New Report and Upcoming Webinar: Race and the Work of the Future

Dear Atlas Users,

The results of this year’s elections are largely due to a historic groundswell of activism led by people of color and grassroots community organizations across the country. As the movement for racial equity continues to build momentum, the Atlas team is proud to partner with local leaders at the forefront of policy change. Our research this month highlights the urgent need to center low-income communities and people of color in both the ongoing Covid-19 recovery and in the long-term vision for a just and fair society. Here are some updates:

New Report Highlights Strategies for Inclusive Recovery and Equitable Future of Work

Today, the National Equity Atlas, in partnership with Burning Glass Technologies and the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, released our latest report, Race and the Work of the Future: Advancing Workforce Equity in the United States, a comprehensive analysis of long-standing racial gaps in labor market outcomes, the economic impacts of Covid-19, and the racial equity implications of automation. With in-depth analysis of disaggregated equity indicators and labor market dynamics, we found that White workers are 50 percent more likely than workers of color to hold good jobs, and that eliminating racial inequities in income could boost the US economy by $2.3 trillion a year. Read the full report here.

You’re Invited: Race and the Future of Work

Please join us on November 18 at 10 a.m. Pacific / 1 p.m. Eastern to learn about the findings of our new report: Race and the Work of the Future: Advancing Workforce Equity in the United States. We’ll also hear from workforce leaders moving equity-focused policies on the ground in Dallas and Seattle — including targeted strategies like skills-based hiring and apprenticeships and cross-sector partnerships that align workforce development with critical community supports like childcare, housing, and transportation. Register here.

For An Equitable Recovery, Invest in New Mexico’s Workers

Just like the coronavirus crisis itself, the economic crisis is hitting workers of color in New Mexico the hardest, particularly Native American workers, as they experience more layoffs and greater financial hardship than White workers. This new brief, authored by James Crowder of PolicyLink and produced in partnership with the Center for Workforce Development at San Juan College, describes conditions for New Mexico’s workers and presents a policy agenda for an inclusive recovery that leads with workforce equity.

Eviction Risk Analyses Released for California and Washington

The Atlas team has been supporting the Our Homes, Our Health housing justice effort by producing eviction risk fact sheets for local campaigns, advocating for strong renter protection and eviction moratorium policies across the country. This month, we published factsheets for California (with Housing NOW! California) and Washington (with Washington CAN), with many more in the works. Find them here.

National Equity Atlas at KIDS COUNT

The National Equity Atlas will be the featured data tool at a special session of the NY KIDS COUNT virtual conference, “All Data Are Local,” on December 2 at 10 a.m. Pacific / 1 p.m. Eastern. Registration is now open.

Thank you.

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

We’re Hiring! Build a Racial Equity Data Lab on the Atlas

Dear Atlas Users,

As we continue to support communities in their response to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have spent the past month producing new analyses, trainings, and factsheets powered by Atlas data. Partnerships with community organizations are driving this work forward. Here are a few highlights:

As the nation prepares for a historic election, the need for reliable, deeply disaggregated data to inform equity strategies is clearer than ever. The Atlas team has been hard at work this past month conducting unique analyses, building partnerships, and sharing our work with the field to strengthen local organizing and policy efforts. Here are some updates:

We’re Hiring for an Exciting New Partnership with Tableau

The Atlas team is excited to announce our new partnership with Tableau, a global leader in visual analytics. Through this partnership, we will build a new Racial Equity Data Lab on the Atlas, where users can create Tableau dashboards combining Atlas data with other data sources, and lead an Equity Data Fellowship to support leaders of color working in racial equity-focused organizations. We are recruiting a senior associate to lead this work. If you know of any candidates who are passionate about equipping equity advocates with data and visualizations, please send them our way. Read the full job description here.

Eviction Risk Analyses Released for Colorado and Bedford County, TN

The Atlas team has been supporting the Our Homes, Our Health housing justice effort by producing eviction risk fact sheets for local campaigns advocating for strong renter protection and eviction moratorium policies across the country. This month, we published factsheets for Colorado (with Colorado Homes For All, United for a New Economy, and 9to5) and Bedford County, TN (with the Bedford County Listening Project), with many more in the works. Find them here.

