Opportunity in America - Events by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program

High unemployment rates among teens and young adults have caught the attention of the popular press, policymakers, and many others. Labor market participation – working or actively seeking work – has fallen for these groups at alarming rates since 2000, especially for teens. While the declines have affected all young worker demographic groups, unemployment is even more acute for young people of color who have lower levels of labor market attachment overall. Research shows that unemployment and underemployment for young adults will have lasting consequences in the form of repressed wages, decreased upward mobility, and lessened productivity over their work lives. Society at large loses, too, in terms of lost tax revenues and productivity and increased public benefits.

What is causing these trends? Is the economy experiencing structural or cyclical changes that would explain it? Is it sluggish job growth or technology? Have employers just altered their preferences? This panel explores trends in young adult workforce participation and potential factors driving them. Panelists take a close look at the role employers and stronger connections to employers can play in helping teens and young adults access career-launching work experience. Panelists also discuss policies that may be contributing to the problem as well as those that may help to improve young worker access to early work experience and economic prosperity.

This event features Lashon Amado (National Coordinator of Opportunity Youth United Community Action Teams), Amy Barad (Director of Strategic Initiatives, Cowen Institute, Tulane University), Kisha Bird (Director of Youth Policy, CLASP), Paul Harrington, Ph.D. (Director, Center for Labor Markets and Policy, Drexel University), Tammy Simmons (Vice President of Marketing & Culture, Machine Specialties Inc.), and moderator Melanie Trottman (Labor and Economics Reporter, The Wall Street Journal).

This event is part of the Working in America series, an ongoing discussion series hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program that highlights an array of critical issues affecting low- and moderate-income workers in the United States and ideas for improving and expanding economic opportunities for working people. For more information, visit as.pn/workinginamerica.

The Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy. We recognize that race, gender, and place intersect with and intensify the challenge of economic inequality and we address these dynamics by advancing an inclusive vision of economic justice. For over 25 years, EOP has focused on expanding individuals’ opportunities to connect to quality work, start businesses, and build economic stability that provides the freedom to pursue opportunity. Learn more at as.pn/eop.

A good job has long been the foundation for both financial stability and economic mobility. However, labor markets are changing. Of the 30 occupations expected to have the largest growth in the next decade, 23 will require a high school diploma or less. In addition to lower wages, these jobs, in industries such as home healthcare, retail sales, food preparation and service, often have irregular hours, limited benefits and limited opportunities for advancement.

These jobs are found all across the country, which is why we took the Working in America series on the road to the Midwest. We partnered with the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City to host a luncheon forum to explore strategies for improving the quality of lower wage workers’ jobs in addition to creating opportunities for career advancement. Panelists discuss the importance and advantages, to both workers and employers, of shifting our employment and workforce strategies to focus on “building ladders and raising the floor.” This discussion explores a diversity of perspectives from across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

This event features Lisa Falcone (Director, Working Bridges Project, United Way of Northwest Vermont), Adrienne Smith (Chief Executive Officer, New Mexico Direct Caregivers Coalition), Walter Smith (Vice President, Human Resources, QuikTrip), and moderator Jon Willis (Vice President and Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City)

This event is part of the Working in America series, an ongoing discussion series hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program that highlights an array of critical issues affecting low- and moderate-income workers in the United States and ideas for improving and expanding economic opportunities for working people. For more information, visit as.pn/workinginamerica.

The Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy. We recognize that race, gender, and place intersect with and intensify the challenge of economic inequality and we address these dynamics by advancing an inclusive vision of economic justice. For over 25 years, EOP has focused on expanding individuals’ opportunities to connect to quality work, start businesses, and build economic stability that provides the freedom to pursue opportunity. Learn more at as.pn/eop.

The 2016 election was a stunning departure from recent presidential elections, with deep divisions in both parties and widespread skepticism that those in power have any interest or ability to make meaningful reforms. Are the anger, resentment, racial animus, and pessimism that have become so pervasive reflective of economic insecurity, or are there other forces at work as well? Do the dramatic changes in the U.S. economy, culture, technology, demographics, and politics reflect a fundamental shift in American values? Do they need to be restored or refashioned as a predicate for addressing economic insecurity and inequality? This thought-provoking panel conversation from the Economic Security Summit brings together a distinguished and diverse array of voices that delved into the economic forces shaping the upcoming election.

