00:00:02:01 - 00:00:14:14 Unknown We are here to discuss a recent study coming out of MITRE titled The Racial Wealth Gap in Washington, DC. My name is Milika Robbins and I am representing the DC Council Office of Racial Equity, also known as CORE. 00:00:16:03 - 00:00:31:29 Unknown CORE's mission is to eliminate racial disparities and achieve racial equity in the District. When successful race will no longer predict the opportunities, outcomes, or distribution of resources for DC residents, particularly for Black residents and other residents of color. 00:00:33:06 - 00:00:45:14 Unknown Through these efforts, all communities will thrive, live, and work in the district. I'm joined by Jenine Patterson, who is with MITRE. Jenine, can you tell us about MITRE and a little bit about yourself as well? 00:00:45:14 - 00:01:10:15 Unknown Thank you, Milika. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here. My name is Jenine Patterson and I am the project leader for MITRE's social justice platform. MITRE is a not for profit organization dedicated to solving problems for a safer world. We work across government and in partnership with industry to tackle challenges from safety and stability, to the well-being of our 00:01:10:15 - 00:01:30:16 Unknown nation, including work to advance equity in programs and in communities. We have a staff of about 9000 people that have specialties in a range of different technical and programmatic skill sets, including data analysis, organizational change and human centered design. 00:01:31:27 - 00:01:51:14 Unknown But in addition to those disciplines, we also are bringing to bear our foundational systems engineering approach, which is really about the way we work. We bring different disciplines together around a common purpose, learning and working together in a structured way that centers our stakeholders success and manages risk. 00:01:52:02 - 00:02:04:15 Unknown And so I really appreciate the opportunity to partner with and learn from CORE as we did this work on the racial wealth gap study for the District. 00:02:04:15 - 00:02:09:00 Unknown Thanks for that introduction, Jenine. So can you tell us how this study came to be? 00:02:09:27 - 00:02:27:00 Unknown Yeah. We were lucky enough to partner with CORE in its earliest days and we were working together for a few months to just promote understanding of data driven system of systems analysis of racial inequity in the District. We hoped. 00:02:27:15 - 00:02:49:04 Unknown I'm sorry. We hosted a few trainings to help Council staff and members address questions like: How do we evaluate who benefits and who is burdened? What are the different ways we can measure equity and disparities? And how do we understand the second and third order effects of inequities and propose fixes? 00:02:49:04 - 00:03:13:27 Unknown In maybe late winter, early spring, CORE asked us to apply these concepts to the racial wealth gap, just recognizing how important wealth is to so many other opportunities for District residents. Our goal was to improve understanding about what is driving this racial disparity in wealth and how we might think about closing the gap. 00:03:15:01 - 00:03:21:18 Unknown So you mentioned systems analysis and that being a big part of the report. Can you explain what that is? 00:03:21:18 - 00:03:31:26 Unknown Sure, a systems analysis is just the process of identifying the components of a system and studying the structure of the relationships between them. 00:03:32:10 - 00:03:47:23 Unknown Our goal, again, is to find interventions that could ultimately change the systems output. I come from a business and management background, and a common adage in that world is every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. 00:03:48:07 - 00:04:04:18 Unknown So when we have results like this huge disparity in wealth, we want to answer: what is the system that's driving that outcome? What are its subcomponents? How do they interact with each other? What behaviors and characteristics of the system are important? 00:04:04:18 - 00:04:22:17 Unknown So, for example, things like population flows, who's moving in and out of the District, and what actions have a quick impact versus things that take much longer, like investments in education? And importantly, is everyone experiencing the system the same way? 00:04:23:06 - 00:04:41:20 Unknown What are the different starting values and experiences that people have when they move through the system? A key element of conducting a systems analysis is looking out for feedback loops and then ultimately figuring out which loops are most important to focus on. 00:04:41:20 - 00:04:58:27 Unknown When we're trying to organize solutions in a system, a feedback loop occurs when the output of one component ultimately results in further changes to the component itself. So one straightforward example that we cover in the paper is how savings accounts earn interest. 00:04:59:10 - 00:05:15:17 Unknown That interest is added to the original savings, which then generates more savings and then more interest and so on and so forth. Reinforcing feedback loops in a system encourage the system to continue or even accelerate in the same direction. 00:05:15:17 - 00:05:42:29 Unknown So we were particularly interested in reinforcing feedback loops that are driving us to this inequitable outcome. So we give several examples in the paper of some of these more complex reinforcing feedback loops. They relate to child care or commute times, grocery stores, for example, and we show how components that contribute to wealth building, how they cluster together. 