Minnesota Outperforms Neighbors in Job Growth

by | Jun 6, 2017

Since the turn of the century, employment growth in Minnesota has kept pace with the rest of the nation and comfortably surpassed the Midwest average. Minnesota’s strong performance relative to the rest of the region has persisted through two recessions, a major...

Income Inequality Continues to Escalate

by | Nov 14, 2016

Last summer, two separate North Star articles (published on July 18 and August 29) explored the growth in U.S. and Minnesota income inequality since the 1970s and 1980s. While recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau showed significant income growth in 2015, income...

Post-Great Recession, Rich Get Richer and Poor Get Poorer

by | Nov 10, 2016

We’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that average U.S. and Minnesota incomes increased from 2014 to 2015. Further good news for Minnesotans is that income growth among each of the Gopher State’s six income groups outperformed the...

Income Growth by Income Group: Minnesota vs. U.S.

by | Nov 9, 2016

Minnesota fared better than the national average in terms of income growth since the Great Recession, based on Census Bureau data summarized in a September 21 North Star article. A deeper dive into another batch of recently released data from the American Community...

U.S. and Minnesota Poverty Rates Down in 2015

by | Oct 24, 2016

In addition to showing sharp growth in income and earnings in 2015, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau released last month also showed a significant reduction in poverty, both in Minnesota and the nation as a whole. With the improvements shown in the new data,...

Union Jobs Pay Better Wages

by | Oct 18, 2016

The trend of stagnant and declining wages for low- and moderate-wage workers coincides with the decline of union membership, as demonstrated in the first part of this article. Both of these trends also coincide with a long-term pattern of anemic economic performance....