Executive Summary

Conservatives and large corporations are attempting to pass preemption legislation – an innocuous name for laws to restrict local communities from choosing greater benefits or wage laws than state minimum standards, like earned sick and safe time, and paid parental leave. These proposals look out for businesses’ bottom lines at the expense of hard-working Minnesotans.

150,000 Minnesotans would lose out on their earned sick and safe time under preemption proposals by taking away local control from local governments. To determine how eliminating local control would affect Minnesota workers, North Star Policy Institute examined state data to determine where Minnesotans live and work, and which communities across the state would be affected by these harmful proposals the most.

North Star Policy Institute concluded that Minnesotans who live in all corners of the state commute to Minneapolis and St. Paul to work. This means that by eliminating local control, business interests want to take away benefits not just from those living and working in the Twin Cities area, but from Minnesotans who live in communities much farther away across the state. In fact, the vast majority of workers live not just across the metro, but across the entire state.

Introduction

Local governments are on the frontlines of protecting public health and safety, and setting modern workplace standards. Local communities trying to enact health, workplace, and wage reforms, however, are being blocked by state laws that would harm workers.

At the behest of corporate interests, state legislatures across the country, including in Minnesota, are considering bills that would take away the ability of city councils to make decisions for their communities (called preemption). The National League of Cities recently released a report that categorizes seven key policy areas related to preemption: minimum wage, paid leave, anti-discrimination, home sharing, ride sharing, municipal broadband, and tax and expenditure limitations (TELs); however, this list is by no means exhaustive.

Local government has a unique role to play in setting policy, which is why the state government should not take a one-size-fits-all approach that denies local communities to make the choices that are best for them. Every community differs and local government exists to reflect those unique needs and values. In Minnesota specifically, preemption would eliminate paid sick and safe time for over 150,000 working Minnesotans.

Methodology

To assess the impact of Minneapolis and St. Paul earned sick and safe time proposals on workers who live outside of the Twin Cities, North Star’s analysis compared 2014 data from the U.S. Census’ OnTheMap tool (a web-based mapping and reporting application that shows where workers are employed and where they live) with 2014 city population data from the American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.

We performed an inflow/outflow analysis of Minneapolis and St. Paul by all jobs with 2014 data (the most current data), examining the geography of those who live outside Minneapolis and St. Paul but are employed in either of those two cities. Before performing the analysis, we first excluded people who live in Minneapolis and work in St. Paul, and vice versa.

North Star Policy Institute excluded all cities outside of Minnesota, and then added the number of people in each city working in Minneapolis and St. Paul, then compared those numbers as a percentage of 2014 population to determine the rough percentage of workers in each Minnesota city who would benefit from local Minneapolis and St. Paul sick and safe time ordinances.

Who Does Preemption Affect?

The percentage of Minnesotans living outside of but working in Minneapolis or St. Paul ranges from 24% of the city’s population (Lauderdale) to 0.04% (Spring Valley). The analysis examines the 489 Minnesota cities and Census-designated places (CDPs) with Minneapolis-St. Paul commuters in 2014. For a complete list of those cities and CDPs, please see Appendix A.

The 20 cities with the highest percentage of residents working in the Twin Cities are almost exclusively within the greater metropolitan area, with the exception of Greenwald. The table below lists these cities.

The top 20 cities in the greater Twin Cities metropolitan area looks very similar to the above table, with the subtraction of Greenwald and the addition of Vadnais Heights (16.62%). Geographically, these communities are fairly close to the Twin Cities, with a mix of inner- and outer-ring suburbs.

The top 20 Greater Minnesota cities (table below) are more geographically dispersed.

These communities crisscross the state, as far north as Tower, as far south as Le Roy, and as far west as Campbell; however, this is just a sample of the far-reach of Minneapolis and St. Paul workers. Each blue dot on the map below represents a city or CDP in Minnesota where at least one resident commuted to Minneapolis or St. Paul for work in 2014.

Figure 1: Map of Minnesota Cities Where At Least One Resident Commuted to Minneapolis or St. Paul in 2014

The populations of these communities – both within the metropolitan area and in Greater Minnesota – differ, but it is clear that workers from all parts of Minnesota travel to the Twin Cities to find good-paying jobs. These workers would benefit from Minneapolis and St. Paul ordinances, like raising the minimum wage and instituting earned sick and safe time for employees.

Appendix A

Appendix A: Minnesota Cities by Percentage of Residents Working in Minneapolis or St. Paul (2014), Listed Alphabetically