Our food systems are unjust, built from violence, stolen land, underpaid work, discrimination, and unequal access to healthy food. We can measure inequality in a variety of ways. For example, wages/salaries are the most common source of income for the majority of Americans. Unfortunately, across the United States—including New England—food system workers, particularly retail food workers, receive some of the lowest wages of any occupational category. New England is markedly Whiter than the U.S. average—61.1% of Americans were White in 2020, compared to 71.3% of New Englanders—but the region became more diverse from 2010 to 2020. Although New England’s population has grown more diverse, 98.4% of regional farms had at least one White producer, and White producers operated 99.3% of farmland.
Median Hourly Wages in Connecticut, May 2023
Median Hourly Wages in Maine, May 2023
Median Hourly Wages in Massachusetts, May 2023
Median Hourly Wages in New Hampshire, May 2023
Median Hourly Wages in Rhode Island, May 2023
Median Hourly Wages in Vermont, May 2023
New England Farm Characteristics by Race, 2022
New England Farm Characteristics by Hispanic Ethnicity, 2022
Note About Connecticut Maps: Although Connecticut has not had county governments since 1960, county boundaries have historically been used to depict data. For example, all USDA Census of Agriculture data for Connecticut is collected at a county-level. In 2022, the U.S. Census Bureau shifted to using Connecticut's nine planning regions as county equivalent geographic units for data collection. This has presented a challenge for depicting data for Connecticut's planning regions in Tableau. This mapping challenge has not been resolved yet, but when a solution is available, we will update Connecticut maps.
