By Lauren Craig
Puget Sound Sage joined as one of five signatories with affordable housing advocates, labor, and environmental organizations to an op-ed last week expressing our support for the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) committee’s recommendations to increase zoning density in conjunction with affordable housing strategies. Continue reading “The HALA Recommendations, Why We Support Them, and Why it is About Race”
By Lauren Craig
The time to act is now – Tell City Council to implement the HALA recommendations as soon as possible. Continue reading “The HALA Recommendations That We Support (Among Others)”
By: Dimitri Groce, Community Research Fellow
As a result of climate change, our region can expect increased wildfires, extreme weather and heat waves, which will have a disproportionate impact on people of color and people with lower incomes.
Since our last post, we have advocated with leaders committed to economic and racial justice to ensure tangible benefits for people of color and people with lower incomes from the Governor’s Carbon Pollution Accountability Act (CPAA). Below, we break down exactly what the CPAA does and what it means for people with low-incomes and people of color.
First – the bill sets a limit on carbon pollution and targets big polluters in Washington State. In order to meet this limit, industries that pollute more than twenty-five thousand metric tons of carbon dioxide or more per year will bid on emission “allowances”. The amount of allowances a facility may have per auction will be capped, and the prices of the allowances will gradually increase every year until 2026. The bill prohibits free allowances ensuring that every big polluter participates in an effort to reduce our regions carbon pollution.
What’s the specific benefit for communities of color and people with lower incomes? In addition to reducing carbon pollution, the state will generate $1 billion in revenue from these auctions, which will be used to create clean energy jobs, invest in education, fund more affordable housing, and fund working families tax rebate.
Most importantly for local communities most impacted by climate change, the bill includes a provision for “hotspot” mapping that will show how the disproportional impacts of environmental degradation intersects with communities of color and communities with lower incomes. Additionally, the CPAA creates an Economic Justice and Environmental Equity advisory committee, which allows leaders who are the most impacted by pollution to monitor the CPAA and advise the Department of Ecology on how to spend revenue, creating a pathway for the solutions to climate change to be informed by and benefit the communities most impacted.
A new study by Puget Sound Sage concludes that a $15 minimum wage would create large scale benefits for women and people of color in Seattle, and effectively narrow our city’s gender and race pay gaps. In a policy brief released today, Puget Sound Sage examines the potential outcomes of a $15 minimum wage on the local economy, assesses outcomes by industry sector, and demonstrates that a $15 minimum wage (with a phase-in only approach) is the single best option to reduce Seattle’s gender and race pay gap.
Key findings from the policy brief include:
The brief concludes that well-crafted, phased-in increase in the minimum wage can support a thriving economy.
You can find the full report on our website www.pugetsoundsage.org.
Seattlites were deeply unsettled last year when a national study revealed that our metro area has one of the largest gender pay gaps in the country. Action was called for by Mayoral candidates after an internal City study was released. Perhaps less surprising, Seattle also has a large race pay gap, something Sage researchers have been reporting for years. But we have some good new too – action may be around the corner that reduces both race and gender income inequality – an increase to the minimum wage for Seattle workers. Here’s why:
If you are a woman or a person of color living in Seattle, you are likely to earn between 44% and 71% of what white men earn. On the low end, median earnings for black or African women is $23,000, nearly half that of white men at $52,000. Black or African men fare little better, with median earnings of $24,000. Across race and ethnicity, except for Native Americans, women earn less than men, a difference more pronounced for white women than women of color.
The reasons for these gaps have been studied for decades, and one of the biggest drivers is occupational segregation: people of color and women are more likely to work in fields or jobs that simply pay less. A recent national report on the gender pay gap shows that segregation by occupation and industry accounts for nearly 50% of disparity in earnings.
Our analysis of Census data and data from the Employment Security Department shows that over-representation of women and people of color in low-wage industries likely explains much of the pay gap for women and people of color in our region. For example, in food service across King County, nearly 63% of workers earn below $15 an hour. People of color comprise 45% of those low-wage workers, despite making up 30% of Seattle’s total workforce.
The two charts below highlight the link between low-wage industries and who works in them. Table 2 shows the top five low wage industries in King County by two wage thresholds ($12 an hour and $15 an hour).
Table 3 further shows that people of color and women are over represented in the occupations common in these low wage industries.
Raising the minimum wage in Seattle will provide a bigger earnings boost for both women and people of color. Based on sheer numbers, few policies available to a city like Seattle could do more to reduce race and gender income inequality.
2006-2010 American Community Survey, B20002. We used 2010 census data, as a more recent breakdown by race and gender was not available on AmericanFactFinder
