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A WGVU initiative in partnership with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation using on-air programs and community events to explore issues of inclusion and equity.

What can equitable economic opportunity look like in Grand Rapids?

“Economic opportunity means somebody can go into their job, career every single day put in 40 hours of work a week and be able to support their family and also be able to see a path to a higher-level job or even to pivot into something different.” 

That is Milinda Ysasi, the executive director at the Source. A Grand Rapids employer funded organization to help employees navigate barriers that prevent them from getting to their jobs.

She says 95% of their clients are working full time and are still unable to make ends meet. Most of them identify as people of color with 41% percent being African American, according to Ysasi. 

“We are talking about people who get up every single day and go to work and they still can’t make it work.”

According to the American Community Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau, within the last year African Americans in Grand Rapids saw an 8% increase in median house hold income to $32,450 dollars.  While Latinx saw an increase in wages by 15%, their median household income is $41,481 dollars. 

Jamiel Robinson, founder of The Grand Rapids Area Black Businesses, says that in Grand Rapids Black businesses experience greater difficulty than other groups in accessing capital. 

“Where as in the African American business community we are still struggling from a more institutional marginalizing when it comes to even accessing capital given our resources and our reach. 

Guillermo Cisneros, executive director of the West Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, says economic opportunity for the undocumented Latinx population is directly related to their immigration status. 

“These people after working most of their life in agriculture, many in factories end without any savings to retire with. All of which leads them to terrible situations and without being able to enjoy an appropriate retirement like the majority of other citizens.” 

Learning the ways economic opportunity exists in the city of Grand Rapids across lines of race and class has led us to ask the following question: What kind of access is needed to gain upward mobility?  

Michelle Jokisch Polo, WGVU News. 

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