This event features Stan Greenberg (Chairman and CEO, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research), Jacob Hacker (Director, Institution for Social and Policy Studies), Heather McGhee (President, Demos), J.D. Vance (Author, Hillbilly Elegy and Principal, Mithril Capital Management, LLC), and moderator Mickey Edwards (Director, Aspen Institute Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership at the Aspen Institute).

This event is part of Reconnecting Work and Wealth, a joint set of work led by the Economic Opportunities Program and the Financial Security Program. Income and assets are both essential building blocks of household economic security and opportunity, and are intertwined in the economic lives of households. Together EOP and FSP are exploring how critical changes in recent decades are reshaping both labor and financial markets and leaving working families more vulnerable. Through publications, public convenings, and intensive dialogues with leaders in industry, academia, philanthropy, government, and nonprofit organizations, the Aspen Institute is advancing the conversation on how to ensure that hard work can lead to economic stability and mobility in today’s economy. Learn more at as.pn/workandwealth.

The Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy. For more information, visit our website at as.pn/eop. Learn about new events and activities by joining our mailing list (as.pn/eopmail) and following us on social media (as.pn/eopsocial).

National attention is increasingly focused on growing inequality, stagnating wages, rising unrest, and economic insecurity and immobility. From Occupy Wall Street to the Fight for $15, workers and their families have raised their voices for change in recent years, calling on society to uphold its values, including equal opportunity to succeed through work. How can these voices to be translated into changes in policies and practices? Can exercises of democratic rights – to free speech and association – provide a means for workers and their families to attain fair wages, reasonable hours, and safe working conditions? David Rolf, one of the nation’s most successful labor organizers in recent years, discusses his book The Fight for $15: The Right Wage for a Working America. He is joined by local labor leaders who share their experiences in today’s workplace and their efforts to engage their co-workers, advocating for better working conditions and revitalizing the democratic process.

This event features David Rolf (President, SEIU 775), Tanika Aden (Home Care Worker and Board Member of SEIU 775), Ridwan Axmed Geele (Airport Worker), Crystal Thompson (Fast Food Worker and Member of Working Washington), and moderator Maureen Conway (Vice President for Policy Programs, The Aspen Institute; Executive Director, Economic Opportunities Program).

This event is part of the Working in America series, an ongoing discussion series hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program that highlights an array of critical issues affecting low- and moderate-income workers in the United States and ideas for improving and expanding economic opportunities for working people. For more information, visit as.pn/workinginamerica.

The Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy. We recognize that race, gender, and place intersect with and intensify the challenge of economic inequality and we address these dynamics by advancing an inclusive vision of economic justice. For over 25 years, EOP has focused on expanding individuals’ opportunities to connect to quality work, start businesses, and build economic stability that provides the freedom to pursue opportunity. Learn more at as.pn/eop.

We often hear that good jobs require college. For many, however, the road to a college degree presents more challenges than opportunities. The costs of a four-year degree have soared, often leaving students with crippling debt, whether or not they are able to complete their degrees. At the same time, not as many jobs require a four-year degree as we once thought, meaning many students face the same low-wage job opportunities they faced before. We need another approach.

This event highlights a book by Dr. Katherine Newman and Hella Winston, Reskilling America: Learning to Labor in the Twenty-First Century. In it they argue that by committing to a targeted investment in vocational training institutions, we can provide opportunities for individuals to develop skills, access middle skill jobs, avoid crippling debt, and meet technical skill needs in critical industries. Opening comments about the book are followed by a panel discussion with Dr. Newman and experts in policy, education and training, and business.

This event features Katherine S. Newman, Michael G. Johnson (CEO of Johnson Talent Development), Andy Van Kleunen (Chief Executive Officer, National Skills Coalition), and Sandi Vito (Director, 1199SEIU/League Training and Upgrading Fund).

This event is part of the Working in America series, an ongoing discussion series hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program that highlights an array of critical issues affecting low- and moderate-income workers in the United States and ideas for improving and expanding economic opportunities for working people. For more information, visit as.pn/workinginamerica.

The Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy. We recognize that race, gender, and place intersect with and intensify the challenge of economic inequality and we address these dynamics by advancing an inclusive vision of economic justice. For over 25 years, EOP has focused on expanding individuals’ opportunities to connect to quality work, start businesses, and build economic stability that provides the freedom to pursue opportunity. Learn more at as.pn/eop.

As work demands more of employees’ time, many are asking: How can I earn a living while making sure my family doesn’t fall behind? Workers across all income brackets struggle with the United States’ outdated work-life policy framework, but the balancing act is particularly challenging and risky for low- and moderate-income workers and their families who have smaller financial margins and a weak safety net.

