New Data Dashboard Tracks Rent Debt in States, Regions, and Counties

April 27, 2021

Dear Atlas users,

With the conviction of Derek Chauvin, the Atlas team stands in solidarity with George Floyd’s family. True justice would be a world where George Floyd was never murdered. We remain committed to supporting the fight for racial equity and systemic justice through our analyses, disaggregated data tools, and campaign support. Here are some updates:

Join Us for the Launch of the Racial Equity Data Lab on May 6

The National Equity Atlas is America’s most detailed report card on racial and economic equity – and now we’re democratizing our data even further help you to build your own custom Atlas-powered data dashboards. Join us on May 6 at 12:00pm Pacific / 3:00 Eastern for the launch of the Racial Equity Data Lab, a new space on the Atlas where you can create unique data displays, dashboards, and maps. The Lab has everything you need to tell your community’s equity story using Atlas data: ready-to-use datasets, data visualization basics, and a step-by-step guide to get you started. We’ll also share a starter dashboard focused on the importance of raising the minimum wage. For example, in Dallas, fewer workers earn at least $15 now than in 1980, due entirely to racial inequities. Join this webinar to hear more about the Lab, how we’re using it to support equity campaigns, and how to create custom data visualizations for your community. Register now!

New Rent Debt Dashboard Tracks Covid Impacts to Support Broad Renter Protections

Stabilizing renters experiencing housing insecurity is key to an equitable recovery and lasting prosperity for our communities, so we partnered with Right to the City Alliance to equip advocates and policymakers with timely, local data on the extent of renter debt and the characteristics of households affected by it. Our regularly updated data reveals that the renters behind on rent owe an average of $3,400 – and the vast majority of them are low-wage workers, disproportionately people of color, who’ve suffered job and income losses due to the economic shutdowns. Without sufficient eviction protection, debt relief, and financial support, these Covid-impacted renters will be left behind. Visit the rent debt dashboard to see the data for your community, and check out our accompanying analysis.

In the News

This month, Forbes highlighted the Atlas as a key tool for advancing racial equity on a municipal level. Denver7 TV aired a story featuring the findings and implications of our rent debt analysis, and Planetizen also highlighted the data in our rent debt dashboard. Government Affairs called for the Biden Administration to develop equity indicators modeled after the Atlas. And ABC Cleveland, Energy News Network, and Akron Beacon Journal all cited our data in their coverage of racial inequities. See a complete list of media coverage here.

- The National Equity Atlas team at PolicyLink and the USC Equity Research Institute (ERI)

New Analysis Reveals Massive Renter Debt in California

March 25, 2021

Dear Atlas users,

The Atlas team stands in solidarity with the Asian and Pacific Islander (API) community in this moment of heightened discrimination, hatred, and violence. As we reckon with our nation’s long history of racism and xenophobia, disaggregated data is crucial for advancing racial equity and justice. Here are a few updates:

Ancestry Matters: Racial Subgroup Data in the National Equity Atlas

Asian and Pacific Islander activists and organizations have warned about the ‘model minority’ myth for decades. While the API population as a whole often fares above average on socioeconomic indicators, such metrics render invisible subgroup populations within the API community who face barriers to economic opportunities and inclusion. To illustrate the diversity of experiences and outcomes within broad racial/ethnic groups, the Atlas includes subgroup data for several of our economic opportunity and connectedness indicators, including median wage, unemployment, the percentage of workers making $15/hour, disconnected youth, homeownership, and educational attainment. To view this data, navigate to your indicator of choice and then select “by ancestry” from the Breakdown menu.

New Data Shows that 1 in 7 California Renter Households Are Behind on Rent

In partnership with Housing Now!, the Atlas team released an updated fact sheet analyzing rent debt in California (also available in Spanish), as well as a rent debt fact sheet for the Bay Area. We found that over 814,000 households were behind on rent in January, or 14 percent of all renter households. Renters owe an estimated $2.4 billion in back rent (an average of $2,900 per household). Eliminating rent debt is critical to equitable recovery: the vast majority of renters with debt are low-income, Covid-impacted renters of color. The new data was featured during #TenantTuesday to raise awareness about California’s rent forgiveness program, which will provide crucial relief.