00:05:43:10 - 00:06:16:06 Unknown And they also cluster geographically in a way that seems to constrain wealth building for Black residents of the District. Overall, the wealth building system model illustrates what we call an "Advantage to the Advantage" system behavior. That is, the typical white Washington, DC resident starts in a stronger starting position than the typical Black resident and is therefore better able to continue building wealth over time through these reinforcing feedback loops when going through the report. 00:06:16:06 - 00:06:23:08 Unknown I noticed that there are these diagrams. Can you explain how systems analysis feeds into those? 00:06:23:08 - 00:06:33:17 Unknown Absolutely. So the diagrams were really important to help us reflect back this big picture and then figure out what's happening. 00:06:33:18 - 00:06:58:07 Unknown So let me say a little bit more about how we got there. We started with a ton of secondary research. So much has been studied about the racial wealth gap in the District, with a special thank you to the Urban Institute and several others who've really done very targeted analyzes of wealth and the various contributors to wealth building. 00:06:58:07 - 00:07:13:25 Unknown We were grateful to all of that deep, rich analysis for providing insight. We also collected personal stories from people who live in the District. And, where we could, we invited some District residents to join us in participatory modeling sessions. 00:07:14:14 - 00:07:31:27 Unknown And so you'll see some personal stories in the paper. But honestly, due to the pandemic and to time constraints, we were not able to do as much of this as we would have liked. And we encourage CORE and its partners to build on this initial participatory modeling work with all of this research. 00:07:31:28 - 00:07:53:26 Unknown Then we began to build out a causal loop diagram. Our goal here was to capture the many, many factors that contribute to wealth building and show the relationships among them in a more advanced phase of analysis. We could reflect also different starting values and magnitude and time delays. 00:07:53:26 - 00:08:12:19 Unknown But for this time around, we really just wanted to communicate the breadth of factors that are having an impact. So each node or circle, all of these colorful circles that you see, they represent a factor that came up during our secondary research or in these personal stories. 00:08:13:17 - 00:08:40:24 Unknown And then each arrow shows the relationship between these different factors. The color coding represents different categories that we identified. For example, workforce readiness factors are in orange and financial assets are in green. And what we were thrilled to have been able to accomplish as a team is develop kind of, again, this broad, comprehensive, shared 00:08:40:24 - 00:08:55:01 Unknown understanding of what the many different factors are. But I recognize that this is difficult to consume as an artifact. It was great for people who participated in the process because we debated and we came to understand each other's point of view and assumptions. 00:08:55:25 - 00:09:17:25 Unknown But now that we're trying to consume it and make decisions on it, we needed to do something a little bit more manageable. So we basically zoomed out from this analysis, right? And we looked at the relationship among the major categories of factors and produced these kind of summary feedback loops or these three main loops. 00:09:18:21 - 00:09:38:18 Unknown And again, we were looking for, you know, these reinforcing feedback loops that encourage the system to proceed in a certain direction. And there are many different feedback loops in DC's wealth building system, and they operate in different directions and different strength for different populations. 00:09:39:00 - 00:10:03:24 Unknown But we wanted to offer a couple of key ones for consideration by decision makers. So we have investing in employment, building financial resilience, and increasing rates of return from assets. On page four of the report, you know, there's a key to help people navigate all of these different feedback loops, what are the nodes, and what 00:10:03:24 - 00:10:23:08 Unknown are the arrows, and so on and so forth. But if you're looking at these diagrams, these causal loop diagrams on our website, we invite you to take a closer look and challenge them. So if you click on "Loopy2," it opens up another window. 00:10:25:10 - 00:10:45:28 Unknown And gives you the opportunity to really look more closely at what's happening here under the tab model. You can save the models so that you can come back to it later and play with it. And you can also, again, kind of interrogate the models that we have here, look more closely, you know, zoom in. You can draw new 00:10:47:04 - 00:11:13:17 Unknown factors if you think there are some that we were missing. You can draw arrows between factors if you think there's a relationship that we didn't consider. And of course, you know, just create a diagram that you think reflects the reality you're seeing. And you can reach out to us at the email address social justice at MITRE dot org to share your input or your feedback. 