Atlas Team Shares Data Insights to Support Community-Led Equity Efforts

This month, Atlas team member Sarah Treuhaft participated in an SF Chronicle panel to discuss how the election could impact systemic racism in housing, criminal justice, and income inequality. She will also present today at the Center for an Urban Future policy forum to discuss municipal initiatives that can help build a more inclusive economy. Abbie Langston and James Crowder also presented to the Triangle J [North Carolina] Council of Governments, sharing the National Equity Atlas, the Racial Equity Index, and insights for policymakers from our equity data partnerships in the region.

City of Seattle Draws on Atlas Data for Equitable Development Community Indicators Report

The City of Seattle released an Equitable Development Community Indicators Report last month as part of its Equitable Development Monitoring Program. The report reveals key racial inequities in Seattle, finding that residents of color have longer commutes to work than their White counterparts, the city lacks adequate family-size rental housing, and people of color are underrepresented among business owners. The authors relied on Atlas data for many of the indicators. As lead author Diana Canzoneri notes, “One of the especially valuable aspects of the Atlas is the detailed disaggregation by race, ethnicity, and place of birth. This feature of the Atlas made it easy for us to find and integrate examples of disparities between subgroups that would have otherwise been masked.” Read the full report here.

Thank you.

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

Using Disaggregated Data to Advance an Equitable Recovery

Dear Atlas Users,

As we continue to support communities in their response to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have spent the past month producing new analyses, trainings, and factsheets powered by Atlas data. Partnerships with community organizations are driving this work forward. Here are a few highlights:

Atlas Analyses Power Campaigns to Extend Eviction Moratoriums Nationwide

The Atlas team is supporting the Our Homes, Our Health housing justice effort by producing eviction risk fact sheets for local campaigns. These resources include data on how many households are currently at risk of eviction, which households are rent burdened and economically insecure by race/ethnicity and gender, and the first-hand experience of renters impacted by the economic downturn. This month, we published factsheets for Kansas (with Rent Zero Kansas) and Kentucky (with the Lexington Housing Justice Collaborative), with many more in the works. Find them here.

Webinar Archive: Unlocking the Insights of Disaggregated Data

This month, the Atlas team led a webinar training on how to unlock the power of disaggregated data for cities, regions, and states. We provided a step-by-step walk through of the newly revamped National Equity Atlas and our custom indicators database, which offers unparalleled data disaggregation by race/ethnicity, gender, nativity, ancestry, and more. This training was designed to equip Atlas users with the know-how to access, understand, share, and use disaggregated data to foster more equitable communities. Check out the recording here.

You’re Invited: Policy Insights for an Equitable Economic Recovery with the NY Federal Reserve

On September 24, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York will lead a conversation about the impact of Covid-19 on communities of color. The forum will focus on key policy areas necessary for an equitable recovery, including credit markets, the racial wealth gap, and workforce equity. Sarah Treuhaft, vice president of research at PolicyLink, will participate in a practitioner panel with other racial and economic equity leaders to discuss findings and policy recommendations from our recent report, Race, Risk and Workforce Equity in the Coronavirus Economy. Register for the forum here.

Thank you for your interest in our work.

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

The Racial Equity Index: A New Data Tool to Drive Local Efforts to Dismantle Structural Racism

New index reveals significant racial inequities even in the most prosperous cities and metros; provides data to help leaders develop targeted strategies for inclusive prosperity

By Sarah Treuhaft, Abbie Langston, Justin Scoggins, Joanna Lee, and Manuel Pastor

Racial equity is the defining issue of our time. The brutal murder of George Floyd — amidst a pandemic disproportionately harming the health and livelihoods of Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people — put dismantling structural racism at the center of our national policy debate.

Against this long overdue nationwide reckoning, community leaders are searching for policy solutions that can transform systems and structures and make meaningful progress toward racial equity. Disaggregated data at the local level is crucial to this endeavor: achieving equity requires targeted solutions that address structural and institutional racism, eliminate the barriers that prevent people from thriving, and provide the resources and opportunities that people need to reach their full potential. And data that reveals which groups are being excluded, by how much, and in what policy areas is an essential ingredient to develop effective strategies that match the scale of the challenge.