You’re invited: Using Disaggregated Data to Advance Workforce Equity

You’re invited to join the National Equity Atlas team and our partners at the National Fund for Workforce Solutions for a three-part webinar series on using disaggregated data to develop high-impact workforce strategies for racial equity. Through our Advancing Workforce Equity project, we spent two years working closely with local leaders to analyze tailored workforce data, identify the key drivers of inequity, and prioritize actionable strategies to advance equity through policy, programs, and investments. In this webinar series we’ll share the tools and approaches that guided this research, along with lessons from the field.

  • Part 1: Accessing and Exploring Relevant Data from the National Equity Atlas
    April 14, 11 am – 12 pm PT / 2 pm – 3 pm ET
    This session will focus on using the National Equity Atlas to access and understand deeply disaggregated data for your city, region, or state. Register here.
  • Part 2: Analyzing Systemic Drivers of Inequity
    April 21, 11 am – 12 pm PT / 2 pm – 3 pm ET
    The second session will equip attendees with strategies to analyze disaggregated data and identify the root causes of inequitable workforce outcomes. Register here.
  • Part 3: Developing High-Impact Workforce Equity Strategies
    April 28, 11 am – 12 pm PT / 2 pm – 3 pm ET
    Finally, the third session of this webinar series will feature lessons and tools developed through our work with local leaders in the Advancing Workforce Equity project. Register here.

In the News

This month, news outlets including Yahoo Finance and the Washington Post covered our indicators, while The Guardian, The Mercury News, and The Press Democrat covered our analysis of renter debt in California. Find a complete list of media coverage here.

And don’t miss “Putting People First: Reimagining OUR Economy,” a recent episode of the Radical Imagination podcast featuring Manuel Pastor and Saru Jayaraman on the fight for one fair wage and a solidarity economy. PolicyLink and its partners at Unfinished invite you to reflect and respond to the question, "What does an economy that puts people first look like?" Submit your responses at RadicalImagination.us, or on social media using #RadicalImagination and #ThisIsUnfinished

- The National Equity Atlas team at PolicyLink and the USC Equity Research Institute (ERI)

Getting Started with the Lab

The Racial Equity Data Lab is a space for equity champions to combine their own expertise on their community’s experiences, assets, and needs with the deeply disaggregated data in the Atlas using Tableau Public.

In the Lab you can:

1. Access Tableau 

Visit our Using Tableau page to set up your own account to use the Tableau Public app or work directly in the Tableau Public site using your internet browser.

2. Create Your Own $15/Hour Fact Sheet

Download our starter viz to create and customize a $15/hour fact sheet for your geography. The Step-by-Step Guide provides instructions on how to select your geography, customize the elements of the $15/hour fact sheet, explore the data, and incorporate your own expertise on why a $15/hour minimum wage matters for racial equity in your community.

3. Access Data

Access Tableau-ready data sets to download Tableau starter workbooks for Atlas indicators. The Housing Burden starter workbook and Median Wages starter workbook include built-in features such as example charts, filters, and parameters to allow users to explore the data by year, geography, race, sex, nativity, and ancestry. 

4. Design Your Own Data Visualizations

Using Data Visualization Basics and best practices, create a data visualization that illustrates key data points, identifies underlying causes and drivers of inequity, and lifts up powerful equity solutions.

5. Explore Equity Data Visualizations

Explore our Gallery page to view other racial equity data visualizations built through the Lab. 

 

 

Getting Started with the National Equity Atlas

The National Equity Atlas is a one-stop-shop for data and policy ideas to advance racial equity and shared prosperity. Our focus is providing equity metrics that are deeply disaggregated by race/ethnicity, gender, nativity, ancestry, and income for the largest 100 cities, 150 regions, all 50 states, and the United States as a whole.

