Our economy doesn’t just need more jobs, it needs better jobs. How should policymakers and practitioners define job quality and make improved job quality their guiding principle? What ideas can help restore the ideal of work as the pathway to the American Dream? In a shared statement, the Aspen Institute’s Job Quality Fellows drew on their diverse experiences and perspectives to develop a shared set of policy principles to improve job quality for working people across the US. This interactive event features Betsy Biemann (Chief Executive Officer, Coastal Enterprises Inc., Brunswick, Maine), Jose Corona (Vice President, Programs & Partnerships, Eat.Play.Learn Foundation, Oakland, California), Caryn York (Chief Executive Officer, Job Opportunities Task Force, Baltimore, Maryland), and moderator Maureen Conway (Vice President, The Aspen Institute; Executive Director, Economic Opportunities Program).

The COVID-19 pandemic placed enormous stress on small businesses and their workers, as closures and new public safety measures demanded that business owners shift operations and take creative steps to keep employees and customers safe. Small business owners became increasingly aware that the wellbeing of their employees is essential for business survival – and they forged new partnerships and took new approaches to support their workers.

Watch this discussion, hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program and the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, to learn about strategies that small business owners and workforce organizations took to strengthen job quality for frontline workers in the wake of COVID-19. In this session, we hear from two restaurant owners in Baltimore, along with a workforce professional who helped them prioritize job quality through the pandemic.

Even before the pandemic, in an allegedly strong economy, workers at the bottom end of the opportunity scale were struggling to support themselves and their families. No single metric is more striking in this respect than the divisions in wealth between men and women, and between white households and households of color. White households have roughly 10 times the wealth of Black households. Households headed by single women have less than 40% of the wealth of those headed by single men. Broadening opportunities to participate in the ownership of business assets can help address this wealth divide and offer working people the opportunity to meaningfully participate in the success of our economy.

This discussion includes perspectives from research, business, policy, and worker-owners.

Questions about the future of work shifted during the pandemic, prompting overdue discussions about workplace health and safety, the unemployment system, health insurance, and fair wages and benefits. What policies can support a thriving future of work? What roles do we want private business to play? And what strategies will build a future of work that addresses long standing inequities and inequalities and provides opportunities for all to thrive? California’s Future of Work Commission and Jobs and Recovery Task Force had been working on these questions since before the pandemic and had begun implementing innovative policies to address the critical challenges facing working people in today’s economy and tomorrow’s.

This op-ed discusses the important role of domestic workers such as nannies, housecleaners, and homecare workers in our society and economy and offers ideas on how we can value and support its importance.

This report compiles insights from workforce professionals about the types of questions they ask employers. 210 workforce professionals in Cleveland, Indianapolis, and Philadelphia responded to a survey about the kinds of conversations they have with business representatives on topics related to workplace practices, environment, and equity and inclusion in the workplace.

This op-ed examines the challenge of poverty-wage work and how policymakers can encourage and promote work that allows people to have a dignified, quality of life.

This article highlights how public procurement can be a strategy to improve job quality.

This op-ed discusses the important role of essential workers and how coming out of the pandemic, we can ensure their contributions are fully recognized and valued.

This publication provides a guide to re-opening businesses in the restaurant sector and sets out a long-term vision for the restaurant industry after the shock of COVID-19. Based on input from restaurant owners across the country, the roadmap identifies ways restaurateurs can reimagine how they operate as practical, sustainable, and ethical businesses, including by reforming tipping and restaurant minimum wages. The business examples and innovative ideas have relevance for restaurant owners who are navigating the crisis and for workers and their advocates with a stake in the sector’s trajectory after COVID-19.