Community Action Duluth Helping Develop Duluth Prosperity Agenda

As announced in a recent press release, the City of Duluth is partnering with several key community leaders to set Duluth on the path to prosperity by increasing income and assets of all Duluth residents.  The Duluth Prosperity Agenda is a follow-up initiative to the Duluth Blueprint to End Poverty - view Virtual CAP description.

The Duluth Prosperity Agenda Team consists of members from the non-profit, education, business, housing, social service, and government sectors.  The Prosperity Agenda team concentrated on five specific areas, which intrinsically complement each other and developed an index as a measurement tool to track progress:

- Income and Poverty.  30 points.  What percentage of the population has an income less than 200% of the federal standard for poverty?  How close is Duluth's median household income to the state's median household income?

- Housing.  20 points.  How much of the population is considered "cost-burdened" by spending more than 30% of their household income on housing.  What percentage of single-family homes is owner-occupied?

- Workforce/Quality Jobs.  20 points.  What is the average weekly wage that workers in Duluth earn and how close is it to the state's average weekly wage?  What is the percentage of adults in Duluth that are in the workforce?

- Education.  10 points.  What is the total education level of everyone over 25 in Duluth?

- Business Climate.  20 points.  How many jobs are there in Duluth?

The group plans to develop work plans and strategies that impact each specific area of the index.  Each group will engage community members and develop objectives and strategies to increase economic growth and widely shared prosperity.

READ MORE - Duluth Prosperty Agenda and Duluth Blueprint to End Poverty.