Stark Racial Gaps in King County, According to New Data Platform

“Workforce Dynamics” bridges social and economic data in ongoing dashboard series

Seattle, WA (October 4, 2022) – A new data tool demonstrates the significant gap between racial inequality in King County as compared with state and national averages. Although the region boasts relatively high incomes, this prosperity is concentrated among the White population. The data represents the first phase of “Workforce Dynamics,” a new economic and social visualization project produced by the Workforce Development Council of Seattle-King County (WDC). The project offers detailed and disaggregated data visualizations, with initial focus on Place and Income.

According to most mainstream indicators, King County has recovered from the acute economic recession of February to May 2020 that resulted from the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Job growth and labor force participation are steadily recovering, and the unemployment rate has returned to pre-pandemic levels. However, the structure of the regional economy and labor market (pre- and post-pandemic) produces racial gaps in employment and wages, with stark occupational segregation in access to quality jobs. Disparities in opportunities for educational attainment, affordable housing, and transportation access are the result of systemic and structural barriers that have been constructed over time to benefit White people at the expense of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).

“The data reveals how workforce efforts need to shift. It’s about changing the work significantly,” says Marie Kurose, CEO of the WDC. “These are deep and intersecting issues that cannot be ‘fixed’ with a program. To make a difference in what we're seeing, we need bold investment that dares to directly confront the systems, and sometimes blatantly racist practices and frameworks, that got us here.”

Workforce Dynamics builds on the research in the 2021 report, Advancing Workforce Equity in Seattle, which was supported by the National Fund for Workforce Solutions and JP Morgan Chase, and identified major findings with implications for racial equity in the region. The overall aim for Workforce Dynamics is to locate racial disparities in communities and to inform work being done in King County to advance racial equity. The project itself is an evolution of previous work done by the WDC to visualize economic data. Since 2018, the WDC and its community partners have been working to reimagine and transform workforce development in the Puget Sound region with racial equity at the center.

The focus of prior data visualization work “was on the economy—input and output,” says lead researcher Hoang Ngo, Data Analyst at the WDC. “It did not have any space for people’s voices, let alone BIPOC ones. So, incorporating the social into the economic was the challenge for this project.”

An additional ten visualizations are planned for release over the next year and will focus on population change, workforce demographics, and labor market opportunities.

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WDC Contact: Joe Taylor, jtaylor@seakingwdc.org, (206) 448-0482