Tie public investment to community benefits

City governments have long offered lucrative incentives to businesses for locating or remaining within their jurisdiction.  These large subsidies are often rationalized with promises to create new opportunities for an economically disadvantaged area and its residents, but actual benefits to low-income residents habitually fail to manifest.  Local hiring initiatives make this link explicit.  The philosophy is simple: where corporations benefit, so should the community.  

Increase residents' employment and earning potential, short- and long-term 

Local hiring initiatives provide training and jobs to economically isolated or ignored residents.  This has an immediate effect on residents' financial well-being, and the stability of their families. But the impact of this support also goes beyond one particular job. The added training and job experience provide lasting skills and increase residents' long-term earning potential.

Address racial discrimination

Low-income communities, particularly communities of color, face both direct discrimination, in the form of prejudiced hiring practices and indirect discrimination, in the form of restricted access to jobs. Because of the intersection of race and class, particularly in disinvested urban communities, many local hiring initiatives serve as de facto methods to increase access to jobs for communities of color. At the same time, they bypass many of the political and legal dilemmas that race-targeted policies face.

Multiply the effects of redevelopment money

Concentrated poverty affects many more than just the un- and under-employed.  Neighborhood commerce relies on business from community residents to sustain itself.  But when people are not making money, they are not spending money.  When redevelopment money, through local hiring initiatives, flows to local residents, those residents will spend much of it in the neighborhood, revitalizing the retail sector and preserving or creating further jobs for their neighbors. This multiplier effect can help strengthen the health and wealth of the community - and increase the prosperity of the region as a whole.

Reduce regionwide congestion

A greater percentage of people living near where they work will reduce congestion and improve air quality both in urban neighborhoods and across the region.  Companies can even benefit from this, as it can reduce employee parking demand.

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