Building A World Class ALANA Workforce in Minnesota

Presentation to the Minnesota House Workforce Development Finance and Policy Committee, January 18, 2023.

(YouTube video of presentation below the article). (Presentation on how to build a World Class ALANA Wealth building Infrastructure in Minnesota can be found at this link).

Chair Xiong, Vice Chair Brand, Rep. Baker and members of the committee. Thanks for the opportunity to share some insights on building a world class ALANA workforce in Minnesota. I am Dr. Bruce Corrie, Professor of Economics, and a founding member of the ALANA Brain Trust. ALANA stands for African American and African Immigrant Latino Asian and Native communities.

This week we remember the rich legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He visited India in 1959 to learn about Gandhi’s strategy of nonviolence and while there he was invited to the southern state of Kerala. You see Kerala is well known for the Kerala Paradox – the poorest of the poor have also high literacy rates and health outcomes unlike in other parts of India and the world. Dr. King was possibly invited to visit and experience this miracle. People were awakened about their rights and responsibilities to change their own destinies that had the positive impact of education and health. That experience had such a deep impact on him that he reflected on it six years later. My doctoral research focused on the Kerala Paradox and my conclusion was that we need a holistic approach to economic development. The same youth who was inspired to change his or her destiny and got a master’s degree became the frustrated unemployed youth with some committing suicide. We need wealth building to complement social and political mobilization and we also need spiritual healing.

Today I reflect on my 35 years in Minnesota wrestling with the Minnesota Paradox as Dr. Samuel Myers framed it. High income with high racial disparities. I have been blessed by being involved with the Governor’s Working Group on Minority Business Development in 2000 to the Governor’s Workforce Development Council, leading economic development at the City of Saint Paul, my involvement with the ALANA Brain Trust and other groups. This reflection on workforce also draws inspiration from the work of my wife, a practitioner in this world, from people I engage on a daily basis looking for a loan or a job or a worker, and from the insights of a young man I met in the 1990s who works on the frontline but also who reflects on the conditions of his existence asking the questions such as – Why do the poor pay more for everything? A paradox in itself!

I am sharing my reflections around 5 critical questions: Why? Why now? How? At what cost? And how do we assess outcomes?

Let me begin with the first question – Why?

I was one of the Corrie plaintiffs who for the first time in Minnesota history were at the table when the current boundaries of political power were framed. We asked the judges – who will represent the $1.4 trillion ALANA economy in Minnesota? Our map will show you how. The judges received our input and documented that input in their Final Order where they also asked the legislature to listen to the voices of the ALANA communities. Today I make the case for the political representation of these economic interests and if the ALANA economic interests are not being adequately represented, we will go back to the judges to fix this. What you are doing here is very important. You are defining the contours of economic power through zoning, licenses, rules, and regulations etc.

The second reason why is that Minnesota has a sordid history of racial discrimination. It is a historical and legal fact reflected in the racial covenants embedded in real estate documents and in redlining. The ALANA people were confined to economic prisons that stifled their abilities to build wealth, especially intergenerational wealth.

Today Professor Raj Chetty of Harvard using Big Data shows how the impact of these economic prisons on our ability to achieve economic and social mobility and point to two strategies – those based on improving opportunities and the other on building place.

Finally, the foundational bedrock of racism is the denial of value of the human being. Denied of value, the human being becomes a tool, an animal, an object – that builds the wealth of those that control the economic prison. For three decades I have shown that the emperor has no clothes – the ALANA people have great value – I estimated it to be over $1.4 trillion that includes their lifetime earnings.

I also estimate that the economic cost of racism is at least $280 + billion – the loss imposed on ALANA wealth building by those that constructed the economic prison. However, this number does not capture the mental cost because the denial of value was aimed at breaking the mind to view one as less than what we are. That is why I was so inspired when my wife recently accepted the stewardship of Twin Cities Rise and there every participant is encouraged to realize a core part of their identity – I am Loved. I am Valuable. I am Important. I am Empowered. This insight was what Dr. King wrestled for six years in his mind and when he spoke at Dexter Baptist Church – he named the beast and called for its transformation.

In this policy conversation two elephants are brought into the room. First, investments in the ALANA communities is a zero sum game as it takes resources from Peter to give Paul. This myth has no basis in fact.

I present results of a simulation of the Minnesotan economy and see how the ALANA worker helps create almost $200 billion in output in Minnesota and supports over a million workers and $24 billion in taxes. I have presented data to this legislature in the last session that investments for example in the African American community in Minnesota benefits all. There are not enough African American businesses or individuals to complete many of the projects on their own. They rely on fellow Minnesotans.

The other elephant in the room is the argument – why can’t we offer universal programs rather than focusing on one community. I wish the same people, or their ancestors were around when they were building the economic prisons and the subsequent launch of universal programs that could not be accessed by the ALANA communities. I know this for a fact as I lead the Department of Planning and Economic Development of the capital city and saw the city’s prime resources were accessed primarily by those who walked the skyway in suits. Yes, we need to reshape these universal programs to be accessible to all. We also need to correct the underinvestment and disinvestment in the ALANA communities with specific community focused investments.

Why now?

