Stimulus Woes: How One Coalition is Working for More Equitable Spending

Friday, September 25, 2009

For 17 straight years, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has failed to meet their own, not-remarkably-ambitious hiring goals: that at least 11% of their workforce should be people of color and at least 6% should be women.

The economic stimulus was meant to benefit everyone in hard economic times, partially through job creation in the transportation sector. African-Americans are hit disproportionately by job losses in a recession, but in Minnesota they haven’t received the full benefit from the stimulus money, an investment meant to aid everyone.

The Alliance for Metropolitan Stability, one of Smart Growth America’s partners examining state stimulus spending, has been working as part of a large coalition of 70 groups called HIRE Minnesota (or HIRE-MN) to ensure equity for low income communities and communities of color, not just in allocation of the stimulus money, but to ensure that people of color and low-income people get more opportunities to train for family-supporting jobs in infrastructure and green-collar work.