Leaders Hope New Stadium will be Boon to Jobless

The Minnesota Vikings' new stadium is expected to bring construction jobs to parts of Minneapolis hit hardest by poverty and unemployment.
    
Civic leaders who backed the stadium tell Minnesota Public Radio they're hoping it will be a boon to the jobless, like the 22 percent of black workers who were counted as unemployed as recently as last year. That was nearly triple Minnesota's overall jobless rate. There may be nowhere that unemployment was as keenly felt as in north Minneapolis, where jobs disappeared twice as fast as the rest of the city.
    
In response, the stadium legislation incorporated the city's own 32-percent minority and women hiring goals for real estate development projects. The legislation also gives hiring priority for Minneapolis ZIP codes with the highest unemployment and poverty rates.

(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
 

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