In this event, Benjamin Lorr, author of “The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket,” traces the history and evolution of the modern-day supermarket, exposes the grocery supply chain, and reveals the often exploited and underpaid labor that goes into making sure shelves are stocked. Lorr paints a vivid picture of how agricultural and meat processing workers, fisherman, truck drivers, and grocery store workers, among others, often endure poverty and sometimes worse as they work to feed our country.

In this event, panelists discuss the challenges that poultry and meatpacking workers face, ideas for improving their jobs and well-being, and the policies and practices to reshape this industry and build a sustainable system where workers, consumers, and businesses thrive together.

In this event, panelists discuss the long-standing challenges that farmworkers face and how to build good jobs in this essential sector. In short, better jobs are possible and within reach. Multiple states have led the way in legislating better pay and protections, including the right to organize, a right these essential workers have long been excluded from.

The Work Design for Health toolkit, developed by researchers at MIT and Harvard, is a practical but in-depth guide on improving job quality by centering worker health. Through topic overviews and recommended practices, which include ratings indicating the strength of research evidence on these practices, the guide walks employers through potential worker needs and action steps.

The toolkit consists of a number of modules. The first, the Overview, provides an introduction to the Work Design for Health approach to worker well-being. The next three modules explore the three principles that are at the heart of the Work Design for Health approach: giving employees more control on the job; taming excessive job demands; and improving social relationships in the workplace. The final module, “Get Started,” offers key steps and resources for implementing a Work Design for Health approach.

This piece provides a summary and highlights from “Good Work in the Gig Economy: Building a Sustainable App-based Economy,” an Opportunity in America event EOP hosted in 2023.

This piece provides a summary of The Case for Good Jobs: How Great Companies Bring Dignity, Pay, and Meaning to Everyone’s Work, a book talk EOP hosted with MIT Professor Zeynep Ton in 2023.

This piece is an introduction to job quality in the US food supply chain, with a focus on poultry and meat processing, and on farm labor. The piece also highlights the prevalence of child labor in these industries and the elevated risk for many immigrant workers in the food supply chain.

This playbook, developed by A—B Partners, is part ot the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program’s Shared Success project. Shared Success is working with CDFIs across the US to help them integrate job quality into their financing and advising services. This playbook offers findings and recommendations on how best to communicate the importance of job quality to owners of small- and medium-sized businesses.

This article discusses EOP’s research and lessons learned on how philanthropy, employers, practitioners and policymakers can support good jobs for young adults.

This piece reflects on the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program’s event “Economics Reimagined: A Discussion on Building a Human Rights Economy,” which discussed how to build an economic system that values and centers the well being of people.