National Inclusive Prosperity Indicators

For the Kauffman Foundation, Mass Economics developed a data framework to track and report a broad range of metrics covering entrepreneurship and innovation activity for the U.S., 50 states and Washington, DC, the largest 100 metropolitan areas by population, all U.S. counties, and summary geographies related to county urbanity and poverty status. The indicators fall into four categories – Economy, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Wealth – and cover topics such as characteristics of the total economy, self-employment, innovation, firm ownership, startups, new employer businesses, entrepreneurial jobs, education, research grant awards, early adopters of technology, internet access, capital access, PPP support during COVID-19, venture capital funding, and wages. Mass Economics designed and developed all of the project data sets, which included developing methods to translate metropolitan data into county-level metrics; and worked collaboratively with the data visualization team, system tool developers, and client representatives on data representation and user interface decisions to create an interactive (currently, only internally facing) dashboard. As part of the system design, Mass Economics staff engaged personnel at all levels of the foundation to identify focus areas and specific metrics tied to their programming and goals.