We built this site to democratize data and make the facts accessible and actionable to everyone — including the grassroots organizations that possess invaluable firsthand knowledge of inequities yet often lack the resources to gather, analyze, and display the quantitative data so crucial to policy campaigns to address them. At the click of a button, you can see how your community is doing in comparison to other communities according to our Racial Equity Index and 30 relevant, useful, field-tested indicators of racial and economic equity.

Now we are thrilled to share the latest innovation in our suite of data and policy tools: the Racial Equity Data Lab. The Lab is a new space on the Atlas designed to help equity advocates and campaign leaders to build  custom Atlas-powered  dashboards, data displays, and maps. The Lab has everything you need to tell your community’s equity story: ready-to-use datasets, data visualization basics, and a step-by-step guide to get you started. It also includes a starter visualization that you can use as a template to create a $15/hour factsheet for your community.

Ready to dig in to the National Equity Atlas? Here are the essential features to help you explore the indicators and unlock the power of our unparalleled data disaggregation.

1. Indicator and Geography Selection Toolbar: Your Home Base

Next, explore the individual indicators in the Atlas. Once you are on the page for any indicator, the first interactive element you will find is the Indicator and Geography Selection Toolbar. This toolbar allows you to choose which of our 30 indicators you want to explore for any of the 272 geographies in the National Equity Atlas. To do so, follow these five steps:

A) Select any indicator, either from the dropdown menu under Indicators or from the Indicators introductory page
B) Choose your indicator group (Demographics, Economic Vitality, Readiness, Connectedness, or Economic Benefits)
C) Choose your indicator from the dropdown menu
D) Choose your geography type (Nation, State, Region, City)
E) Choose your geography from the dropdown menu
 
Here is how it looks for our Race/ethnicity indicator for the Orlando region:
 
Note that the number of geography types available to you will differ from indicator to indicator, based on data availability. For example, you will not see “City” for the Economic gains: Racial equity in income indicator because data is not available for those smaller geographies for that indicator.
 
Also, once you are on an indicator page, scroll down for key insights about the indicator, the drivers of inequity, policy solutions to consider, and additional resources.
 
  • MASTER IT: Change the geography and pull up the trend data for a community. What groups are growing and which are shrinking?

2. Chart Breakdowns and Filters: Explore the Data

The Chart Breakdown and Filters feature is the true engine for data exploration in the National Equity Atlas. This is where you can disaggregate the data such as race/ethnicity, race and nativity, race and gender, ancestry, and poverty level. It is also where you can get indicator-specific breakdowns of the data, such as business ownership by race and by industry or commute time by race and transportation mode.

Take these steps to use the Chart Breakdown and Filters feature:

A) Select your breakdown
B) Select one or more filters
 

Here is how it looks for our Working poor indicator for the city of Albuquerque:

  • MASTER IT: Explore the different breakdowns and filters for this indicator. Which groups are most likely to be working full-time but still in poverty or economically insecure (living below 200 percent of poverty) in your community?

3. Compare: See How Your Community Stacks Up

A fourth essential feature — also in the Indicator and Geography Selection Toolbar — is the Compare function. Comparison is a very important method for analyzing equity metrics, allowing you to see how your community (or a group in your community) is doing in relation to other communities (or the same group in a different community). This can help you understand the extent of disparities, assess what are the drivers of inequities, identify strategies to remove barriers, and set goals for progress on eliminating inequities.

Here is how to use the Compare function:

A) Select compare
B) Select a comparison geography type from the dropdown menu
C) Select a comparison geography from the dropdown menu
 
And this is how it looks for our Working poor indicator, comparing the city of Albuquerque to the state of New Mexico: 

Note that the Compare function is not available for indicator breakdowns that contain multiple categories over multiple years (like the Race/ethnicity indicator you just looked at) because the display would not be legible.

  • MASTER IT: Compare working poverty trends in your city and your state.

4. Map Filters and Full Extent: Visualizing Patterns

Mapping data by geography puts spatial inequities — which are also racial inequities, due to housing segregation and discrimination — into stark relief. The National Equity Atlas team has worked hard to create a custom mapping system that enables clear visualization of patterns across communities and correlations between race, place, and income.

