ETI DRILL DOWN TOOL KIT

How to Use ETI Drill Downs for Business Plans, Economic Development, and Academic Research - Available for All Census Tracts in the U.S.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Employment and Training Institute has prepared easy- to-use, free downloads of Census data on workers residing in and employed in each U.S. Census tract, along with state-of-the-art purchasing power esimates of consumer expenditures and retail sales leakage/surplus by neighborhood. The drill downs can be used to determine the diversity of the workforce and to further economic development for underserved communities and for underutilized minority populations.

Getting Started

First, identify the census tracts in your neighborhood market area or research project. Choose as many census tracts as you wish within each county. See below for how to find the census tract of addresses in your community.

Then, download free customized reports from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Employment and Training Institute (ETI) for your area:

1. Business Place-of-Work Drill Downs to examine the characteristics of jobs located in each neighborhood by type of employer, industry, earnings, occupations, and means of transportation to work for all census tracts in U.S. (Drill downs prepared jointly with Southern University at New Orleans.)
2. Employer Diversity Drill Downs to identify the race/Hispanic origin composition of the workforce employed in each U.S. census tract by industry, occupation, and type of employer. Tables also show the earnings of workers employed in each neighborhood by race/ethnicity and by age, and the poverty status of workers by their means of transportation to work.
3. Neighborhood Workforce Drill Downs to describe the type of jobs held by local residents with analysis by industry, occupations, type of employer, and racial/ethnic origin. Tables also show worker earnings by race/Hispanic origin and by age and the poverty status of resident workers by their means of transportation to work. Compare jobs held by residents to similar tables of jobs by place-of-work, as reported in the Employer Diversity Drill Downs and Business Place-of-Work Drill Downs.
4. Purchasing Power Profiles to show the retail potential for 16 different types of consumer expenditures for all census tracts and residential ZIP codes in the U.S. For the 100 largest metro areas in the U.S., each ZIP code is ranked on spending per square mile for each retail category. Shapefiles and databases are also available for most regions of the U.S.
5. Urban Markets Retail Sales Leakage/Surplus Drill Downs to show the difference between the purchasing power of residents in each urban census tract compared to the retail sales estimated to result from retail employees in the neighborhood. Determine each neighborhood's retail sales "leakage" or "surplus." (Available for the 100 largest metro areas in U.S.)

To aid users in applying the ETI Drill Down Tool Kit to their community, the Employment and Training Institute prepared templates of drill down reports for a local Main Street project, a HUD renewal community, and diversity drill downs of companies and government employers in the Milwaukee metro area.

• How to Use ETI Drill Downs to Map Employment Integration and to Assess Workforce Diversity at Government Jobsites [in PDF]

  This report offers examples of mapping jobsites for African Americans and Hispanics compared to whites for the federal, state and local governments; determining numbers of government jobsites meeting availability standards for employment of minorities; reporting on the diversity record of the largest government worksites in a metro area; and developing a methodology for targeting opportunities for increased employment of minorities and affirmative action efforts by governmental unit and worksite.

• How to Use ETI Place-of-Work and Purchasing Power Drill Downs: Drill Downs for the Burleigh Main Street Project.

  This report focuses on one of the City of Milwaukee Main Street Projects seeking to revitalize its commercial district by involving residents in planning strategies to retain and expand existing businesses, convert underutilized commercial properties, and use marketing to improve retail sales.

• How to Use Special Census Tabluations for Workforce and Transportation Drill Downs of HUD Renewal Communities, Empowerment Zones, and Community Development Block Grant Neighborhoods: Drill Downs for the Milwaukee Renewal Community.

  This template describes and maps workers commuting into and out of the HUD renewal community and analyzes the types of jobs and distance traveled to work for four labor markets within the renewal community: Milwaukee's near north side, near southside, the Menomonee Valley, and the Marquette University-Aurora Sinai Medical Center neighborhoods.

• Examples of use of purchasing power profile drill downs in Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and New Orleans are shown on the ETI Purchasing Power Profile Page.

You can locate the census tract for a specific address at the U.S. Census Bureau Factfinder Advanced Geography Search page using the GEOGRAPHY "address search" or "map" option.

For maps of census tracts in any community, go to the www.census.gov/geo/www/maps/descriptwindows/outline.htm. Click on "Census Tract Outline Maps 2000." Select your state, then county. Then select the PDF file for your county or select the first PDF file to locate the tracts for your part of the county.

In the past, descriptions of business activity in urban areas have been difficult to assess at a geographic level necessary for planing and implementation purposes. This place-of-work, transportation, and diversity analysis offers a first-time online examination of existing jobs in city neighborhoods from the perspective of underserved communities. The place-of-work data are based on responses to the U.S. Census long-form questionnaire, provided to 1 in 6 households. See the ETI Business and Diversity Methodology Page for a description of the sources of data, definitions of variables used, descriptions of methodology, and rules for rounding cells and totals.

The ETI Purchasing Power Profiles and Urban Markets Retail Sales Leakage/Surplus Drill Downs are based on state-of-the-art methodologies developed by ETI to show the retail potential of urban neighborhoods and to counter false and misleading stereotypes of urban neighborhoods issued by national marketing companies. See the ETI Purchasing Power Methodology Page.

The drill downs were developed by John Pawasarat, director of the Employment and Training institute; Lois Quinn, senior scientist with the Institute; and Frank Stetzer, senior information processing consultant with the UWM Information and Media Technologies. The Employment and Training Institute drill down reports were supported by funding from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee Department of City Development, Milwaukee Economic Development Corporation, Southern University at New Orleans, Helen Bader Foundation, and The Brookings Institution. See also discussion papers prepared by John Pawasarat and Lois Quinn for The Brooking Institution:

• Exposing Urban Legends: The Real Purchasing Power of Central City Neighborhoods, June 2001.
• Tracking the Progress of Welfare Reform Quickly: A Model for Measuing Neighborhood Health and Change, October 2001.

Send comments on your use of the ETI Drill Down Tool Kit to eti@uwm.edu or John Pawasarat, Employment and Training Institute, School of Continuing Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 161 W. Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 6000, Milwaukee, WI 53203. Phone 414-227-3380.

Milwaukee Drill photos courtesy of Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation.

[ Employment & Training Institute Home Page | ETI Purchasing Power Profile Page | Listing of ETI Publications ]

Page updated February 27, 2008
Employment and Training Institute
School of Continuing Education
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Direct comments to: eti@uwm.edu