The Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program — Events and Interviews

Recognizing the urgency and potential for advancing good jobs, the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program and the Families and Workers Fund convened the Good Jobs Champions Group — a diverse, cross-sector group of leaders in business, labor, advocacy, academia, nonprofits, and philanthropy — to develop a common definition of a good job. Read and sign the Statement on Good Jobs: https://www...

UpSkill America — an initiative of the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program — and the Latinos and Society Program at the Aspen Institute, with support from Google.org, launched the  Digital Skills and the Latino Workforce research project to better  understand the challenges and opportunities that Latino workers and  Latino business owners face to succeed in the digital ec...

Training and learning opportunities are an important part of the design of any job. Frontline workers recently rated job growth and learning opportunities in the top three things they want in a job. Many workers, however, receive little, if any, training from their employers. This lack of investment in workers’ skills impedes workers’ opportunities for advancement, trapping many in a cycle of dead...

The last decade has seen a strong push to integrate new financial technologies into CDFI small business lending — a push exacerbated by the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most CDFI small business lenders have begun the integration process, but found it challenging to fully access and reap the benefits of technology in finance (not to mention fintech). This shouldn’t be surprising — experiences w...

Increased global competition in recent decades has unleashed a new wave of technological advancement, and a new wave of predictions of technological displacement and job loss. But job destruction is not a foregone conclusion of technological advancement; in complex systems outcomes are hard to predict. Technology can replace workers or make work less fulfilling, but it can also be used to compleme...

Work just isn’t what it used to be. New technology, increased global competition and trade, the growth of gig work, shifting demographics, the rise of shareholder capitalism, and other factors have reshaped work, economic opportunity, and the employee-employer relationship. In contrast, our system of labor laws has changed very little. Laws designed decades ago have proved inadequate to protecting...

President Nixon signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH) in 1970 following decades of workplace injuries and fatalities at mines, factories, construction sites, and other industrial settings. OSH is meant to ensure safe and healthful working conditions for workers by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education, and assistance. The law has been a tremen...

People of color, women, LGBTQ people, immigrants, people with disabilities, and people from various faith traditions have been at the forefront of the long march toward civil rights and equality in the U.S. A significant part of this struggle has been the fight to be free from discrimination in employment and harassment in the workplace. That battle has been fought in factories and farms, mines an...

The last few years have left the US at a crossroads. Threats to democracy, the prevalence of bad jobs, and the continued battle against discrimination and hate have led some to question whether the American dream, progress toward the promise of equal opportunity, and the Great Experiment of democracy are lost. In the face of these challenges, people are once again turning to organizing. Workers ar...

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 established the federal minimum wage and overtime pay, created a standard work week, and prohibited children’s employment in dangerous conditions. Leaders passed the FLSA not only to ensure “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work,” as FDR said, but also to end a race to the bottom on wages and working conditions that were driving business competition.&nb...

Over the last year, media headlines have been filled with stories of workers from various industries on strike and attempting to unionize. The roots of these efforts lie with workers in the 1800s and early 1900s who first attempted to organize and used strikes to protest low wages and poor working conditions. Those early labor movements contributed to the passage of the National Labor Relations Ac...

Improving job quality improves livelihoods and often transforms lives.  Low-wage work in the US economy is far too pervasive. According to a  Brookings Institution 2019 report, 53 million workers (44% of all 18-64  working adults) earn low hourly wages. While the economy has expanded,  too few workers share in the benefits. The time is now to address the  challenge directl...

The pandemic has heightened many organizations’ focus on job quality: now is the time to shift focus from fixing workers to fixing work. Companies are facing pressure to improve factors that contribute to job quality including wages, benefits, workplace safety, racial and gender equity, and opportunities to learn and grow. But often overlooked is the content of the work—how does what we do align w...

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the important role benefits play in workers’ lives. Paid leave, health insurance, workers’ compensation, and retirement plans cushion life events and equip workers to live safe and dignified lives. Our current system of benefits, though, leaves behind millions of workers. This event will explore how to make work-related benefits accessible to more people, includin...

This summer, we’ve been speaking with employers to learn how businesses are adopting technology in the workplace, and if COVID-19 accelerated these efforts; how digital transformation is impacting skill needs for frontline workers; and what approaches businesses are taking to support development of digital skills for frontline workers. This virtual event looks at what we have learned from employer...

One year past the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, about half of non-retired adults say the lingering consequences will make it harder for them to meet their financial needs and goals. Unfortunately, this situation is not new. For years prior to last year’s recession, too many American families – particularly Black, Hispanic, and other nonwhite families – constantly struggled to stretch paychecks t...

When the pandemic hit and the labor market cratered, headlines focused on the loss of jobs rather than the quality of jobs. But the dramatic increase in food insecurity, the prevalence of unsafe workplaces, the spotlight on racial injustice, and the moral questions raised by the meager wages and high risks of essential workers all underscore the need to improve job quality.  We cannot solve i...

As a crucial source of employment in local communities, small businesses have an important role to play in advancing economic opportunity and job quality. Yet even before the pandemic, time and resource constraints could make it challenging for small business owners to invest in workers. The overlapping crises of the past year have magnified these challenges, creating new stress and uncertainty fo...

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the value of caregiving work and the need for equitable and affordable access to care – for children, for elders, for those with a disability, and for all of us in hard times. Yet care work remains underpaid and often invisible, contributing to the inadequacies of the US care system and deepening challenges for caregivers and families. As we move from crisis t...

The events of the past year have led to unprecedented changes in how businesses operate and the way people live and work. These changes have included the acceleration and adoption of digital technology in the workplace. UpSkill America, with the support of Strada Education Network and Walmart.org, spent six months conducting interviews and surveys with employers about how the events of 2020 have a...

California, it’s often been quipped, is where the future happens first.  From technology and entertainment to policy and social reform,  California is often at the leading edge of our latest trends—and work is  no exception. While California boasts a strong economy by many measures  of growth, too many Californians have not enjoyed the benefits of the  state’s broader econ...

Even before the pandemic and associated economic fallout, one in four working adults in the US earned a wage insufficient to lift a small family out of poverty. The impact of this situation on families was immediately evident as we saw unprecedented food lines emerge overnight, as we watched essential workers shoulder health risks to provide the goods and services we rely on, and as we learned of...

Our economy doesn’t just need more jobs, it needs better jobs. The problem of eroding job quality long precedes, and now greatly exacerbates, our current extraordinary challenges of job and business losses, a rapidly spreading pandemic, racial injustice, and societal division. There is an urgent need for action and renewed opportunities for the new administration and Congress. How should policymak...

In the early months of the pandemic, the Economic Opportunities Program began speaking with workforce development organizations across the country as they strengthened existing strategies and tested new approaches to support workers. In New York City, the HOPE Program has adapted its services to continue connecting clients to jobs, including in food retail, warehousing and logistics, and teleservi...

Among the many unexpected lessons of 2020 was a recognition of the importance of essential workers. We saw how much we rely on the people who work in our food systems, who care for our children and our loved ones, who deliver packages, and who keep our public spaces clean. We learned to say thank you to so many of them, and in this season of thanks, we reflect on how we can do more than say thank...