The Racial Equity Index is the nation’s first-ever tool designed to support communities in advancing equity solutions by measuring the state of equity in the 100 largest U.S. cities, the 150 largest metros, and all 50 states on key indicators of prosperity and inclusion by race. The Index is an integrated and holistic measure to compare the state of equity across different places, developed in response to the demand for a more comprehensive, summary picture of how communities were doing on our equity metrics. It provides a snapshot of how well a given place is performing on racial equity compared to its peers — comparing cities to cities, regions to regions, and states to states. Because equity means both closing racial gaps and ensuring that everyone is doing well, the Racial Equity Index is based on two components: an inclusion score that indicates the extent of racial gaps in outcomes for a series of nine equity indicators (wages, unemployment, poverty, educational attainment, disconnected youth, school poverty, air pollution, commute time, and housing burden) and a prosperity score that indicates how well the population is doing overall on those same indicators.

This analysis shares insights from our analysis of the Index for cities and metros. Please see Introducing the Racial Equity Index to learn more about the Index and how to use it and explore the data for your community with the Index data tool.   

Key findings from the Racial Equity Index include:

  1. Every community is hindered by systematic racial inequities. Even in the best-performing places on the Index, there are significant and preventable racial inequities.

  2. Inclusive prosperity remains elusive among America’s metros and cities. It is very rare for communities to have high levels of prosperity, in terms of overall performance on the indicators, and high levels of inclusion, in terms of low racial disparities. 

  3. Robust economic growth alone does not bring about racial equity and inclusion. While some of the regions with the most dynamic economies perform well on the Index, overall there is a weak relationship between traditional measures of economic development such as job growth, and racial equity and inclusion.

  4. Achieving racial equity requires improving conditions in the population centers where most people of color live. Few of the cities with the largest Black and Latinx populations perform well overall on the Index or on Black or Latinx prosperity.

  5. Racial equity is not a zero-sum proposition. Most of the cities and regions with the best outcomes for communities of color also have good outcomes for their White residents, and vice versa.

Each of these is further described below.
 

1. Every community is hindered by systematic racial inequities.

The Index reveals just how far all cities and metros have to go to correct systems that are perpetuating racial inequities. Because it is a relative Index, even places that are the top performers have significant racial inequities. 

Take the region of San Jose, California. The tech epicenter has the highest score on the Racial Equity Index because of its strong overall performance in terms of wages, poverty, educational attainment, and school poverty and relatively lower racial disparities on indicators of air pollution, commute time, educational attainment, and unemployment. 

Yet, there are large racial inequities in San Jose. For example, even with the highest share of Black college graduates of any region (37 percent), there is a 23 percentage point Black-White disparity in terms of educational attainment, and the White-Latinx disparity is 44 percentage points (60 and 16 percent, respectively). And among college graduates, Black and Latinx workers earn $12-$17 less per hour than White and Asian or Pacific Islander workers. Note that while the regional median wage for the Asian or Pacific Islander population as a whole is $43, median wages vary significantly within that group

 

2. Inclusive prosperity remains elusive among America’s metros and cities. 

Equitable communities both have strong overall performance on indicators of well-being and low racial disparities, which is why the Racial Equity Index combines a prosperity score and an inclusion score. But what we see is that very few places are both doing well on prosperity and inclusion. 

The metros that have the best overall performance on the indicators are not the most inclusive and tend to have wide racial disparities. Among top 25 regions on the prosperity score, none are also in the top 25 on the inclusion score, and only seven even make the top 100 on inclusion. Eighteen of them are in the bottom 50 on inclusion, including the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, which has the sixth highest prosperity score, but is second from the bottom in terms of its inclusion score.

 

3. Robust economic growth alone does not bring about racial equity and inclusion.

Over the past decade coming out of the Great Recession, growth in jobs and economic output has been concentrated in a small number of large metros, and within those places economic gains have largely gone to investors, corporations, and a small number of highly-educated knowledge economy workers.

A look at post-recession job growth in regions in relation to the Racial Equity Index underscores the weak relationship between job growth and racial equity. While there is some correlation between job growth and racial equity performance, with some high-growth metros like Austin, Denver, Raleigh, and San Jose performing well on the Index, the connection is not strong. Similarly, strong job growth does not drive positive outcomes for Black and Latinx residents. Of the 25 metros with the highest post-recession job growth, only seven of them were among the top 25 regions on prosperity for Black residents (Austin, Denver, Dallas, Fayetteville, Raleigh, San Jose, and San Antonio). And only three of them were among the top 25 regions on prosperity for Latinx residents (San Francisco, Austin, and Provo).

