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Connecting Sacramento combines location-based trip-making data from multiple sources with modern accessibility analysis to assess how they can guide transportation- and land use-related decisions around transit stations in Sacramento. Accessibility analysis lets us measure transportation performance in terms of people’s ability to reach destinations instead of simply how fast cars move or whether transit runs on time. Trip-making data, which come from smartphones, navigation devices, and GPS-enabled vehicles, let us understand people’s travel patterns and trip characteristics in detail without relying on costly travel surveys or complex travel demand models.

Planning agencies and transportation decision makers often talk about the importance of improving access to destinations, but they rarely have the tools or resources to measure accessibility and incorporate those metrics into decision making. This report guides agencies through that process. The guide outlines general concepts, data needs and availability, analysis tools, and other considerations in measuring accessibility. It describes different ways accessibility can be measured and demonstrates how the metrics can be used in several specific project evaluation examples. It also briefly describes the potential use of accessibility metrics in predicting outcomes such as travel demand and transit ridership.

Wisconsin has the regrettable distinction of ranking among the worst states in the nation in terms of racial equality. Various aspects of the disparity – from education to jobs and income to incarceration – have been documented consistently for more than a decade. These disparities are gaining increasing attention from activists and policy makers. Even so, and despite considerable local and statewide efforts to close these gaps, too few in Wisconsin understand the way that Wisconsin’s level of racial inequality is, in fact, dramatically more pronounced than in other states.

Implementation of the Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act (WIOA) is well underway. This process creates unprecedented opportunity to adopt policies and practices that boost job quality. Connecting workers with the best quality job possible serves job seekers better. More stable work means higher income, longer job tenure, and better predictability for managing the tensions between work and life. But beyond that, WIOA policies for job quality help protect public investments in training by ensuring that those investments are not simply lost in a revolving door of turnover. Policies that focus on better quality jobs help make WIOA resources a reward for employers who are already treating their workers with greater care, rather than subsidizing low-road competitors who may waste the investment. The full report was produced by COWS, the Keystone Research Center in Pennsylvania, and Policy Matters Ohio, identifies three WIOA quality standards that can target public training investment where it will have stronger returns.

Review of Lane Kenworthy’s Social Democratic America.

The State of Working Wisconsin 2016 uses the best and recent data available on jobs and wages to describe the economic challenges that Wisconsin continues to face.

In April COWS reported a dramatic job loss of more than 10,000 jobs. This month, the labor market brings better news, with increases that move us back in the right direction. Since last month, Wisconsin added 5,500 jobs. This increase was driven by private sector job growth where 9,700 jobs were added. At the same time, some 4,200 government jobs were lost between April and May. The unemployment rate in Wisconsin dropped two tenths of percentage points and stands now at 4.2%.

The economy is growing again, but gains are concentrated on the state’s richest residents. As in the nation, inequality is on the rise. Over the last 40 years, Wisconsin’s richest residents have experienced dramatic increases in income, yet the rest of the state’s residents have experienced little or no income growth. The widening chasm between the very highest earners and everyone else poses hardships for Wisconsin’s families, businesses, and communities. Families can’t thrive when income growth is nearly non-existent for everyone except those at the top, and businesses need a strong middle class bolstered by broad-based income growth to generate customers. Wisconsin communities pay the price if too many families and businesses fail to prosper. Growing income inequality is also bad for Wisconsin’s economic growth. To build a solid, fast-growing economy, we need to make sure that Wisconsin has a healthy, well educated workforce. But if nearly all the gains from economic growth benefit only a few, many Wisconsin residents won’t have the resources they need to become the kind of skilled workers our economy needs for the future. That hurts everyone.

Wisconsin’s dramatic March job growth was nearly erased by equally dramatic job losses in April, as the state lost nearly 13,000 jobs. The private sector lost 11,500 jobs and the public sector fell by a little more than 1,000. Manufacturing losses of 4,200 jobs were particularly severe. And in contrast to the overall decline, construction gained 3,500 jobs last month. All in all, the unemployment rate in Wisconsin dropped one tenth of a percentage point and stands now at 4.4%. Additionally, over the last year, Wisconsin’s job growth lags behind some of its Midwest neighbors: while Michigan and Indiana have grown at a pace of 2.5% and 1.6% respectively, Wisconsin has grown at a pace slower than 1.5%.