White Paper
Why People & Communities Are Getting Poorer (and what to do about it)
Many households feel less secure than they did a generation ago. The reason isn’t simply “inflation” or individual budgeting. It is instead that the cost of life’s essentials (housing, healthcare, education, transportation, and food) has increased while people’s ability to build wealth has decreased.
While individuals struggle, many communities are making major long-term decisions about recruitment priorities, incentives, housing policy, workforce pipelines, infrastructure investments and more without a shared understanding of the economic system those decisions reinforce.
This white paper explains a deeper structural dynamic behind our national economy. It demonstrates how extractive economics are systems that pull wealth upward and outward from communities, and circulatory economics are systems that retain and compound value locally.
This paper provides a framework leaders can use to ask better questions: Where does value go after it is created? Who controls reinvestment decisions over time? Are we building an economy that circulates wealth or extracts it? What tradeoffs are hidden by “jobs created” and “capital invested” metrics?
How This White Paper Fits into My Work
I work with communities and institutions to help them understand the economic forces shaping their future and to make better decisions because of that understanding.
Organizations can use this white paper to:
- Educate boards and leadership teams
- Align staff and partners around a shared framework
- Create a clearer basis for long-term planning conversations
- Improve how tradeoffs are discussed and explained publicly
Once leaders share a clear understanding of the system they are operating within, a natural question often follows:
“What should we do first?”
That is where facilitated alignment work can be useful (board workshops, leadership sessions, and structured discussions). This work is upstream of strategy development, design, and implementation. The first step is to gain a more in-depth and shared understanding among stakeholders. That’s where I can be of great value to your community.
DOWNLOAD THE WHITE PAPER
If you are trying to make sense of declining affordability, stalled wealth-building, and the growing gap between economic activity and economic security, this white paper is a place to start.
Extractive vs. Circulatory Economics
Why People & Communities Are Getting Poorer Over Time
Jason Broadwater works with communities and institutions to help them understand the economic forces shaping their future and how to make better decisions because of that understanding.