predatory storefront lending), the New Mexico Worker Organizing Collaborative (wage theft), Doña Ana Communities United (equity policies in Las Cruces), San Juan College (equitable economic development in Farmington), and East Biloxi Community Collaborative (equitable opportunity zones). We are grateful to the W. K. Kellogg Foundation for supporting this project and excited to get started!

Join Us at the 2018 CIC Impact Summit in Minneapolis!
From September 17-19, the Community Indicators Consortium (CIC) will host its annual impact summit in Minneapolis, with the theme of "Community Indicators in Action." One of our longtime collaborators, Dr. Chris Benner of the University of California, Santa Cruz, will deliver the keynote, and Sarah Treuhaft will lead a workshop on leveraging data and narrative to advance equity locally on September 19. Register here.

Seeking a Communications Strategist in Oakland
Are you a communications expert passionate about racial and economic equity and empowering community changemakers with data? PolicyLink is looking for a part-time strategist in our Oakland office to implement our communications and outreach strategy for the National Equity Atlas and the forthcoming Bay Area Equity Atlas. Apply here.

In the News
Kevin Alin and Peter Truog of The Fund for Our Economic Future cited our data estimating that Cleveland's regional economy could be $15 billion stronger each year with racial equity in income in their blog post encouraging cities to advance racial equity through their opportunity zone investments.

Thank you!

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

National Equity Atlas: July Update

Dear Atlas Users,

Greetings! July has been a month for making progress on a number of exciting projects we will roll out in the fall and winter. We are thrilled to welcome our newest team member, Michelle Huang, who has joined PolicyLink in our Oakland office. We also wish our teammate Ángel Ross well as they begin a doctorate program in sociology at UC Berkeley!
 

Seeking a Communications Strategist
Are you a communications expert passionate about racial and economic equity and empowering community changemakers with data? PolicyLink is looking for a part-time strategist in our Oakland office to implement our communications and outreach strategy for the National Equity Atlas and the forthcoming Bay Area Equity Atlas. Apply here.

Advancing the Conversation on Employment Equity
James Crowder recently participated in a radio interview with NC Policy Watch to describe the findings and recommendations of our report, "Advancing Employment Equity in Rural North Carolina." And he and Sarah Treuhaft penned an op-ed for the News & Observer lifting up the challenges posed by the proliferation of temporary employment in the state’s rural areas.

Charts of the Week: #EquityABQ and Health Equity in Michigan
Following up on the Equity Profile of Albuquerque released last month, summer intern Maryjane Bermudez took a closer look at the gender wage gap in the Albuquerque metro, where just 45 percent of Native American women earn at least $15 per hour compared with 56 percent of Native American men and 80 percent of White men. Last week, Maryjane explored how the expansion of Michigan’s 10 cents a meal program could advance health equity.

Better Data for Better Health
We are honored to be among several tools featured in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's on its “Better Data for Better Health” web collection, which is also summarized in this handy brief. Check it out to explore other data tools for health equity!

In the News
As a part of the Bay Area Equity Atlas project, the Atlas team provided data to EBASE to incorporate into its report about the growing housing crisis in Concord, California. The data revealed how the majority of Concord renters have annual incomes below $50,000 yet in the vast majority of Concord neighborhoods, renters need an income of at least $75,000 to find affordable housing. Our data was included in articles about the report printed in the San Francisco Chronicle and The Mercury News.


Thank you!

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

Chart of the Week: Michigan’s 10 Cents a Meal for School Kids & Farmers Program Promises to Boost Health Equity

To add equity data to the national dialogue about inclusive economies, the National Equity Atlas team regularly shares charts produced with data from the Atlas related to current events and issues. Join the conversation on social media using #equitydata.

Last month, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed a bill that expands the 10 Cents a Meal for School Kids & Farms program. The program, which began in 2016 and is endorsed by the Michigan Good Food Charter and supplements the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, provides participating school districts with up to 10 cents in match funding per meal to purchase and serve locally produced fruits, vegetables, and legumes. A 2016-2017 report on the program’s pilot found that it promoted both health and gave a boost the local economy: over $100,000 was spent on local produce from farms while school meals incorporated a wider range of fruits and vegetables. By the second year, the program introduced 95,000 students to 65 different types of healthy food options. 