Follow these steps to Map Filters and Full Extent features:

A) In the chart breakdown, select the map breakdown
B) Under map geography, choose your geography type (Nation, State, Region, City)
C) Select map filters
D) Select map full extent
E) Select a demographic group
F) Use the slider to see how communities with higher and lower shares of your selected demographic group perform on the indicator
 
Here is how it looks for our Rent burden indicator for the St. Louis metro region, looking at majority Black communities by selecting Percent Black, 50% in the map filter:

5. Downloads and Social Media Buttons: Share and Use Data Visualizations

The National Equity Atlas is a tool for community action, and we wanted to make it easy for you to use the data to highlight issues of inequity, build support for campaigns, and make your case for solutions with policymakers and others in positions of power. We also believe in open data and know that you want to be able to explore the raw data yourself. That’s why we built more sharing and download functionality into the National Equity Atlas.

Follow these steps to access our Download and Sharing features:

A) Select download type (Image or Excel worksheet)
B) Select sharing type (Facebook, Twitter, Email)
 
Here is how it looks for our Rent burden map for St. Louis:

  • MASTER IT: Download an Excel file to examine the data behind a chart or map. Post a National Equity Atlas chart or map on your Facebook or Twitter page.

6. Racial Equity Index

The new Racial Equity Index — available for all geographies in the Atlas — allows you to track how well your community is doing on a set of nine equity indicators compared with other communities (and over time). The index summarizes an inclusion score (which measures racial disparities on nine indicators) and a prosperity score (which measures overall performance levels on those same indicators), and can be further broken down into its components to help you identify the most important challenges and areas of progress to develop targeted equity strategies. You can also examine the prosperity score for each of six major racial/ethnic groups. Here is how to access the index:

A) Go to the Racial Equity Index under Research
C) Choose your geography type (Nation, State, Region, City)
D) Choose your geography from the dropdown menu
E) Explore the data
F) Go back to Racial Equity Index to examine the Prosperity scores for the Black, Latinx, Native American, Asian or Pacific Islander, Mixed/other race, and White Populations.
 
Here is how the index page looks for Minneapolis-St. Paul metro region.
 
Thank you for exploring the National Equity Atlas! We hope you are excited enough about these features to let your colleagues know about this new tool. We encourage you to join the discussion on social media using the hashtag #equitydata.

Step-by-Step Guide to Create Your Own $15/Hour Fact Sheet

With three easy steps you can create a dashboard with six charts showing who earns at least $15/hour in your community.

This tutorial describes how you can create a $15/hour fact sheet for your community using Atlas data and Tableau. All you will need is a Tableau Public account and an internet connection. Instructions on how to set up a Tableau Public account can be found on our Using Tableau page.

Step 1: Login to your Tableau Public account at https://public.tableau.com/s/  
Step 2: Open the Starter Viz in Tableau Public and click "edit" in the top right corner
Step 3: Adjust for your geography by clicking on the icon to the right of the "All" sheet name

Screenshot showing icon to open All sheet

Double click on the Geo Name pill in the Filters card.

Screenshot showing select Geo Type filter

Unselect “Dallas City, TX” and select your city from the list of available geographies. Once you confirm only one selection has been made, click “OK” in the popup window.

Screenshot to unselect Dallas from list of geo types
Screenshot showing select city from list
Screenshow showing confirmation only one selection made

Navigate back to the $15/hour Dashboard tab at the bottom of the browser screen.

Screenshot showing navigation back to Dashboard tab

All the data visuals are now updated to show the data for the city you selected!

Customize your Fact Sheet

Use the guide below to explore the data and update the text in the factsheet. 

  1. Explore: What does the data show for your community?

Explore the updated data for your selected geography and highlight key takeaways from the data that shows who currently earns a living wage in your community.

