THE NUMBERS

A market assessment released Tuesday by the local economic development initiative called B3K, or Better Bakersfield & Boundless Kern, compared residents’ employment and entrepreneurial success rates by race and gender using various sets of data.

The study’s analysis of 2018 figures from the American Community Survey found Hispanic workers in Kern County were 80 percent more likely than whites to struggle to meet their daily needs. Blacks’ chances were found to be 60 percent higher than whites’, and Asians were 28 percent more likely to struggle. Lack of post-secondary education accounted for about half the disparity, age differences another 18 percent, the study found. Close to a third of the net impact could not be explained.

Data compiled by Brookings indicate men in the county are about a third more likely to hold a good job than women.

The figures suggest white peoples’ chances of holding a good job in Kern stand at about 31 percent.

The odds were estimated at about 27 percent for Asians, 20 percent for Blacks and 13 percent for Hispanics.

At every level of education, people of color were found to be at a disadvantage in landing a good job. Rates of entrepreneurship, considered a gauge of prosperity, also disproportionately favor white men in Kern County, according to 2017 data put together by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. The report found only 17 percent of businesses in the county are owned by women.

Whites, the assessment says, account for 34 percent of Kern’s population but twice that many business ownerships. Stated in terms of business owners per 1,000 people of the same racial classification, Asians led with 27.6, followed by whites at 20.4 and Hispanics at 3.8. Comparable data on Kern Blacks was not available.

The full market assessment can be found online at https://b3kprosperity. org/resources/.