For all of the progress that our nation and our community have made toward equality, we remain plagued by severe racial disparities in many aspects of life. Perhaps none is more troubling or more important than inequality in employment. Access to a good job is, for most people, the key to a good life. Something is sorely amiss when the black and Hispanic unemployment rates in Erie County are more than twice those of whites, and when people of color are earning just over 70 cents for every dollar earned by whites.