Unlocking Responsible Access to Data to Increase Equity and Economic Mobility

Economic mobility remains elusive for far too many Americans and has been declining for several decades. Reversing this overall decline to address the persistent racial, ethnic, and gender gaps in economic mobility is one of the great challenges of our time. Data collected across all levels of governments, nonprofit organizations, and private-sector companies can help answer foundational policy and research questions on what drives economic mobility.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Markle Foundation spent much of 2020 working with experts to identify strategic opportunities to accelerate progress towards increased equity and economic mobility. This paper summarizes more detailed takeaways from these discussions, including the unique needs of state, local, and tribal governments, and increasing the accessibility and use of state, local, and tribal data. It also proposes strategies that could accelerate a more equitable, comprehensive, and accessible system of privacy-protected data sharing to improve mobility and opportunity.