This week’s chart illustrates how the expansion of the 10 cents program will advance health equity by supporting the state’s youth and farmers, regardless of race or income. Initially serving Northwestern Michigan, the program expansion covers counties in the Southeastern region, including the cities of Flint, where 67 percent of youth of color are living under 150 percent of the poverty level, and Battle Creek, where Black, Latinx, and Mixed children are almost twice as likely as White children to live in poverty. The pilot program operated in Regions 2, 4, and 9 where the percentage of people of color is as low as five percent in Waxford County. The expansion will include Regions 6 and 8 where it will have the potential to serve more low-income, students of color. Importantly, the program does not include Wayne County (home to Detroit), where the population is over 50 percent people of color.

Studies show that when students are offered a healthier school lunch, they begin to adopt healthier eating behaviors. Children who are exposed to fresh produce early in life are likely to continue healthy eating patterns into adulthood and access to fruits and vegetables is a major component of preventing chronic health conditions like obesity.

The expansion of the program is one of many necessary solutions to ensure that all state residents can live a healthy life, regardless of racial identity or income. Across the country, advocates and organizations are seeking and developing strategies to ensure that students have access to local, healthy foods in and out of the classroom.  Michigan ranks 16th in percent of adults who are overweight or obese, and people of color are more likely to be obese compared to their white counterparts. Expansion into Southeastern Michigan will reach more youth of color and is an intervention to lower future rates of adulthood obesity. Addressing and eliminating the persistent health disparities among racial groups would further racial and ultimately economic equity.

To see how race is distributed by county in your state, visit the National Equity Atlas and type in your state. Download and share your map on social media using #equitydata.

Chart of the Week: Closing the Gender Wage Gap in Albuquerque Using an Equity Lens #EquityABQ

To add equity data to the national dialogue about inclusive economies, the National Equity Atlas team regularly shares charts produced with data from the Atlas related to current events and issues. Join the conversation on social media using #equitydata.

Last month, with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and in partnership with the City of Albuquerque and New Mexico Voices for Children, we released an equitable growth profile of Albuquerque showing that the region’s GDP would increase by almost $11 billion if there were no racial disparities in income. The profile will serve as a guiding document for the city’s restructured Office of Equity and Inclusion, which has revitalized the city’s commitment to racial and economic equity through actionable goals that address the issues head on.  Albuquerque’s Pay Equity Initiative, for example, requires businesses interested in contracting with the City to report their pay scales by gender and job category, with preference given to businesses whose pay scales are more equitable. The policy addresses one aspect of the gender pay gap by contracting with entities that ensure employees, regardless of gender identity, are paid equally.

This week’s chart highlights the gender wage gap in the Albuquerque metropolitan region by exploring the share of workers, disaggregated by race and gender, who earn at least $15/hour. To fully address the gender pay gap, it is imperative to acknowledge the racial inequities that exist across gender. One important caveat to this analysis: the Atlas datasets are drawn from national surveys like the American Community Survey, which only offers two gender options — female and male — effectively excluding the experiences of people who do not identify within the gender binary.

Among all racial groups, men are more likely than women to earn at least $15/hour. Among women, three quarters of White women earn at least $15/hour yet only 56 percent of Latinx women and less than half of Native American women reach the $15/hour threshold. White women still earn more than people of color, regardless of gender identity. Overall, White men are 1.5 times more likely to earn $15/hour compared to women of color. This phenomenon is not limited to the Albuquerque metropolitan region. In the United States, 56 percent of women of color earn $15/hour, compared to 80 percent of White men.

