The Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program — Events and Interviews

As the world continues to confront inhumane levels of poverty, widening inequality, and environmental degradation, a growing number of individuals, including academics, business owners, and policy entrepreneurs, are calling for a new moral economy. These leaders are rejecting the conventional economic myths that free markets are more efficient and that enormous inequalities are unavoidable; instea...

Workplace benefits can provide workers with economic stability in their lives, opportunities for personal and professional growth, and the chance to build wealth in the long term. Yet the field of benefits offered is incredibly diverse. Deep inequalities in access exist, administration tends to be complex for both employers and workers, and there is little shared knowledge about what benefits are...

Hear from a new wave of business leaders who understand the need to reimagine their relationship with organized workers and from the leader of the biggest federation of unions, who is ready to innovate and work together with business to achieve shared prosperity. American workers are reevaluating their working conditions and rallying for change, driving a surge in worker organizing that affects bu...

While the holiday season is a time of joy and celebration for many across the United States, it brings uncertainty and stress for workers facing unpredictable schedules. Workers in the service sector in particular are often on call and can have their schedules changed with very little notice. Research by The Shift Project , for example, shows that in fall 2021, a staggering 64% of workers in the s...

Employee ownership can take many forms: employee stock ownership plans, worker cooperatives, broad-based equity sharing plans, and more. A less common approach in the US, but one that is gaining attention, is employee ownership trusts (EOTs). While research has demonstrated the benefits of employee ownership for business performance, business resilience, and job quality, the growth in the number o...

Today, as a complement to our regular event series, we’re pleased to present a special conversation between our executive director, Maureen Conway, and Michael Lastoria, founder and CEO of the pizza chain &pizza. The core of our work here at the Aspen Institute rests on increasing the number of good jobs in our economy, and Michael has been a leader and an innovator in this space for many year...

Wealth inequality has worsened over the last several decades, with the US having some of the highest inequality among industrialized countries. The top 20% of US households by income hold 70% of the wealth — over $96 trillion — according to the Federal Reserve. Households in the bottom 20%, by comparison, hold just 3% of the wealth, or $4 trillion. In her new book, “ Wealth Supremacy: How the Extr...

App-based short-term work, often called gig work, has been around for more than a decade. As use of app-based services has grown and become part of many people’s daily lives, so has awareness of the risks and challenges it presents to workers. During the pandemic, attention on gig work surged as thousands of unemployed service workers turned to apps for an income, and millions relied on these work...

A disproportionate share of women and people of color are employed in the lowest paying jobs in the US, struggling to meet basic needs, much less build any wealth. Long-term trends show households of color face a widening wealth gap when compared to white households. Employee ownership offers a potential tool to address the wealth divide, improve job quality and agency in the workplace for women a...

In 2022, the Fortune 500, the largest publicly traded companies in the US, collectively generated nearly $16 trillion in revenues and over $1.6 trillion in profits. Large public and private companies — those with more than 1,000 workers — employ more than 40% of the US workforce. Though a sizable percentage of these companies offer profit sharing programs or equity compensation, many workers, part...

Americans have long-held values around dignity, hard work, and the promise of the American dream. These values, however, are often divorced from our discourse and policies around the health and competitiveness of our businesses and our economy. And too often, it is believed that we must sacrifice the well-being of our workers in favor of growth and a higher GDP. Employee ownership, which is good f...

Government has played a critical role throughout the history of the US in launching and supporting employee ownership. Today, the US Departments of Treasury, Commerce, Agriculture, and Labor and the Small Business Administration support employee ownership through financing and lending, regulatory reform, technical assistance, market development, and more, as they help business owners, workers, and...

Congress has taken important steps in the last couple of years to support the growth of employee ownership in the US. Bipartisan legislation such as the Main Street Employee Ownership Act and the WORK Act have recently passed and hold great potential for helping more businesses to become employee-owned through ESOPs and worker-owned cooperatives. In this conversation, speakers discuss the implicat...

US businesses and workers are currently at a critical crossroads. Millions of baby boomers will soon retire and sell their businesses, transitioning trillions of dollars of wealth in the process. This transition, along with the continued strength and profit growth of large corporations in the US, has created a once-in-a-generation opportunity for millions of workers to share in the profits of thei...

Employee ownership empowers workers to have greater freedom over their economic future and provides them with a greater return on their hard work. By giving workers a stake in the business, workers in employee-owned firms become more invested in the business’s success, which in turn helps drive productivity, innovation, and profitability. In this conversation, speakers highlight the benefits of em...

Stagnant wages, the rising cost of living expenses, and other factors have led to a shrinking middle class and growing income and wealth inequality in recent decades. Workers in employee-owned businesses, however, have often fared better than their peers on a range of measures related to economic well-being.  In this conversation, speakers discuss the latest research on wealth inequality and the p...

From healthcare facilities to call centers, from fulfillment centers to factories, and from restaurants to retail stores, companies are struggling to find or keep workers — because the jobs they offer are low-paying, they’re stressful, and they provide little chance for growth and success. In “ The Case for Good Jobs: How Great Companies Bring Dignity, Pay, and Meaning to Everyone’s Work ,” Zeynep...

Economic inequality and lack of good jobs have left many workers, particularly women and people of color, without a fair share of the US’s economic prosperity. Despite the significant rise in corporate profits, front-line workers continue to experience low wages and see little returns for their contributions. Research shows that employee ownership, such as employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), c...

Most households in the US primarily support themselves through the income they earn from work. As a result, businesses have a significant influence on the economic security and opportunities for economic advancement available to individuals, families, and communities across the US. Often issues of wages and working conditions experienced by working people are framed in business discussions as a fu...

Guaranteed income is gaining increasing momentum across the US. The bipartisan idea, which has roots in the nation’s founding, the New Deal, the Nixon Administration, and the Civil Rights Movement, is being piloted in more than 100 demonstration sites across the country. The expanded Child Tax Credit — a guaranteed income for children — and stimulus payments during the pandemic were the largest un...

The US is often described as a nation of immigrants, and immigrant workers have played a critical role in building the country and our economy. While countless immigrant workers have found the US to be the land of opportunity and achieved the American dream through hard work, countless others have not had their hard work and labor rewarded, but instead have been subject to exploitation and abuse....

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted 75 years ago by the United Nations, set forth a set of civil, social, and economic rights that inspired the development of human rights’ laws around the world. The declaration has been a north star for those working to build an equitable and fair society for all people ever since. But over the intervening decades, our economic agenda and policymak...

The US government is the largest purchaser of goods and services in the world, spending over $600 billion per year. Public procurement exceeds $2.1 trillion annually when state and local governments are included. These investments help create and support millions of jobs. But is this spending creating good jobs? Are contracts being awarded promoting racial and gender equity? Government agencies al...

Worker-owned cooperatives are known to have a strong tradition and legacy in Europe, with Mondragon Corporation in Spain often stealing much of the international spotlight. Interest in worker-owned cooperatives is growing in the US, however, as people continue to look for ways to promote democracy in the workplace, create higher quality jobs, and build a more equitable economy. Alongside this inte...

The contributions of frontline workers have been widely lauded over the last few years. Though this long-overdue praise is important, we continue to fail to adequately compensate most essential workers even as corporate profits remain high and wealth inequality and race and gender wealth gaps persist. Employee ownership has continued to emerge against this backdrop and across party lines as a pote...