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Workers and WagesWorking with community partners, Catholic Charities is focusing on two campaigns to help bring hiring equity to publicly funded projects. To truly combat poverty, it is necessary to build wealth in low-income communities through training that leads to jobs that support families. Working with HIRE Minnesota (Healthcare, Infrastructure, and Renewable Energy), Catholic Charities wants to create pathways out of poverty in the emerging green jobs sector and on construction crews on state highway, road and bridge projects.
This year’s bonding bill will invest up to $1 billion in public infrastructure. This “jobs bill” can potentially put thousands of Minnesota workers to work. An equitable inclusion of low-income Minnesotans in the workforce funded by public dollars is important, as is the training that will get new workers into the employment ranks.
 HIRE has been working with the Minnesota Department of Transportation to reverse their 17-year failure to meet their own hiring goals on transportation projects for people of color and women. MNDOT is committed to making real progress on this issue in the coming year, and we will continue working with them on this important anti-poverty campaign.
Government and private industry should also consider an emergency jobs program that would spur new employment opportunities. This kind of investment buoys personal finances and stabilizes communities. Minnesota met great success when it created the Minnesota Emergency Employment Development program (MEED) in 1983. This began as a two-year $70 million wage subsidy program to create temporary jobs in government and non-profit agencies and permanent jobs in the private sector.
Legislative Priorities:
- Include hiring equity language that includes the economically disadvantaged in the bonding bill
- Pass policy language to ensure the Department of Transportation meets its previously established hiring goals of people of color and women on public projects
- Invest in an emergency jobs program
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