This is our once-in-a-generation chance.
COVID-19 revealed the struggles that families and workers long faced in the United States. More than 40% live paycheck to paycheck, never have a chance to get ahead, and are only one setback away from losing it all.
Drawing on our experienced team and diverse partners, we foster large-scale collaboration and make philanthropic investments to deliver good jobs and a more inclusive and accessible social safety net. To date, we have invested nearly $30 million in nonprofits and other partners on the frontlines of change and together helped fight poverty and increase opportunity for hundreds of thousands of workers and families.
OUR MISSION
Building a more equitable economy that uplifts all.
Our Impact Goals
Recover Up: Jobs that sustain and uplift.
COVID-19 sent shockwaves through the US economy. And the pain was not equal. For example, half of the people in the lowest-paid jobs were laid off in 2020, and young Black women experienced unemployment rates at levels on par with the Great Depression.
Now, as we collectively dust ourselves off, millions are still unemployed, and millions more are underemployed working fewer hours or at lower skill and pay levels than they desire, with young people, people of color, women, and caregivers suffering the most.
Our vision? To help deliver jobs that enable economic security and mobility—especially for those who have been most locked out of the country’s prosperity. We have an opportunity to deploy philanthropic capital to leverage unprecedented, billions of dollars in federal and employer investments in job creation. Let’s make this more than a recovery back to the pre-pandemic status quo — let’s make it an opportunity to “recover up” into a better future.
Here’s how
OUR IMPACT GOALS
21st Century Benefits: Because our benefits system should benefit everyone.
No one’s life should be defined by their hardest moments, yet too often our inadequate benefits system makes this the reality. A lost job turns into a winter without heat, or having to make the impossible choice between paying for medical bills, groceries, or rent.
In a compassionate and truly productive economy, there is support to overcome these bumps in the road. A child’s wellbeing and future aren’t harmed just because a parent temporarily loses a job. And we don’t leave millions on the sidelines of the labor market not living up to their potential. Delivering integrated, digital, and equitable public benefits, like unemployment insurance, can help to make this vision a reality.
Too often, proposed solutions to the benefits system take either a tech-only or policy-only approach. Our goal? Marry the two. We need the right policies, and we need the right tech systems to deliver benefits swiftly and equitably.
Here’s how
OUR RESULTS
Impact So Far.
Grantees and partners tapped into $12B in public and private funding to scale their impacts
Provided critical insights to guide $2B in federal investments in public benefits
Helped improve wages or provide upwardly-mobile career pathways for 300,000 workers
What's New?
The Families and Workers Fund Releases New Report on How the U.S. Can Measure Job Quality
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Families and Workers Fund joins the White House and partners to announce the results of the Talent Pipeline Challenge
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The Families and Workers Fund and Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program release the Good Jobs Champions Statement
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Making Good Jobs Our North Star: Reflections on the First-Ever Good Jobs Summit
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The Families and Workers Fund & U.S. Department of Labor Co-Host the First Good Jobs Summit
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The Families and Workers Fund Welcomes its Philanthropy and Operations Team
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