00:11:13:17 - 00:11:28:18 Unknown And if you have any questions about how to work "Loopy2," if you click there on "Loopy2" on the left hand side and then "learn more" in the middle, it just tells you a little bit more about how to use the software and interact with it. 00:11:28:18 - 00:11:51:04 Unknown We use "Loopy2" for lots of different purposes. It's not obviously limited to, you know, understanding social equity. For really any goal or outcome under consideration, I encourage people to kind of go through the exercise of drawing out the factors that contribute to that outcome and their behaviors, their relationships, and to share 00:11:51:04 - 00:12:05:05 Unknown that information with other people, especially with people who have a different view, right? This gives us a chance to really challenge our biases and expose our assumptions and then stimulate new thinking about how we might change the system. 00:12:07:09 - 00:12:22:09 Unknown Thanks for giving us that detailed information on how to understand "loopies" and those diagrams. So I guess the next question we have is just what are two things that the study says about understanding the racial wealth gap? 00:12:22:09 - 00:12:41:09 Unknown Yeah, I hope that the study communicates really the breadth right, the broad set of intersecting factors that that amplify each other and create these these entrenched, you know, disparate outcomes. 00:12:41:09 - 00:13:00:05 Unknown You know, we often focus on homeownership and education, and they're certainly very, very relevant and critical, you know, but social networks and access to knowledge and power, commute times, and affordability of child care. 00:13:00:06 - 00:13:26:11 Unknown All of these other factors directly contribute to wealth building and can extend inequities across generations. And I think it's important to know about these different factors and the feedback loops so that when we're thinking about how we build solutions, we're really bundling solutions in a way that promotes the highest chance of success. 00:13:26:21 - 00:13:40:11 Unknown Sometimes we target a lot of investment to one really important factor, but we don't think about all of the other things that exist in that ecosystem that would allow for us to achieve the outcomes that we're aiming for. 00:13:41:06 - 00:14:05:09 Unknown I think we, you know, we say explicitly: a one time change in the current value of any individual factor is unlikely to drive the overall system behavior to a sustained, racially equitable state. And that's and so we're just encouraging people to think about what are the coordinated portfolio of solutions that are necessary considering how the system operates. 00:14:05:09 - 00:14:10:25 Unknown So what are the immediate actions that can be taken coming out of this study? 00:14:10:25 - 00:14:31:04 Unknown Well, I already hinted at one of them, you know, and that is continuing to refine all of these models, all of this understanding in partnership with DC residents, especially those who are experiencing inequities and doing that work alongside of, you know, the many other researchers, 00:14:31:04 - 00:14:51:11 Unknown and social scientists, and economists who are who are doing this. But we really want to honor the expertise of lived experience of DC residents. I think another important aspect of next steps is thinking about how these systems change over time and the importance of continued monitoring. 00:14:52:05 - 00:15:12:05 Unknown And so we want to start the work of selecting, leading and lagging indicators that help us understand how the system is changing. We in the report talk about building a baseline picture of what are some of the resources and opportunities that contribute to wealth building. 00:15:12:11 - 00:15:31:10 Unknown What's working for the District, right? And we need to start with a kind of again, a complete baseline picture and then start to pick out what is it that we need to pay close attention to so that we know the system's changing and whether or not we need to adjust our interventions in response to this changing system? 00:15:31:10 - 00:15:44:25 Unknown And then I think the last thing I wanted to put out there is really clarifying what closing the gap means. I think I hear a lot of people say "we need to close the racial wealth gap," and that could mean different things to different people. 00:15:46:22 - 00:16:02:06 Unknown For some people, it might mean thinking about what's happening at the extremes, right, with extreme wealth and extreme poverty? For other people, it might be what's happening to median households and whether or not we can bring median households closer together in some way. 00:16:02:23 - 00:16:25:04 Unknown And I think that, again, inviting residents as well as policymakers and researchers. This is this is a multi-sector challenge, but bringing all of the sectors together to to clarify what success looks like, improve these conceptual models, begin to monitor, and then ultimately design, solutions. 00:16:26:09 - 00:16:32:26 Unknown That's what I see, is this going forward, and I hope that MITRE has the chance to to be a part of that. 00:16:32:26 - 00:16:42:23 Unknown Well, this has certainly been great to learn more about the report, how to understand the diagrams, and what you all envision the future to look like following the study. 00:16:43:24 - 00:16:50:22 Unknown We certainly look forward to hearing more about what MITRE might be doing following this report in the near future. 00:16:50:22 - 00:16:59:08 Unknown Thank you so much, Milika, for the time today and for really just being a phenomenal partner, CORE. We've learned so much from you. 00:17:00:01 - 00:17:09:21 Unknown And we look forward to continuing to learn more from you and others working on this really critically important issue for District residents. Thank you.