Within the first days of the new administration, President Biden signed a new “Made in America” executive order, which aims to generate manufacturing jobs through government demand for $400 billion in American products, materials, and services. As a candidate, Biden also committed to infrastructure investments as a keystone to job creation. As the $1.9 trillion stimulus plan was enacted March 11, an infrastructure proposal to spend $1 trillion or more is expected imminently within the next two weeks.
That’s a great step forward. Job creation is essential to our recovery from the entwined pandemic and economic traumas.
But at this crisis point, we must apply all tools to strengthen the anemic recovery, especially for lower-wage, women, and BIPOC workers. The country cannot again accept, as in the aftermath of the Great Recession, that
Economic Opportunities Program Newsletter, January 2021
At the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program, and for our many colleagues and partners, the ongoing and intertwined health, economic, and racial justice crises bring new urgency to our work to improve access to quality jobs, options to participate in business ownership, and the freedom to pursue economic opportunity. Below we share our monthly newsletter with highlights of recent work. As always, we welcome your feedback, thoughts, and partnership in advancing inclusive opportunity and an economy in which we all can thrive. Click here to subscribe.
Joining Forces on the Future of Work
We are pleased to announce that the Institute’s Future of Work Initiative (FOWI) has merged with EOP. FOWI was established in late 2015 to develop bipartisan policy recommendations to address the challenges American workers face in a changing economy. FOWI’s emphasis on policy development complements EOP’s decades of research on o