Latinx and Native American people make up over half of the population in the Albuquerque metropolitan region and experience the highest rates of poverty. To afford basic necessities in Albuquerque, a single adult with one child would need to make at least $25/hour. An hourly wage of less than $15 keeps individuals and families economically insecure, and families of color are more at risk. Economic insecurity can lead to worse health outcomes and stunts an entire region’s economic growth, as illustrated by the recent equity profile. Another report found that if women received equal pay, the United States’ GDP would increase by $513 billion. To further extend pay equity, Albuquerque can look to the city of Philadelphia who extends its equitable contracting policies to focus on businesses owned by people of color and people with disabilities, in addition to women.

To see how the gender pay gap varies in your community in addition to solutions and strategies, visit the National Equity Atlas and type in your city, state, or metropolitan region. Download and share the chart on social media using #equitydata.

National Equity Atlas: June Update

Dear Atlas Users,

Happy summer! June was a busy month for our team with new reports released with partners in Omaha, Albuquerque, and North Carolina. And we were thrilled to see our data on the potential economic benefits gained by eliminating the rent burden used to power advocacy in New Orleans and Louisiana!

Equity Atlas Renter Data Helps Secure Policy Wins in Louisiana
Timely, local data can strengthen advocacy, as we saw last month when the Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance (GNOHA) used our “When Renters Rise, Cities Thrive” fact sheets to help secure two policy wins. GNOHA used the New Orleans data to advocate in support of a temporary ban on short-term rentals to halt the loss of affordable homes. And they used the Louisiana data to advocate against a state preemption bill that would have banned local governments from adopting inclusionary zoning policies. Gambit Weekly and Biz New Orleans wrote about the new data. Read more here and contact us if you would like a similar fact sheet for your city or state.

Equity in the Heartland: Updated Omaha Equity Profile
On June 6, the National Equity Atlas team, in partnership with Heartland 2050, released an updated equitable growth profile of the Omaha-Council Bluffs region at “Everyone Prospers: The Path to Equity,” a gathering hosted by the United Way of the Midlands and the Metropolitan Area Planning Agency. Car access stood out as a challenge to economic opportunity in the region, with Black households three times as likely to be carless as the average household, as Jamila Henderson writes in this Chart of the Week.

Toward One Albuquerque
We also released an equity profile of the City of Albuquerque (along with this summary) at an event jointly held by Mayor Tim Keller and community partners including New Mexico Voices for Children. The equity profile data will serve as a guide for the city’s Office of Equity and Inclusion as they develop their action agenda. The mayor tweeted: “We’re taking action to close these gaps to create an economy that works for everyone.” The event was covered by the Albuquerque Journal and TV news station KRQE.

New Report: Advancing Employment Equity in Rural North Carolina
Our last release of the month took place in Raleigh, where we joined our partners at Rural Forward NC and the NC Budget and Tax Policy Center to share our analysis of how much stronger the state economy would be with employment equity in its rural areas. One of the challenges repeatedly brought up by focus group participants in three rural towns was the replacement of regular jobs with temporary jobs that offer lower pay and benefits for the same work. Leaders from the state’s workforce development and community college system, as well as other anchor institutions, discussed potential policy solutions at the release event. Read the report and fact sheet.

Join Our Team: Seeking a Senior Associate in the PolicyLink Oakland Office
Are you a data geek passionate about racial and economic equity and empowering community changemakers? Or, do you know someone who is? PolicyLink is seeking a senior associate to join the National Equity Atlas team and manage a project supporting community partners to develop equity data tools. Apply or share with your networks and on social media.

New #EquityData Resources
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Altarum released a national study, The Business Case for Equity: A Strategy for Growth, estimating that closing long-standing racial inequities in health, education, employment, and incarceration would boost the nation's economy by $8 trillion by 2050. Companion reports are also available for Mississippi, New Mexico, and New Orleans. Also, the newly launched City Health Dashboard provides data on 36 measures of health for the 500 largest U.S. cities, and includes data disaggregated by race/ethnicity for absenteeism, high school graduation, low birthweight, prenatal care, and more. Both items (and much more!) can be found on this Resources page on the Atlas.

Thank you!

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

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