4. Achieving racial equity requires improving conditions in the population centers where most people of color live.

About 29 percent of Black people in the United States live in just 50 cities, underscoring the importance of integrating place-based and people-focused solutions to advance racial equity. The concentration of different racial/ethnic groups in certain regions, cities, and neighborhoods is in large part a consequence of systems and policies that produced and reinforced racial segregation — and the persistence of inequities in those places follows from a long history of disinvestment and deprivation. Some of the highest scoring cities on the Racial Equity Index have the smallest Black populations: In seven out of the top 10 performers, the Black population is significantly underrepresented compared to the national share (Albuquerque, Chandler, Henderson, Honolulu, Irvine, Reno, San Jose). Similarly, the Latinx population is underrepresented in six of the top 10 cities on the Index (Chesapeake, Henderson, Honolulu, Irvine, Virginia Beach, St. Petersburg).

Of the 12.9 million Black people living in the largest 100 cities, about 80 percent of them live in the 33 cities with at least 100,000 Black residents. Only two of these cities are among the top 20 performers on the Racial Equity Index (Nashville and Norfolk), and 10 are among the bottom 20 performers (Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Birmingham, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Memphis, Newark, and New York). Only two — Durham and Raleigh, which are in the same region — are among the top 20 performers for Black prosperity, and wide racial gaps in prosperity are evident in these places:


Similar trends hold for Latinx people. Among the 41 cities with at least 100,000 Latinx residents, only two (Albuquerque and San Francisco) rank in the top 20 prosperity scores for the Latinx population, while 12 (Charlotte, Dallas, Fresno, Hialeah, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Bernardino, Santa Ana, and Newark) are in the bottom 20.

The cities with the best outcomes for Latinx residents tend to have relatively small Latinx populations: among the top 20 performers on Latinx prosperity, nine were among the 20 cities with the smallest Latinx populations and only five have Latinx populations at 50,000. The same dynamics are found at the regional level.

In the 25 regions with the largest Latinx populations, only two ranked in the top 25 for regional prosperity scores on the Racial Equity Index (Boston and San Jose), and just three were among the top 25 performers for Latinx prosperity (Austin, San Francisco, and Washington DC). Even among those best performers, Latinx residents still face significant racial inequities on key indicators of prosperity.

5. Racial equity is not a zero-sum proposition.

Looking at the prosperity scores across racial/ethnic groups, we find that most of the cities and regions with the best outcomes for communities of color also have above-average outcomes for their White residents, and vice versa. Of the top 20 cities for prosperity for people of color, for example, all but two of them are in the top 40 for White prosperity, all but one are in the top 40 for Black prosperity (among the 16 with large enough Black populations to generate Black prosperity scores), and all but one are in the top 40 for Latinx prosperity.

And of the top 20 cities for White prosperity, six — Anchorage, Austin, Denver, Durham, Plano, and Raleigh — are also in the top 20 for Black prosperity (among the 16 with large enough Black populations to generate Black prosperity scores) and six are in the top 20 for Latinx prosperity (Anchorage, District of Columbia, Irvine, Plano, San Francisco, and Scottsdale). Only one — Dallas — falls in the bottom 20 for both Black and Latinx prosperity.
 

Making Progress on Racial Equity Will Require Tailored and Bold Solutions

Our analysis of the Racial Equity Index for cities and metros reveals that even the best performing places exhibit significant racial disparities, and even the places with the most economic success post-recession fall short on equity. At a time when Black, Latinx, Native American, and Pacific Islander communities are the hardest hit by another recession, it is imperative that leaders at all levels recognize that targeted, race-conscious strategies are necessary to bring about an inclusive recovery. Doing so will create tremendous benefits that cascade up and out to the advantage of an entire community. Equity is the path to prosperity: By developing solutions that are informed by and effectively reach the people most impacted by structural racism and economic inequality, we can build an equitable, prosperous future economy.

Identify Priority Issues for an Equitable Recovery with the New Racial Equity Index for Cities

The Racial Equity Index is our newest data tool for local action, designed to provide a single comparative metric for racial equity across the United States. Here, we share the rankings and key insights from the Racial Equity Index for the 100 largest cities in the United States in 2017. Visit the Racial Equity Index to explore all of the available data, including data for regions, states, and other points in time.