In her new book, Finding Time: The Economics of Work-Life Conflict, Heather Boushey argues that resolving work-life conflicts is as vital for individuals and families as it is essential for realizing the country’s productive potential. Boushey, executive director and chief economist of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, presents detailed innovations — at municipal, state, and company levels — that illustrate how US policy can ease the burden on American families and ensure our country’s economic stability. Through personal anecdotes, real-life profiles, and extensive statistical research, Boushey demonstrates that economic efficiency and equity can be reconciled if we have the vision to forge a new social contract for business, government, and private citizens.

This event features Heather Boushey (Executive Director, Chief Economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth) and moderator Maureen Conway (Vice President for Policy Programs, The Aspen Institute; Executive Director, Economic Opportunities Program).

This event is part of the Working in America series, an ongoing discussion series hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program that highlights an array of critical issues affecting low- and moderate-income workers in the United States and ideas for improving and expanding economic opportunities for working people. For more information, visit as.pn/workinginamerica.

The Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy. We recognize that race, gender, and place intersect with and intensify the challenge of economic inequality and we address these dynamics by advancing an inclusive vision of economic justice. For over 25 years, EOP has focused on expanding individuals’ opportunities to connect to quality work, start businesses, and build economic stability that provides the freedom to pursue opportunity. Learn more at as.pn/eop.

Traditional economic development focused on attracting large companies promising many jobs has left behind many people in communities across the country, including working people, low-income individuals and families, people of color and immigrants. But some communities have taken a different approach, one that embraces and cultivates local assets and ownership and that empowers traditionally excluded communities. This event explores the approaches these communities have taken, including alternative business ownership models, leveraging the purchasing power of large public and nonprofit institutions to bolster communities, robust workforce development, more equitable infrastructure development, and more. Panelists discuss how inclusive economic development cultivates economic opportunity and quality jobs for community residents.

This event features Dwight C. Jones (Mayor, Richmond, Virginia), Marjorie Kelly (Executive Vice President and Senior Fellow, The Democracy Collaborative), Sanjay Pinto (Sociologist and Fellow, The Worker Institute, Cornell University; Fellow, Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations), Emily Kawano (Co-Director, Wellspring Cooperative Corporation), and moderator Dorian T. Warren (Fellow, The Roosevelt Institute;  MSNBC contributor; Board Chair, Center for Community Change).

This event is part of the Working in America series, an ongoing discussion series hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program that highlights an array of critical issues affecting low- and moderate-income workers in the United States and ideas for improving and expanding economic opportunities for working people. For more information, visit as.pn/workinginamerica.

The Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy. We recognize that race, gender, and place intersect with and intensify the challenge of economic inequality and we address these dynamics by advancing an inclusive vision of economic justice. For over 25 years, EOP has focused on expanding individuals’ opportunities to connect to quality work, start businesses, and build economic stability that provides the freedom to pursue opportunity. Learn more at as.pn/eop.

The holidays are a critical time for retail companies and workers. The National Retail Federation anticipates that holiday sales this year will make up approximately 19 percent of the retail industry’s annual sales of $3.2 trillion. Holiday spending also impacts the paychecks, schedules, and work-life balance of the 15 million retail workers in the United States, who make up more than 10 percent of total US employment. For these workers, the holidays often amplify year-round job stress they already face, including stress caused by unpredictable and changing work schedules, on-call shifts that may not materialize, and unexpected early dismissals. Unstable schedules — combined with other common workplace conditions like lack of paid leave, low wages, and little investment in workforce training — reduce employee engagement and contribute to high turnover and job instability. Recent studies also find that this type of unstable employment has negative implications for workers’ health — and for health care costs — and for the well-being of workers’ children. Recently, however, more retailers have begun looking at how business models could include better jobs for retail workers. We invite you to take time out of your busy holiday season to learn more about retail workers’ jobs and schedules, better business models, policy remedies, and ideas for jobs that will make happy holidays for everyone.

This event features Susan J. Lambert (Associate Professor, School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago), William Tompkins (Senior Vice President for Human Resources, Macy’s Inc.), Jodie Levin-Epstein (Deputy Director, CLASP), and moderator Teresa Tritch (Editorial Board Member, The New York Times).

This event is part of the Working in America series, an ongoing discussion series hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program that highlights an array of critical issues affecting low- and moderate-income workers in the United States and ideas for improving and expanding economic opportunities for working people. For more information, visit as.pn/workinginamerica.

The Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy. We recognize that race, gender, and place intersect with and intensify the challenge of economic inequality and we address these dynamics by advancing an inclusive vision of economic justice. For over 25 years, EOP has focused on expanding individuals’ opportunities to connect to quality work, start businesses, and build economic stability that provides the freedom to pursue opportunity. Learn more at as.pn/eop.

Headlines about work abound with projections that employment as we know it is quickly fading away. Jobs are sliced-and-diced into “micro-tasks,” and employees are replaced by an army of contractors. Some blue-collar workers do not even know whom they work for, technically, due to the layers of contracting that separate them from the company to which they deliver services. The on-demand or “sharing” economy is exploding. Microenterprises are proliferating. Estimates of the percentage of the workforce that is “contingent” (or freelance, contract or self-employed) range widely from four to 40 percent.

This panel discusses the scope of these phenomena, what is driving this trend, and the implications for workers trying to earn a living in today’s economy. As the social contract between employers and employees deteriorates, how do workers access stable and adequate incomes, protections from abuse, and basic benefits like health care and retirement? As the nature of work evolves, how should labor and social policies evolve to ensure work in America can still lead families to a better future? Panelists explore policy alternatives for today and for the future.

This event features Sen. Mark Warner (US Senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia), Jared Bernstein (Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Board Chair, National Employment Law Project), Natalie Foster (Fellow, The Institute for the Future; Co-Founder, Peers), Saket Soni (Director, National Guestworker Alliance and New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice), David Williams (Chief Tax Officer, Intuit Inc.), and moderator Yuki Noguchi (National Correspondent, NPR).

This event is part of the Working in America series, an ongoing discussion series hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program that highlights an array of critical issues affecting low- and moderate-income workers in the United States and ideas for improving and expanding economic opportunities for working people. For more information, visit as.pn/workinginamerica.

The Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy. We recognize that race, gender, and place intersect with and intensify the challenge of economic inequality and we address these dynamics by advancing an inclusive vision of economic justice. For over 25 years, EOP has focused on expanding individuals’ opportunities to connect to quality work, start businesses, and build economic stability that provides the freedom to pursue opportunity. Learn more at as.pn/eop.

Labor unions traditionally have been the voice of workers seeking better pay, benefits, and jobs and have been a critical means for working people to improve their working conditions, incomes, and social standing. The right to form and join a labor union is enshrined in the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But in the United States, union membership and the commitment to unions is not as strong. Union membership has fallen from a high of 34.8 percent of wage and salary workers in 1954 to 11.1 percent in 2014. Recently, a number of states and the courts have taken actions that weaken labor unions. Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin have joined 22 other mostly southern and western states and adopted “right to work” laws that undermine labor union membership. Last year, the US Supreme Court ruled against the home care worker union in the Harris v. Quinn case.

The future of workers’ voice in shaping their jobs today and tomorrow is at a crossroads. Are traditional labor unions able to successfully represent workers today — especially those in fast-growing, low-wage service sector jobs — or have they been too weakened? What are the new models and organizations that have started to emerge over the last two decades? And fundamentally, how can the nation hear from workers themselves and understand their experience of work today if there is no organized voice that brings their perspective to public and private discussions about jobs and work?

A number of both traditional unions and new types of organizations are taking on this challenge of finding new ways to represent the experience of working people in today’s economy. This panel discussion explores issues affecting the future of worker voice and new ways of organizing workers to collectively shape and improve their jobs and careers.

This event features Sarita Gupta (Executive Director, Jobs With Justice), Ruth Milkman (Professor of Sociology and Research Director, CUNY’s Murphy Labor Institute), David Rolf (President, SEIU 775; Founder and Co-Chair, The Workers Lab), Judge Laura Safer Espinoza (Executive Director, Fair Food Standards Council), Cruz Salucio (Watermelon harvester and Spokesperson, Coalition of Immokalee Workers), and moderator Harold Meyerson (Editor-at-Large, The American Prospect; Columnist, The Washington Post)

This event is part of the Working in America series, an ongoing discussion series hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program that highlights an array of critical issues affecting low- and moderate-income workers in the United States and ideas for improving and expanding economic opportunities for working people. For more information, visit as.pn/workinginamerica.

The Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy. We recognize that race, gender, and place intersect with and intensify the challenge of economic inequality and we address these dynamics by advancing an inclusive vision of economic justice. For over 25 years, EOP has focused on expanding individuals’ opportunities to connect to quality work, start businesses, and build economic stability that provides the freedom to pursue opportunity. Learn more at as.pn/eop.