The Minnesota Budget Project, along with some amazing research partners, are pleased to announce the launch of Minnesota Data Trends, a website that tracks key indicators of family well-being around the state. The site looks at long-term trends in income, housing costs, transportation costs, access to health insurance, employment and other important measures.
Much has been written in the past year about the struggles of average Minnesotans during the Great Recession. Often lost in the immediate focus on the latest unemployment report or foreclosure data are the longer-term trends showing that low- and moderate-income Minnesota have faced challenges for years and conditions are worsening over time.
For example, the recent Great Recession cannot explain all the job loss in Minnesota. The state gained an average of about 36,000 jobs per year between 1981 and 2000, but only 1,000 jobs annually between 2001 and 2009. And as jobs become scarcer, housing costs are rising. For nearly two decades (from 1980 until 2000), only eight percent of Minnesota households were paying more than half their income for housing. By 2008, however, nearly 13 percent of households had this level of cost burden.
The goal of Minnesota Data Trends is to provide reliable, baseline information on issues affecting low-and moderate-income Minnesotans. We hope to focus attention on how multiple trends can together place a severe strain on a family’s budget. Any number of factors could put a family with little financial margin into chaos: reduced hours at work, an unexpected car repair or health care bill, or the loss of child care.
The website also acts as a directory of experts on these important issues. In addition to the Minnesota Budget Project, the collaboration has involved the Affirmative Options Coalition, Children’s Defense Fund – Minnesota, JOBS NOW Coalition, Minnesota Community Action Partnership and the Minnesota Housing Partnership.
On the website you will find graphs showing long-term trends that anyone can download and reprint for free. The website also includes the data source for the graph, a brief paragraph summarizing the trend and contact information for further details.
But this is only a beginning – we’ll keep the website updated as new data becomes available.
-Scott Russell & Christina Wessel












Posted by Scott Russell 