As one famous saying goes – If not us? Who? If not now? When?

We are in a distinct point of history where we have a huge budget surplus that can be shaped to make progress on undoing the harm of the past and build the foundations of the future. And remember, ALANA communities paid into this surplus and I have data to show that too.

Let provide some context with facts on the ALANA Workforce in Minnesota.

There are more than half a million ALANA workers in Minnesota working across the sectors of the economy. In fact in 54 sub sectors, they are more than a quarter of the workforce.

We can also see from a current snapshot of the African American workforce both the top sectors of the economy they are building as well as the distribution within the economy. If we want to effectively reach out to African American workers, we need to know the top sectors and orient our strategies around those sectors, keeping also in mind the differences between African American and African immigrant workers.

I want to add a historic context with data that recently became available. If we look at the experience of Hmong American and Mexican American workers, we see that they are transitioning between sectors – do our policies and programs capture that shift?

The experience of Hmong American workers points to another historical experience. I remember in the early 1990s there would be recruiters going to Lao Family, Hmong Mutual, HAP and other community organizations and they would recruit not individuals but whole groups of families to work in places like Warroad etc. But when these workers and families went up there did we look after them well? Did we offer them growth in career opportunities? Did we provide good housing and excellent schools for their kids? Did we make them feel welcome and accepted in those communities? Is the current movement away from manufacturing the consequence of that neglect?

In the case of Mexican American workers, we went across the country and even into Mexico to bring them here decades ago. But when they were here, we did not treat them well. We made them grow our beet and then threw them out on the street. During our harsh winter they had to pay their own way, living in poverty in Saint Paul. There are records to show some of the worst poverty was experienced by the Mexican American workers in Minnesota.

We have historically neglected and underinvested in our ALANA workers.

We also find a growing ALANA worker presence in Greater Minnesota reflected in the fact the region with the greatest proportion of ALANA workers to total workers is not in the metro area but in Worthington, with Albert Lea and Rochester growing in importance.

Further when we look within economic development regions, we find the top sectors that ALANA workers are found differ by region. They also differ in the composition of ALANA workers. Even if we take a sector like health care our strategies must be oriented to the specific cultural group within that sector to be effective.

In Northeast and Northwest regions one can see the importance presence of Native American workers in various sector of the economy. I wonder which programs or resources are reaching these workers?

ALANA workers are playing a critical role as the demographic shift greys the workforce. There are many sectors where workers 55+ years old are more than 25 percent of the workforce. ALANA workers are younger and will help fill the gap.

At the same time the ALANA population is a younger population and will be needed to fill these critical labor gaps because of our ageing workforce.

Another fact is that our economy in Minnesota is “female centric” – female workers dominate many sectors and overall. We need to construct a female centric workforce and economy. However, within females the ALANA female worker is worse off and faces huge disparities relative to her peers. We need to integrate this fact into our policy and programs.

What should we do?

Let’s create a World Class ALANA Workforce in Minnesota. Below is a suggested route.

At the core of this strategy is the “worker” the “person”. I can say the current workforce program serves the bureaucrat and their rule regimes, the funder, the provider. We have lost sight of who we serve and how to serve them. We need a “boots on the ground” approach with the human being at the center of our efforts.

Then we need to build existing worker skills and invest in new skills needed for the economy of the metaverse and green energy. We need pathways for within and between sectors. We need to make our workplace credential friendly. We need our workplaces to be places where the ALANA worker is respected, is valued, and has avenues for professional mobility and inclusion in leadership and decisions. We need the ALANA female worker to be central to how we develop our programs and policies. And we need to focus on our youth by building the pipelines for internships and apprenticeships.

As a strategy and knowing how government works, perhaps we can follow two steps in our strategy.

This session, we allocate money for an ALANA Workforce Development Fund and at the same time appoint a represent of the House, Senate and Governor to oversee a ground of technical experts who will develop the operational and foundational elements of the fund along these 5 core principles:

This model will be presented for public input in the Fall.

In Spring of 2024 when the legislature convenes, the first order of business is the approve the ALANA Workforce Fund and launch it January.

By going in two stages, we give ourselves time to first allocate the money so it is there and then construct a well thought out ALANA Workforce Fund.

What will it cost?

To come up with a number I looked at the average cost per employee trained in DEED’s reports on the Job Skills Program and allocated it to invest in half of the ALANA workforce of over half a million ALANA workers. This leads to an estimate of a fund of at least $200 million that could be in operation for the next 5 to 10 years.

How will we measure success?

The ALANA Workforce Fund will have a community board who will evaluate the fund relative to its core founding principles. This board will make sure that all ALANA communities are accessing these resources, that the fund is agile and can adapt to the times, that it is worker centric and easy to access by all.

I include a sample evaluation tool. For example, a project comes by way of the board. They have a human element in their criteria to see if various people are included – the single mom with kids, the second chance worker, the immigrant or refugee, the college grad. They will also assess if this project addresses the core principles of the fund. Projects that score an optimal level will be awarded or evaluated. This is a simple tool and can be very effective in decision making.

Thank you for this opportunity to share some insights. I look forward to engaging with you as you address the question – If not us? Who? If not now? When? I am confident in your leadership. Thank you.