Axios

The proportion of the population employed in jobs that require low or minimal computer skills has shrunk from more than half in 2002 to just about 30% last year, per a recent Brookings report. (The report indexes who is unemployed in the largest 130 cities and counties in the county, or about 48% of the population in the U.S.)

Today in New Orleans, a panel convened by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and moderated by Amy Liu, Vice President and Director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, discussed the issue:

• That digital divide isn't even: Right now, "black and Hispanic Americans are disproportionately employed in places that require less digital skills," according to Liu.
• Put that in perspective with Angela Glover Blackwell, CEO of Policy Link: "by 2044 the majority of people in the country will be people of color...since the summer of 2012 the majority of all babies have been of color" in the U.S.

The Vice President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors tells Axios the ideal timeline on federal infrastructure action would have been earlier this year, but noted that Trump's been prevented from moving forward on it because of other legislative hurdles in the Washington.

Why it matters: America scored a "D+" on its Infrastructure Report Card from the American Civil Society of Engineers.

The panel on infrastructure in America at the Summer Leadership Meeting discussed how local spending on infrastructure is increasing is faster than federal levels. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said it is important to be "reminding the federal government that they have federal transportation assets of their own."

The bottom line: Several mayors agreed that public-private partnerships cannot be the "panacea" for financing America's infrastructure.

The Wall Street Journal highlights a study by Clemson University economists Peter Blair and Bobby Chung which purports to show that occupational licenses, which legally permit workers to do certain jobs like barbering or pest control, reduce income inequality between men and women and between whites and African Americans.

According to the report, occupations that require licensing see a decline in wage inequality between men and women between 36% and 40%, and a decrease between black men and white men of 43%.

Why it matters: Occupational licensing has been criticised by both Democrats and Republicans as unnecessary barriers erected by vested interests to keep new entrants out of the market, which reduce employment and raise prices. But Blair and Chung argue that they also enable workers who are discriminated against an opportunity to signal their competence to prospective employers.