Barriers to quality, empowered jobs for working people in the Bay Area endanger the future of our economy.

Black and Native American workers in particular face persistent obstacles to getting and keeping good jobs. While employment rates fail to show the quality of jobs workers have, the racial disparities in this simple measure are still dramatic: in the Bay Area white adults are 10 percent more likely than Black adults and almost 15 percent more likely than Native American adults to be employed.

Not all job creation is good job creation.

Prior to Covid-19, job growth in the Bay Area was concentrated in low-wage occupations (50 percent growth between 1980 and 2018, compared to 38 percent growth in high-wage jobs). The pandemic erased much of that growth, as many low-wage workers were displaced from jobs deemed “nonessential.”

In the Bay Area, middle-wage job growth has long lagged behind (19 percent from 1990-2020), stranding many workers of color in low-paying jobs with few opportunities for advancement. Improving job quality and protections for all workers in all sectors is essential for building a more equitable and sustainable regional economy.

Economic growth should benefit all workers and communities.

As the Bay Area’s economy has grown tremendously over the past few decades, most of the income growth has been captured by people in the highest-paid jobs. The incomes of the highest-earning workers in the area has increased by almost 70 percent since 1980, while earned income has declined by 9 percent over the same period for those in the lowest-paid jobs.

Worker power is the only time tested, scalable strategy to create family-sustaining jobs.

Strengthening unions and other forms of organizing that build collective power among working people is essential to improving job quality, and can increase the availability of a skilled workforce. Native American and Black workers in the Bay Area are most likely to belong to unions. But overall, more than five out of six workers in the region are not protected by union membership.

Check out The Union Effect in California report by UC Berkeley for more on how unions affect the lives of all working people in California.

Eliminating barriers to employment and closing racial wage gaps could boost the region’s economy by more than 50 percent.

The Bay Area’s greatest asset is the people who live and work here. When everyone isn’t given a chance at family-sustaining work, it limits our collective economic potential. In 2019 alone, employment and wage inequities cost the nine-county region’s economy an estimated $517 billion in unrealized GDP.

The Bay Area becomes more diverse every year, paving the way for unprecedented creativity, culture and innovation.

About 60 percent of the region’s residents are people of color. This diversity can be a cornerstone of a thriving Bay Area economy, if children, families, and working people of color are allowed to reach their full potential.

Quality, affordable higher education should be available to everyone, yet deep racial inequities persist.

Region-wide, 49 percent of adults have at least a bachelor’s degree, though access to educational attainment varies across communities. In the Bay Area, 3 out of 5 white and Asian or Pacific Islander adults have at least a bachelor’s degree, while only 1 out of 5 Latinx or Native American adults has a four-year degree.

For more data on post-secondary education in the Bay Area, check out California Competes’ Postsecondary to Prosperity Dashboard.

On average, white people are paid far more than people of color in the Bay Area, giving them out-sized economic and political power.

On average, white workers in the region are paid about 20 percent more than the Bay Area’s median wage. White immigrant workers earn $49/hour, about 50 percent more than the overall median wage, while US-born Black and Latinx workers are paid 30 percent less than the median. At $20/hour, Latinx immigrants are paid the lowest median wages in the region: 40 percent below the overall median.

How much you get paid determines how much you can afford; only 55 percent of working people in the Bay Area can afford basic family living expenses.

Only 43 percent of Black and 38 percent of Latinx full-time working people in the region are paid enough to cover the cost of living for a family of four with two full-time working adults, compared to nearly 70 percent of their white counterparts.

Segregation at work continues to suppress opportunity for many working people of color.

Black and Latinx working people are crowded in occupations that tend to offer lower quality jobs, while white and Asian or Pacific Islander working people are overrepresented in several high-paying fields.

Latinx workers make up 23 percent of the region’s overall workforce, but 42 percent of those in food preparation and service jobs. Black workers are 6 percent of the overall workforce, but 12 percent of those in transportation and material moving jobs.

Quality, empowered jobs are critical, and everyone must be able to access them.

Across all racial groups, labor force participation is highest for male-identifying people. Among female-identifying people, the gap is largest between Native American adults (63 percent labor force participation) and white and multiracial adults (75 percent). Among male-identifying people, the largest gap is between Native American adults (70 percent) and their Latinx and Asian or Pacific Islander counterparts (87 percent). To ensure all people have access to quality jobs, systemic and structural changes are needed that address bias in hiring and the inequitable availability of child care, transportation, and housing.

Everyone deserves safe, stable, and affordable housing.

People of color, especially women of color, shoulder the greatest burden of the lack of affordable housing in the Bay Area. Outrageous housing costs and unlivable wages force too many families to choose between paying rent, paying for other essential needs, or moving out of their communities. Across the region, 66 percent of renter households headed by Black women are rent-burdened, by far the highest rate among any racial/ethnic and gender group.

Many Bay Area working people face extremely long and expensive commutes resulting in less take-home pay, higher child care costs, and lower quality of life.

High housing costs in areas where jobs are concentrated mean that low-income workers who rely on public transit have the longest average commutes in the Bay Area. About 7 percent of Black and Native American workers spend 90 minutes or more traveling to work, one way. All workers deserve access to safe and affordable transportation with a reasonable commute time. Not only are shorter commutes better for workers, they are also better for communities and the environment.

No one in the Bay Area should be without affordable health care.

Safe and healthy working people means healthy families, strong communities and thriving businesses. Yet one in ten Latinx and Native American residents in the region do not have health insurance — three times the rate of their white counterparts.

Our political leaders must reflect the Bay Area community.

People of color are not equitably represented in high-level elected offices, contributing to political and economic power imbalances. Across the region, people of color are 60 percent of the population but hold just one third of high-level elected offices. Increased economic and political power in communities of color can lead to a Bay Area that works for all of us.