The 2017 Racial Equity Index rankings offer a unique snapshot of how US cities stack up on overall equity outcomes. Racial Equity Index values for the 100 largest cities ranged from 21 (Detroit, Michigan) to 76 (Irvine, California), indicating that no single place fared the best on every measure (which would have resulted in a score of 100), nor did any place perform the worst on all measures.

It is important to note that because all values are relative — meaning they measure how well a city is doing compared to other cities — even the top performer has room for improvement. For example, the city-level inclusion scores, which indicate the relative size of racial gaps, ranged from 26 (Scottsdale, Arizona) to 81 (Garland, Texas). But even among cities with high inclusion scores, pronounced racial gaps are evident. In Garland, for example, prosperity is not equitably shared, as illustrated in the chart below. In every indicator category, scores for Black and Latinx residents trail those for the White population.

Latinx residents in Garland experience the deepest inequities in Economic Vitality and Readiness indicators.

The city-level prosperity scores span an even broader range, from 8 (Detroit, Michigan) to 78 (Fremont, California — a Bay Area suburb). This reveals the stark differences in economic and social outcomes in the wake of the Great Recession, as the recovery was very uneven and concentrated wealth and prosperity in a small number of regions (such as the San Francisco Bay Area) while legacy and post-industrial regions continued to struggle.

Top 10 Cities Concentrated in the West and Southwest

The table below shows the top 10 cities on the Racial Equity Index for 2017, as well as the inclusion and prosperity scores for each place. The cities on this list represent a diversity of local economies, from those dominated by manufacturing, transportation, and tourism to others specialized in financial services, energy technology, and aerospace.

Some of the top 10 cities (such as Irvine and Virginia Beach) have high Racial Equity Index scores driven by high scores for both inclusion and prosperity. In these places, overall population outcomes are, on average, better and more racially equitable than in other cities.

Other cities on the list (like Reno and Albuquerque) have high inclusion scores but much lower prosperity scores, indicating that while racial gaps are relatively small in these cities, overall population outcomes trail those in other places.

1. Irvine, California

Irvine earned the top spot on the Racial Equity Index for cities in 2017 with the sixth-highest inclusion score among cities and the third-highest prosperity score. In other words, it performed quite well in terms of both overall outcomes and in terms of racial inclusion.

Irvine’s top ranking is driven by its standout scores in the Readiness category: educational attainment, disconnected youth, and school poverty. The city ranked #1 for prosperity (overall outcomes) in educational attainment (BA degree or higher), and #2 for racial inclusion in educational attainment. It was also at the top of the lists for overall lowest levels of school poverty (#1) and disconnected youth (#2).

Yet Irvine is not without its challenges, with average or below-average prosperity scores in the Connected category: air pollution exposure (#51), commute time (#50), and rent burden (#74): more than half of renter households in Irvine spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs. And while the city had a high prosperity score for poverty/economic insecurity (#10), it ranked #73 out of 100 for inclusion on the same indicator: 46 percent of Latinx immigrants in Irvine are economically insecure, meaning they have family incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level — about three times the rate of US-born White residents (16 percent).

8. Albuquerque, New Mexico

Albuquerque was ranked #8 on the 2017 Racial Equity Index, with the #17 inclusion score and the #32 prosperity score.

The city had slightly above-average prosperity scores (overall outcomes) in median wages (#40) and unemployment (#46), but ranked in the top quarter of cities in terms of racial inclusion for these indicators. The city’s inclusion scores for median wages (#22) and unemployment (#21) signal that Albuquerque has smaller racial gaps for these important Economic Vitality indicators than most of its peer cities. Still, the median wage of Native American workers ($15 per hour) is far lower than that of White workers ($24 per hour). In fact, the median wage for Native American workers in Albuquerque is $2 less per hour than the national average for Native Americans, while the median wages for White, Black, and Latinx workers in Albuquerque are all higher than the respective national averages.

On other measures, however, Albuquerque is less racially inclusive. The city’s inclusion scores were just above average for economic insecurity (#43) and disconnected youth (#44), although 24 percent of Native American youth in the city are neither working nor in school — twice the rate for White youth. And while it scored well on prosperity for air pollution exposure (#17), its inclusion score for that indicator was near the bottom of the list (#93) due to large racial gaps.

