Tackling South Florida’s wealth gap: 8 proposals for reducing income inequality in Miami
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The Weath Gap
The COVID pandemic worsened an already glaring economic divide in South Florida.
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Tackling South Florida’s wealth gap: 8 proposals for reducing income inequality in Miami
These resources are available to Miami-Dade residents who are struggling financially
To lessen the growing divide between Miami’s rich and poor, a number of lawmakers, advocates for low-income residents and urban experts have put forward a variety of ideas. They range from the fundamental, such as improving public transportation, to the more innovative, including slapping a tax on second homes to raise money for programs. They argue that the coronavirus pandemic, with its disproportionate impact on the poor and minorities, has made tackling the wealth gap even more urgent. Only two things stand in the way: the money and the will.
1. Build more affordable rentals
Housing often comes down to simple supply and demand. And when there is not enough rental supply, rent prices rise. One solution is simply to increase the supply of rental housing available. This can be done through zoning, tax incentives, additional funding, municipal planning, or some combination thereof.
2. Increase density
A fight is brewing in Miami-Dade over a proposal to allow taller buildings near mass transit as a way to increase housing density and therefore affordability. County Commissioner Oliver Gilbert, a sponsor, said the proposal “is big and difficult and necessary to accommodating our growth, while stopping our continual decline into traffic congestion and gridlock” — though mayors of Miami-Dade cities with a suburban character oppose the measure.
3. Empower small, locally owned businesses
Neighborhood businesses are essential to their communities — one example of how to help ensure small business owners stay afloat can be found in Mileyka Burgos-Flores from the Allapattah Collaborative. She works with them to set long-term goals, assist with accounting and legal services and help the businesses grow through online and delivery services.
4. Improve public transit
The average household in Miami-Dade spends 23% of its income on transportation costs and car prices have sky-rocketed during the pandemic. Families could reduce their expenses on transportation if there were better public transit options, which could include expanding Metrorail lines and bus rapid transit corridors.
5. Close the skills gap
There will be little trickle down from the tech wave if low-income residents aren’t prepared to fill the influx of high-paying jobs that come with a knowledge economy. Local government, civil society organizations and companies could invest more in programs in local high schools, community colleges and universities that teach high-tech skills like coding, analytics, accounting and math to provide the education and training needed.
6. Hike the minimum wage
Floridians recently voted to increase the minimum wage incrementally to $15 an hour by 2026, with the first increase coming at the end of September (from $8.65 an hour to $10 an hour). But according to MIT’s living wage calculator, a single adult with no kids needs to make at least $16.08 an hour to earn a living wage in Miami-Dade County. Similar to high-cost cities like New York and San Francisco, Miami-Dade could implement its own minimum wage that brings the county up to a higher pay grade faster.
7. Get major corporations involved
According to urbanist Richard Florida, other major metros, including Newark, N.J., and Pittsburgh, Pa., have what he calls “anchor institutions” that have dedicated themselves to improving the communities where they sit. In Newark, it is Prudential insurance; in Pittsburgh, it is the legacy steel companies, among others. “The corporate community has to band together,” Florida said in an interview with the Miami Herald, if widespread municipal rich-poor problems are to be addressed.
8. Put in place ‘vacancy’ taxes
The Miami metro area has the highest percentage of non-primary resident units in the United States. One way for the city to encourage property owners to put empty units up for rent and to raise revenue for affordable housing projects and subsidies is by implementing a “vacancy” tax on second homes. In 2017, Vancouver implemented an “empty home tax” of 1% and raised the rate to 3% in 2021.
This story was originally published August 22, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
