Hardly Working with Brent Orrell

We all deserve a second chance. But what if you never got a first? Victor Dickson leads the Safer Foundation, which supports the social and economic reintegration of formerly incarcerated people. The Foundation’s diverse services, including workforce development and mental health counseling, help people who are held back by violence, substance abuse, and poverty build the habits of happy and proso...

Mauricio Miller has spent years upending common beliefs and practices regarding poverty alleviation in the US and throughout the world, which has led him to question some of the central ideas of poverty alleviation. In his book The Alternative and his current work, Miller argues that that solutions to poverty are not actions done to or for the poor, but actions done with the poor. This change in a...

Mentioned in the Episode STEM Definition July 2020 AEI STEM Survey STEM Interviews by Anne Kim Abandoned: America's Lost Youth and the Crisis of Disconnection Brookings Center for Technology Innovation United Negro College Fund STEM Without Fruit Black Data Processing Association Hispanic Heritage Foundation Inroads Program Fund II Foundation (Fund 2) First Workings

What would you do if you had a billion dollars? You may have a good idea, but if you don’t, looking to the example of Leon Cooperman wouldn’t be a bad start. After a lengthy, successful career at Goldman Sachs and running his own wealth management company, Leon Cooperman has focused his attention on philanthropy, making daily decisions to benefit the lives of others. In this episode, Cooperman and...

First Workings provides multifaceted support for disadvantaged students from New York City, including access to internships, mentorships, and trainings. These mentors often occupy senior positions at major finance, media, health, or law firms, and help participants master both work and the social connections that make advancement possible. But the benefits of these internships also extend to the h...

The First Workings mentoring program is a unique experience for disadvantaged high school students from New York City. First Workings helps students access paid internships, training, and mentoring relationships at major finance, media, health, or law firms. The skills, experience, and social capital resulting from these opportunities are crucial for building access to well-paid career opportuniti...

Social capital and internship experiences are crucial to finding opportunities in the labor market and building a successful career. However, many students from disadvantaged backgrounds often lack the networks that can help them find and successfully navigate early work experiences. First Workings is a non-profit organization that seeks to create access and support by connecting youth from disadv...

For college students, professionals young and old, and career changers across the nation and the world, graduation season is filled with hopes, dreams, and a search for direction. Access to mentors, professional networks, and job opportunities is often an essential step in these new vocational journeys. To commemorate this season of life, Hardly Working will spotlight First Workings, an organizati...

In this episode of Hardly Working, Theresa Matheson shares her story of crime, incarceration and change. She highlights the role of community within prison in helping her step away from the beliefs and behaviors of her criminal life and her pursuit of education as the primary means of building a new and better life after incarceration. This episode is also a window into the less-discussed world of...

The choices we make and who we make them with are the primary factors shaping how we live. Few people know this better than Robert Wood. In the final episode of our March miniseries on criminal justice topics, Robert and I dive into how his perspectives, priorities and choices changed during his stint in prison, and how his association with the Prison Scholar Fund led to new beginnings. Mentioned...

Incarcerated and justice-involved individuals are people with desires, goals, dreams and gifts, just like those of us “on the outside.” Dirk van Velzen, the founder and CEO of the Prison Scholars Fund, knows first-hand what it takes to discover and actualize the potential of people who are involved in our criminal justice system. In this episode, Dirk dives into the factors that led to his incarce...

The passage of the First Step Act in 2018 jolted criminal justice issues into the forefront of the public consciousness, and it has remained there since. As COVID ravaged prisons and unrest shook the country in 2020, the nation grappled with the role of the justice system in securing our society while bettering the lives of those all those affected by the burden of incarceration. Meanwhile, policy...

Desistance, the decision to abandon criminal behavior, is one of the great puzzles in criminal justice policy. Shawn D. Bushway of the RAND Corporation argues that desistance depends on achieving a new, noncriminal, pro-social identity, which is often a long and arduous process supported by empirical evidence.   This rebroadcast of our December 14 event contains a discussion moderated by Bren...

Where do prisoners go when released? How can policy create a better framework and process to prevent a quick return to incarceration? How can policy humanize the incarcerated while upholding standards of justice? Few people are more qualified to answer such questions than Jeremy Travis. To kick off our Hardly Working March miniseries for Criminal Justice Reform Month , Brent and Travis dive deep i...

Mentioned in the trailer U.S. is losing $1 trillion every year due to crime National Criminal Justice Month

Throughout America’s history, its people formed churches, social and fraternal organizations, and neighborhood groups at an astonishing pace. When we talk about “American exceptionalism” this is what we’re really talking about: the self-organizing community that solves its own problems. In second half of the 20th century, however, scholars and pundits have pointed to a decline in American neighbor...

In this episode of Hardly Working, Brent’s research staff turn the tables on the host and interview Brent.  In the last 64 episodes, Brent has hosted guests to discuss everything from the welfare system to neuroscience to Waffle House. This episode is a long-awaited (by us!) window into the host behind the scenes. What is the elusive “vocation” that Brent talks about with guests? What is the...

Housing policy in America is inextricably linked with employment opportunities, small business ventures, education access, and a host of other issues that directly impact economic opportunity. Understanding the history of low income housing in America is key to understanding and reimagining housing policy today. On this episode of Hardly Working , I am joined by Howard Husock to discuss his new bo...

In this episode of Hardly Working , Brent Orrell is joined by AEI nonresident fellow and cultural critic Thomas Chatterton Williams. Williams’s two books Losing My Cool , published in 2010 and Self Portrait in Black and White , published in 2019, tie together personal memoir and philosophy to provide a fresh perspective on America’s history of racial discrimination and present reckoning with defin...

Amidst today’s labor shortage, employers are learning an important truth: we have no “extra” people. Unfortunately, many qualified workers are “hidden” from real consideration for jobs by ineffective artificial intelligence hiring screens, overly strict credentialing requirements, or a narrowmindedness from companies on how seemingly disparate skills could might serve to strengthen business operat...

With automation changing the nature of work before our very eyes, it is more important than ever that we begin to re-think our approach to education, the workforce, and yes, even thinking itself. In this episode of Hardly Working , Brent is joined by journalist and acclaimed science writer Annie Murphy Paul to discuss how we can tap into our bodies, surroundings, and other people to think better i...

When we hear the word “vocation”, many people think vocational training and technical education. But, the word “vocation” has deeper roots in the idea of a calling or an occupation to which a person is especially drawn, suited, trained, or qualified. By no means is this calling obvious, and in fact finding vocation often means a series of unpredictable twists and turns until one finds themselves i...

In the 1960s, President Lyndon B. Johnson began the so-called War on Poverty, expanding the federal government’s role in reducing poverty in the United States. At one level, this effort has been an overwhelming success: consumption poverty (the number of people who cannot afford basic goods and services) has fallen from 30 percent to 3 percent. At another level, the War on Poverty has failed, seve...

Expanding economic opportunity for working and middle-class families has been a policy priority for decades, but there are better and worse ways to approach this end-goal. In fact, policies of the past have at times ended up being counterproductive, putting further constraints on working-class families or discouraging healthy behaviors like two-parent child rearing. Understanding the interplay bet...

When the Federal pandemic-related UI programs ended on September 6 th , 2021, many Americans became aware of what low-income, government program-dependent Americans have long been aware of – a benefits cliff. This cliff occurs when public benefits taper off or phase out quickly, forcing beneficiaries to choose between earning more or maintaining what is often a vital subsidy. It is a classic Catch...