9. St. Petersburg, Florida

St. Petersburg ranked ninth on the 2017 Racial Equity Index for cities, with the #29 inclusion score and the #27 prosperity score.

In 2017, St. Petersburg placed above the median prosperity score for seven of the nine indicators in the index, but landed in the bottom half of cities for disconnected youth (#57) and rent burden (#57).
St. Petersburg’s most positive showing was on the Economic Vitality indicator of economic insecurity. Its prosperity score (#23) and inclusion score (#20) were both relatively high, landing the city in the top 25 for both overall population outcomes and relatively smaller racial gaps in economic insecurity, but steep inequities are still evident: 55 percent of US-born Black residents and 45 percent of US-born Asian or Pacific Islander residents in St. Petersburg are economically insecure, compared to 27 percent of the US-born White population.

St. Petersburg had the nation’s fifth-highest inclusion score for educational attainment, but the share of adults with at least a bachelor’s degree ranged from 15 percent for Black men to 47 percent for Asian or Pacific Islander women.

Many Legacy Cities Among the Bottom 10 on the Racial Equity Index

The table below shows the bottom 10 cities on the Racial Equity Index for 2017, as well as the inclusion and prosperity scores for each place. Several of these places could be categorized as “Legacy Cities” that struggled to recover from the decline of manufacturing and significant population loss even before the Great Recession. While a few of these places — Newark and San Bernardino, notably — have high inclusion scores comparable to the top-ranked cities — their very low prosperity scores indicate that their smaller racial gaps are accompanied by widely shared hardship.

94. Baton Rouge, Louisiana

In 2017, Baton Rouge was ranked #94 on the Racial Equity Index for cities, with the #91 inclusion score and the #87 prosperity score.

Baton Rouge simultaneously had the lowest prosperity score in the nation for air pollution exposure and the highest inclusion score for the same indicator, meaning the overall outcomes were the worst among the 100 largest US cities, and affected all racial/ethnic groups similarly.

Baton Rouge’s highest prosperity scores were for commute time (#23) and disconnected youth (#29), indicators that returned two of the city’s lowest inclusion scores: #75 for commute time and #98 — last place — for disconnected youth. Overall, 11 percent of youth in the city are neither working nor in school, but the share varies tremendously by race: among Black youth in the city, 20 percent are disconnected from work and school — 10 times the rate of their White peers (2 percent).

96. San Bernardino, California

In 2017, San Bernardino had the ninth highest inclusion score among the 100 largest cities, but the third lowest prosperity score. San Bernardino trails behind almost every other large city for overall population outcomes.

San Bernardino landed among the bottom five lowest prosperity scores on seven of the nine index indicators, but White residents — who make up just 15 percent of the city’s population — fare much better than other racial/ethnic groups. In 2017, the prosperity score for the White population in San Bernardino was 33 — far below the national median, but significantly higher than the scores for the Black (10) and Latinx (9) populations in the city.

99. Detroit, Michigan

Detroit ranked at the bottom of the 2017 Racial Equity Index for cities, with the lowest prosperity score and the 26th lowest inclusion score. In essence, overall population outcomes in Detroit are the worst in the nation, and racial inequities are especially pronounced.

The city’s low prosperity score is driven by the Economic Vitality indicators (median wage, unemployment, economic insecurity) and the Readiness indicators (educational attainment, disconnected youth, and school poverty). Detroit ranked in the bottom seven out of 100 cities on all of these indicators. Economic insecurity has increased significantly for all racial/ethnic groups in Detroit over the past few decades: in 2017, 72 percent of Asian or Pacific Islander households and 72 percent of Latinx residents in the city had family incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, along with 62 percent of Black residents and 59 percent of White residents.

Targeted Solutions that Prioritize the Most Impacted Communities Are the Key to Thriving, Equitable Cities

Strategies tailored to advance just and fair inclusion for the communities most impacted by structural racism and economic inequality are not only the morally right thing to do — they are also the best way to ensure greater prosperity and well-being for all. Directing resources and innovation to where the need is greatest can create tremendous benefits that cascade up and out to the advantage of an entire city. But entrenched racial inequities are often obscured in policymaking and public discourse, making it difficult to home in on the systems and populations that ought to be prioritized. The Racial Equity Index offers an innovative tool to unlock the power of disaggregated data and make the case for policies to cultivate equitable cities where all people can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential.

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