June 11, 2024
The Social Workplace: A Compendium
Key Points Executive Summary In an era marked by a decline in social capital across American institutions, the workplace has become a crucial arena for fostering social connections. Through their careers, Americans not only satisfy their economic needs but also find personal fulfillment, build social networks, and seek—and often discover—a sense of meaning and purpose…
April 3, 2024
The Social Workplace: Social Capital, Human Dignity, and Work in America, Volume III
Executive Summary In this report, we analyze 41 interviews of participants in an earlier quantitative survey of worker attitudes. These interviews were targeted to survey participants age 22–29 to better understand the priorities and concerns of younger workers. Our findings underscore the paramount importance of flexibility and purpose in work. Our analysis suggests the definition…
February 29, 2024
The Age of Uncertainty—and Opportunity: Work in the Age of AI
Abstract The question of how artificial intelligence will affect jobs, skills, and the future of work is open-ended, and answers have been uncertain and contradictory. As AI has advanced, forecasts of labor market impacts have increasingly emphasized AI’s potential to automate tasks that require skills—including creativity, writing, and social and emotional learning—previously believed to be beyond the technology’s reach. In the face…
August 3, 2023
Expanding Economic Opportunities Through Evidence-Based Sector Training
Read the PDF. Introduction The Workforce Futures Initiative is a research collaboration among the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, and the Project on Workforce at Harvard Kennedy School’s Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy. The initiative aims to develop concise and actionable reviews of existing research for federal, state, and local policymakers. Since August…
February 14, 2023
Brave New Technology
In the early 1990s, I had the very good fortune to work on Capitol Hill for then-US Senator Sam Nunn (D-Georgia). As an elected official and a boss, Senator Nunn was widely known for seeking balanced perspectives on policy problems. This wasn’t a tic or the narcissism of small policy differences. He recognized that many…
January 17, 2020
Rethinking Reentry
Policymakers and researchers have been searching for a solution to persistently high rates of recidivism for decades. While the number of incarcerated individuals under federal and state jurisdiction has decreased in recent years and is currently at a 10-year low, the United States still incarcerates more people per capita than any other nation. This level of incarceration has real consequences. By some estimates, nearly 70…