Job quality is vital not only for workers, but also for small businesses and communities. Yet too many jobs today miss the mark on one of the key characteristics of a good job: providing enough pay to live on. Only 56% of full-time workers in the United States make enough money to cover their families basic needs. This problem is particularly acute at small businesses. Nearly 60% of low-wage workers work at businesses with fewer than 100 employees, and 35% of low-wage workers work at micro-businesses with fewer than 10 employees. Small businesses also struggle to address other characteristics of a good job, like providing adequate benefits, stable scheduling, and a positive work culture.
Recognizing this context, in 2022, the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program (EOP) launched the Shared Success project, funded by the Gates Foundation. The project supports 11 community development financial institutions (CDFIs) across the country to integrate job quality support into their small business services with the goal of improving job quality for small business employees and building business resilience. Three years later, EOP has seen how grantees have used innovative approaches to recruit, advise, and incentivize small businesses to improve job quality.
In this event recording, leaders of CDFIs, their small business clients, philanthropic supporters, and other experts discuss the lessons learned from Shared Success, ranging from practical tips about strategies for engaging small businesses in discussions of job quality to the range of job quality improvements CDFI clients helped their businesses make.
A career in trucking was once considered a pathway to the middle class. Yet the quality of jobs in the industry has steeply declined in recent decades. Long-haul truckers, who might spend days or weeks away from home, have seen their salaries fall by as much as half since the deregulation of the industry a half century ago, and annual turnover hovers near 100%. Short-haul truckers are frequently misclassified as independent contractors, stripping them of benefits and worker protections and burdening them with the costs of owning and operating a truck. And predatory leasing arrangements are pushed on truckers by the industry, saddling many with debt that they struggle to pay off. All of this is in spite of the fact that truckers work year-round, at all hours of the day, while exposed to hazards, to ensure that our economy keeps moving,
In recent years, a common narrative developed that there is a shortage of truck drivers. What is missing, however, is that this shortage is driven in large part by the industry’s turnover rates and the lack of good jobs that allow truckers to thrive. Today, there are nearly three times as many people with the necessary licensing and qualifications as there are trucking jobs. In addition, new developments in technology promise to upend the industry as companies embrace automation and increasingly deploy methods of surveillance.
As a key pillar of our economy and supply chain, and one of the largest occupations in the US, the job quality of workers in the trucking sector has far-reaching implications. Watch this event recording to explore the challenges truckers face and ideas for improving the returns for the essential work they do.
Today approximately 77 million Americans, or 1 in 3 adults have a criminal record. While not everyone represented in this statistic has experienced incarceration, it serves to highlight that the barriers formerly incarcerated people face finding quality jobs are far more commonplace than we might think. Many returning citizens, who worked for little or no pay while incarcerated, will struggle to find quality jobs after release. Discrimination against those with a record, restrictions on what occupational licenses are available to those with a record, existing debts, punitive court supervision policies, and lack of support to meet basic needs in areas such as housing can force those leaving incarceration into dead-end, low-paying, and exploitative jobs. Some will find they are barred from doing the jobs they worked or were trained to do while incarcerated. And many more lacked opportunities to participate in education or training opportunities while incarcerated.
But across the country, innovative efforts are underway to revamp our re-entry system by opening up access to good jobs. New laws to wipe criminal records and address occupational licensing barriers, legal action aimed at discrimination, and a growing coalition of employers and union leaders are showing that providing a second chance is possible.
This event recording is the second part of a two part series by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program. The first event, A Hidden Workforce: Prison Labor, Human Rights, and the Legacy of Slavery, explores the history and conditions of work for incarcerated people and ideas for creating more humane and dignified work for those behind bars.
A key piece of the American dream is that hard work leads to economic success. Yet in recent years, many people seem to be working harder while reaping fewer rewards.
Moreover, even people who are successful in economic terms often feel compelled to participate in overwork. In her new book “Over Work: Transforming the Daily Grind in the Quest for a Better Life,” author Brigid Schulte dismantles the pervasive idea that overwork guarantees success, happiness, or economic security.
Drawing on her experience as a journalist and director of New America’s Better Life Lab, Schulte reframes the conversation about work in the United States. Using real-life stories, data, and ideas from leading thinkers and activists, she challenges readers to rethink their conceptions about time use and productivity, to envision new and healthier relationships to work and to advocate for bold policy changes, like paid family leave, that would support better work and better lives. Schulte makes a compelling case that rejecting a culture of overwork can reduce burnout, promote fairness, and contribute to a more stable economy and a future rooted in shared prosperity, well-being, and dignity.
Schulte’s work is a call to action for policymakers, employers, and individuals to rethink what it means to lead a fulfilling life and the role work should play in that. By confronting the glorification of overwork and advancing practical, people-centered policies, “Over Work” offers a roadmap toward a balanced and better life for all.
Developed as part of the Shared Success Demonstration, this tool offers guidance for business advisors at CDFIs on how to have conversations with small business owners on job quality improvements. It centers business value and includes a variety of information and resources to assist business owners in addressing poor job quality.
For a guide of resources that complement this tool, see our topic guide on Small Business Job Quality Advising.
These toolkits are designed to eliminate bias across different areas of the workplace, using specific “bias interrupters” that change existing norms and practices to create more equitable workplaces. Toolkits include: Compensation, Hiring and Recruitment, Family Leave, and more. Employers may find this tool useful for developing successful, equitable workplace practices. Additionally, workforce development and worker advocacy professionals may find this toolkit helpful to share with their employer-partners.
This toolkit is a collection of over 60 workplace policies that can help support, stabilize, and retain employees in low-wage work. The toolkit also contains sections on gender-based violence workers may be experiencing in their home lives and second-chance employment for formerly incarcerated individuals After a quick registration for a free account, the Employer Toolkit search feature can help you identify specific policy recommendations, many of which include sample HR policy language that companies can draw from. Topics include wages, benefits, child care, paid time off, scheduling, recruitment, training and education, and transportation.
This checklist helps organizations identify gaps in their organizational policies and practices that influence diversity, equity, and inclusion. The checklist is divided into two levels: institutional policies and strategies for managers and activities for professional development. This list is not exhaustive and must be customized to each organization. HR professionals, managers, and organization leaders can benefit from this resource.
This page hosts all of Gallup’s articles and briefs on employee enagegement in the United States and abroad. It includes links to results from Gallup’s various employee engagement and experience surveys. It also includes opinion pieces and advice on improving employee engagement. These resources can be helpful for HR professionals, managers and other organization leaders, researchers, and practitioners interested in understanding employee engagement.
On this page, there are various tools, templates, and tips for hiring and onboaring new employees. Resources can help recruiters or managers decide what they need in a new employee, mitigate bias during the hiring process, create a recruiting strategy, and properly onboard new hires. All resources can be downloaded and include estimate reading times. This page also includes links to paid training from the Management Center for social justice and educational equity leaders. All the other free resources on this page, however, can be helpful for HR professionals, recruiters, or managers in any industry.