Guiding questions to consider:

  • What share of workers earn at least $15/hour? How has it changed over time? Does that trend look different for White workers than for workers of color? 
  • Which racial group is the most likely to earn a living wage? Do you observe any differences by race?
  • When looking at race and gender, which workers are the least likely to earn at least $15/hour? How has that changed over time?
  • Look at immigrant versus US-born workers: do you observe any differences based on nativity?
  • Look at Asian or Pacific Islander ancestry to observe subgroups within each population: do you observe any differences between subgroups? Are all subgroups able to access $15/hour wages at the same rate as the Asian or Pacific Islander group overall? 
  • Has higher education attainment changed over time for the overall population? How about within each racial group? Are workers with similar education attainment equally likely to be earning at least $15/hour across racial groups? Do differences in educational attainment explain the different rates?

Consider adding: Help your audience understand who are the workers that a living wage would most benefit. Interview workers that currently earn less than $15/hour about their experiences and include quotes or insights from those interviews in the viz. 

Double-click on any header to edit the headlines and titles for each chart. 

Screenshot showing editing of headers by double clicking on text boxes
  1. Help your audience understand the context and why this matters:

In the Tableau workbook, edit the text to include key information that would ensure your audience understands what current wage conditions are for workers in your community, and why a $15/hour or living wage would improve equity and how it would impact the local economy.

Guiding questions to consider:

  • What is the current minimum wage in your city/state? What is the current tipped wage?
  • When was it last updated? Does it match the living wage needs? (If you are unsure of the living wage for your location, you can look this up using the MIT Living Wage calculator)
  • Have there been any key legislative changes or laws regarding minimum wage in your city/county/state?
  • Who comes to mind when most people imagine a worker in your community that would benefit from $15/hour? Is that an accurate profile?

Consider adding: Include a profile or quote of someone who represents a key population who is currently not earning a living wage in your city/county/state.

Screenshot showing edit context section
  1. Include Equity Solutions:

In the Tableau workbook, edit the text regarding what leaders can do. Include key information that would ensure your audience understands what specific policies and actions they can support and advocate for that would ensure a living wage for all workers.

Guiding questions to consider:

  • Why would a $15/hour minimum wage improve equity in your city/county/state?
  • What can your policymakers do to ensure that all workers are paid a living wage?
  • Is there any specific legislation currently being discussed?
  • What can businesses do to ensure that all their workers are paid a living wage?
  • What do you want your audience to take as a next step to support a living wage for all workers?
  • Are there additional resources you want to include to help people learn more or take next steps? Consider including references to other resources and organizations.

Consider adding these equity solutions to your viz:

  • Raise the minimum wage federally and at the local or state level.
  • Enact living-wage laws that require government offices and contractors to pay living wages.
  • Strengthen workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively for a living wage, including passing the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act.
  • Establish standards to ensure public investments in economic development and infrastructure create living-wage jobs.
  • Pursue full-employment economic policies that promote hiring, increased work hours, and living wages for low-wage workers including a federal job guarantee.

Screenshot showing edit equity solutions section
  1. Publish your Dashboard

You can now click publish to see your final dashboard! In the File menu, click on "Save As…", name your workbook then click “Save”.

Screenshot showing Save As from file menu to publish

Once the workbook has uploaded successfully, you will automatically be taken to your Tableau Public profile page, where you can view your final dashboard. Click on "Edit details" in the top pop-up banner to edit your title, description, and select settings including if you want to allow others to download and explore the workbook. 

  1. Share your Dashboard

You can share your dashboard several ways:

  • Send a link: Copy the link and share it!
  • Send an email using your default email application: Click on the email icon.
  • Share on Twitter or Facebook by clicking on the corresponding icons.
  • Embed the dashboard on your website: Copy the embed code and paste it in your web page HTML.

You can also download the visualization as an image, PowerPoint, or PDF file. 

Screenshot showing download and share buttons

 

Submit your customized fact sheet to the Racial Equity Data Lab!

Submissions are reviewed by the National Equity Atlas team and selected vizzes may be highlighted in the Racial Equity Data Lab Gallery. Click here to share your viz with us.

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