A Job Quality Agenda to Build Back Better – An Action Platform for 2021 and Beyond

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 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). This webinar is the ninth in our Job Quality in Practice series. The Job Quality in Practice series is designed to support practitioners across fields – including workforce development, economic development, capital deployment, policy, worker advocacy, and business – to address job quality in their work. Webinars share updates on current conditions and priorities as well as actionable tools and approaches. We also seek to highlight leading practitioners’ work and create connections across disciplines.We are grateful to Prudential Financial for its support of our Job Quality in Practice webinar series and our ongoing efforts to advance a job quality field of practice. 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. 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).