By Maureen Cavanaugh and Michael Lipkin, KPBS
By most measures, San Diego’s economy is strong. Unemployment remains low, housing values have surged since the Great Recession and the region is attracting new startups. But that innovation economy is widening San Diego’s economic inequalities and creating “pain points” that could stymie future growth, according to the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation.
Those looming problems are a significant racial disparity in high school and college graduation rates; low wages paid by small businesses, which make up the bulk of San Diego companies; and a high cost of living that makes San Diego unaffordable for 1 million residents.
The EDC is a nonprofit that promotes San Diego to businesses and its board is made up of executives from some of the area’s biggest employers. If these issues aren’t addressed, San Diego will no longer be “an attractive place to live and do business,” the group warned last month. Nikia Clarke, the EDC’s vice president for economic development, says that’s a worst-case scenario.
Read the full article here: https://www.kpbs.org/news/2018/mar/05/san-diego-businesses-point-looming-economic-pain-p/
