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: for example, in San Francisco, white adults are 27 percent more likely than their Black peers to be employed.

Good job creation also requires pathways to those jobs.

Prior to Covid-19, job growth in the Bay Area was overly 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 San Francisco, middle-wage job growth have been strong (24 percent from 1990-2021), but improving job quality and protections for all workers in all sectors remains 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. Pay for the highest-earning workers in San Francisco has increased by 116 percent since 1980, while earned income has increased by only 18 percent over the same period for those in the lowest-paid jobs. This even modest increase for the lowest-paid workers is notable, given all other Bay Area counties saw decreases over this period. This change is likely attributable to San Francisco’s region-leading minimum wage increases.

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. In the Bay Area, Native American and Black workers 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 San Francisco’s economy by 40 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 San Francisco’s economy an estimated $83 billion in unrealized GDP.

San Francisco has not benefited from the large increases in diversity occurring in the rest of the Bay Area.

The creativity, culture and innovation driven by 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. About 60 percent of San Francisco residents are people of color, just slightly higher than in 2000. Notably, while the Asian or Pacific Islander, Latinx, and multiracial communities have grown as a share of the overall population, displacement of San Francisco’s Black population has resulted in a decline from 13 percent in 1990 to 5 percent in 2019.

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

In San Francisco, 62 percent of adults have at least a bachelor’s degree, including 79 percent of white adults. By contrast, only 28 percent of Black adults and 38 percent of Latinx adults have a four-year degree.

For more data on post-secondary education in San Francisco, 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.

In San Francisco, white workers are paid an average of 24 percent more than the County’s overall median wage, compared to Black workers being paid about 48 percent less than the median, and Latinx immigrants receiving nearly 50 percent less than the overall median wage.

And while public sector employment has historically been a source of well-paying jobs for workers of color, a 2021 audit found that white San Francisco city employees on average make $24 per hour more than employees of color.

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

Only 27 percent of Black and 29 percent of Latinx full-time working people in San Francisco 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.

In San Francisco, Latinx workers make up 15 percent of the overall workforce, but 31 percent of those in food preparation and service 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 Black and multiracial adults (54 and 84 percent labor force participation, respectively). Among male-identifying people, the largest gap is between Black workers (63 percent) and their white counterparts (88 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, and 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. In San Francisco, more than half of renter households headed by Black women or Latina women are rent-burdened.

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 most 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.

Average commute time by neighborhood, 2019

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 nearly one in 12 Latinx residents in San Francisco do not have health insurance — four 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. In San Francisco, people of color are nearly 60 percent of the population but hold just 38 percent 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.