Procurement with Purpose: Improving Equity and Job Quality through Public Procurement

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 already often consider social impacts of procurement decisions. But as millions of jobs pay below a living wage and those posts are most commonly held by women and workers of color, more needs to be done to address the job quality crisis. Public procurement is a powerful tool that can help. The steady stream of public procurement and recent legislation, such as the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, are unique opportunities to more fully leverage public investments to improve job quality and address race and gender inequities in government contracting. This event features a panel discussion with Amy Saxton (The James Irvine Foundation), Paige Shevlin (US Department of Transportation), Tommy Smith (Kaiser Permanente), and moderator Nancy Marshall-Genzer (Marketplace). For more information about this event — including speaker bios, video, audio, transcript, and additional resources — visit: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/events/procurement-with-purpose-improving-equity-and-job-quality-through-public-procurement/