Growing income inequality in Maryland

Our friends at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute have released a new report looking at the growth in income inequality between the top, middle, and bottom of the income spectrum. They've created a great infographic about how inequality in Maryland has widened in recent decades:

Click to enlarge

This prolonged growth in income inequality undermines the basic American belief that hard work should pay off. Continued growth in income inequality would harm our state’s future economy. Policies that narrow rather than widen income inequality will help Maryland recover from the downturn and grow our economy into the future. Policies such as:

• Promoting access to education and job training for tomorrow's labor market.
• Continued growth in investments in transit, childcare, and other programs that help workers connect with employers and keep jobs once they're hired.
• Other protections for low-wage worker incomes such as paid sick leave.

Growing income inequality is bad for Maryland and policymakers should pursue policies that narrow – not widen – income gaps.

Black unemployment rate more than double that of whites

The Baltimore region had the second highest black to white unemployment ratio in the country in 2011, according to a new brief released Tuesday by the Economic Policy Institute. In that year, black members of the region's workforce were 2.6 times more likely to be unemployed than white workers. Only Minneapolis-St. Paul had a higher ratio. The Washington DC metro area (including northern Virginia and the District)--where blacks were 2.4 times more likely to be unemployed--was fifth.

On the other hand the metro Baltimore black unemployment rate of 13.1 percent was below the national average of 15.9 percent. It also declined more than the national average (-1.4 percentage points compared to -.01) between 2010 and 2011. Regardless, the continuing high unemployment rate among blacks, and particularly when compared to whites, is unconscionable.

Preliminary 2011 figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate a statewide unemployment rate of 10.3 percent among blacks, compared to just 5.7 percent among whites and 7 percent among Hispanics/Latinos.

MBTPI will continue to work with our partners on legislation that attacks the structural underpinnings of this tragedy (poverty, the achievement gap, racism), and promote anti-poverty strategies such as fully funding Head Start and public schools, affordable housing, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and many more.