In April 2015, the Aspen Institute Workforce Strategies Initiative jointly launched the Communities that Work Partnership with the US Economic Development Administration. The purpose of this initiative was to document and accelerate the development of employer-led regional workforce initiatives across the country. Seven competitively-selected sites — in Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Georgia, New York (upstate and NYC), and Texas — participated in a learning exchange focused on bridging economic and workforce development to strengthen local talent pipelines and improve access to quality employment.
America’s youngest workers are facing their most dire employment prospects in recent history. The report captures the insights of a variety of service providers helping to connect young adults to jobs in today’s labor market. Published by Aspen WSI in January 2016, the report documents the results of a survey in which hundreds of service providers nationwide described their experiences serving young adults. The report also offers key considerations for practitioners and policymakers seeking to assist the large and growing population of disadvantaged young adults seeking to make meaningful connections to work in today’s labor market.
This series of publications for workforce professionals explains why the time is right to focus on job quality work and offers a series of practical recommendations for job training programs seeking to deepen employer engagement and strengthen support for lower-income workers.
This discussion paper is designed to help Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) define and measure job quality. It defines a quality job as one that contains most (if not all) of five elements: a living wage, basic benefits, career-building opportunities, wealth-building opportunities, and a fair and engaging workplace. The paper offers impact measurement practices to assess and report on job quality to help CDFIs encourage and support their business borrowers to enhance the quality of jobs they offer. While this resource is written for lenders, it has applications for all practitioners seeking to define and measure job quality within a firm.
As work demands more of employees’ time, many are asking: How can I earn a living while making sure my family doesn’t fall behind? Workers across all income brackets struggle with the United States’ outdated work-life policy framework, but the balancing act is particularly challenging and risky for low- and moderate-income workers and their families who have smaller financial margins and a weak safety net.
In her book, Finding Time: The Economics of Work-Life Conflict, Heather Boushey argues that resolving work-life conflicts is as vital for individuals and families as it is essential for realizing the country’s productive potential. Boushey, executive director and chief economist of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, presents detailed innovations — at municipal, state, and company levels — that illustrate how US policy can ease the burden on American families and ensure our country’s economic stability. Through personal anecdotes, real-life profiles, and extensive statistical research, Boushey demonstrates that economic efficiency and equity can be reconciled if we have the vision to forge a new social contract for business, government, and private citizens.
Traditional economic development focused on attracting large companies promising many jobs has left behind many people in communities across the country, including working people, low-income individuals and families, people of color and immigrants. But some communities have taken a different approach, one that embraces and cultivates local assets and ownership and that empowers traditionally excluded communities.
This event explores the approaches these communities have taken, including alternative business ownership models, leveraging the purchasing power of large public and nonprofit institutions to bolster communities, robust workforce development, more equitable infrastructure development, and more. Panelists discuss how inclusive economic development cultivates economic opportunity and quality jobs for community residents.
On September 12, 2014, the Aspen Institute’s Economic Opportunities Program and the Annie E. Casey Foundation hosted a one-day meeting of leading workforce practitioners to discuss how we can redefine employer engagement to mean influencing businesses’ human resource and training practices in addition to responding to pipelines needs. This paper summarizes that conversation.
This guide highlights existing research on the link between the racial wealth divide and business ownership. Because lower levels of business and financial assets held by Black and Latino households is a key factor perpetuating the racial wealth divide, business ownership may be an important means to narrow the gap. This guide may be useful for economic development organizations, investors, lenders, and other practitioners seeking to understand and respond to the racial wealth divide.
Americans spend an average of 18 percent of household income on transportation and the poorest one-fifth of families spend more than twice as much; the vast majority of these transportation costs are for buying, operating, and maintaining an automobile.
Public transportation can be a much cheaper option, but millions of workers lack access to buses and trains, the routes often do not efficiently connect workers from their homes to their jobs (and stops in between such as child care), and budgets for public transportation are consistently under threat. However, improved and expanded public transportation remains an important part of the solution to helping low- and moderate-income workers get to work and helping employers get access to the workforces they need.
Panelists will discuss the specific transportation challenges workers face, creative and cost effective solutions being explored and implemented across the country, and examples of how communities, organizations, and employers have mobilized to address this critical workforce issue.
In the United States today, roughly 25 million workers, over 16 percent of all workers, are foreign-born. Immigrant workers contribute skills, knowledge and labor to the U.S. economy through employment in a diversity of sectors, including hospitality, construction, information technology, health care and others.
Foreign-born workers also start businesses at higher rates than native born workers, contributing to economic growth and job creation. While some immigrant workers and business owners achieve great economic success, others operate marginal businesses or are employed in jobs where wages are low, working conditions are poor, and safety standards are disregarded. For foreign-born workers that wish to improve their education and upgrade their skills, other barriers may stand in their way, such as limited English skills or poor access to financial aid. Millions of these workers have toiled in the shadows of the labor market, but soon, the nation may have opportunities to both improve job quality and offer ways for these workers to build their skills. These opportunities can help improve employment for the labor market and economy overall in ways that benefit all Americans.
Panelists discussed the immigrant workforce in the U.S. today, focusing on its past and potential economic contributions, opportunities for gaining skills as well as the implications of immigration and immigration reform for job quality. This is the third conversation in the Aspen Institute’s Working in America series that highlights a variety of job quality issues affecting low and moderate income working Americans.