Education Insight
A largely educated and skilled adult workforce will strengthen DC families, improve health and educational outcomes for children and improve the District’s overall prosperity.
The benefits of Washington, DC’s growing economic prosperity have bypassed the District’s working poor families. This fact-filled report examines why the District’s economic recovery has eluded many residents and what can be done about it. Several strategic goals and their ongoing policies and activities are presented with specific policy recommendations designed to bolster working poor families.
Nearly one in three working families in the District was poor in 2005, with nearly two-thirds of these families headed by single women.
A largely educated and skilled adult workforce will strengthen DC families, improve health and educational outcomes for children and improve the District’s overall prosperity.
63% of DC jobs accessible to workers with high school diplomas go to Virginia and Maryland residents.
A higher proportion of working families in the District are poor than in neighboring states and the nation as a whole.
The District’s black unemployment is 5 times higher than white unemployment, the widest gap in the last 20 years.
The rich-poor gap is wider in Washington, DC than in any other large U.S. city, except Atlanta and Tampa.
In 2000, 54% of the jobs in the District were held by those with a Bachelors degree or higher, while the overall US average was only 28%. One reason: The District attracts large numbers of young, college-educated workers producing a “crowd-out” factor. While nationally only 15% of administrative workers have a college degree, in DC that figure is 30%.
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