This post appeared on The City Club of Cleveland's blog on June 8, 2018, and is shared here with its permission.
Many Connecticut residents, particularly those who identify as racial or ethnic minorities or who live in historically-disadvantaged neighborhoods, face astonishingly high unemployment rates.
In New Haven, unemployment ranges from 3 percent in high-income neighborhoods such as Westville and East Rock, to 20 percent in low- income neighborhoods such as Dixwell, Newhallville, and the Hill -- and “underemployment” rates are often twice these figures. New mapping tools can allow us to visualize exactly what these barriers to job access might look like when plotted across a metropolitan region.
In a recent Living Cities article, WANTED: Job, Training, and a Bus Pass, Emily Garr Pacetti of the Fund for Our Economic Future proposes a “Growth and Opportunity Framework” to ensure that the benefits of economic growth are widely shared and sustained. The three-pronged approach (see Venn Diagram) asserts that “sustained growth can only come through cross-sector strategies that reinforce connections among workforce and training efforts, employer demand, and the spatial and social disconnect between jobs and workers.”
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