Investing in Job Quality in the South

<div class="header alignfull header--article has-background has-tonal-black-background-color"> <div class="header__layout"> <div class="header__content"> <div class="header__metadata"><div class="header__metas"><div class="header__meta header__meta--taxonomy header__meta--tax-category"> Podcasts, and Videos</div></div></div> <h1 class="header__title has-h1-variant">Archives</h1> <div class="header__metadata"><div class="header__metas"><div class="favorite-block"> <button class="favorite" data-id="191342" data-state="" title="Favorites are not currently available" disabled><span class="favorite__on">Unfavorite</span><span class="favorite__off">Favorite</span><svg class="svg svg--svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark" role="img" height="15" width="11"><use xlink:href="#svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark" /></svg></button></div> <div class="header__meta header__meta--date"> May 7, 2026</div> <div class="header__meta header__meta--taxonomy header__meta--tax-program_tax"> Economic Opportunities Program</div></div></div> </div> </div> </div> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <iframe loading="lazy" title="Investing in Job Quality in the South" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-4_wSAt6I5E?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> </div></figure> <div class="wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-a89b3969 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex"> <div class="wp-block-button"><a class="wp-block-button__link wp-element-button" href="https:https://youtu.be/-4_wSAt6I5E" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Watch Video<span class="wp-block-button__effect"></span></a></div> <div class="wp-block-button"><a class="wp-block-button__link wp-element-button" href="https://pod.link/1503944129/episode/YTgxNTEzZjctYWE5Ni00OGFlLTlkMjUtMzE1MzY3MDJjMzFh">Listen to Podcast<span class="wp-block-button__effect"></span></a></div> </div> <div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"></div> <details class="wp-block-details"><summary><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-primary-light-color is-layout-flow wp-container-core-details-is-layout-8a368f38 wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><strong>Transcript</strong></mark></summary> <p class=""><strong>[00:00:00] Maureen Conway: </strong>Hello. Welcome. My name is Maureen Conway. I&#8217;m a vice president at the Aspen Institute and executive director of the Economic Opportunities Program. It&#8217;s my pleasure to welcome you to our conversation today, Investing in Job Quality in the South. This conversation is part of the Job Quality in Practice Series, where we examine ideas, policies, and practices that can help improve jobs and workplaces and address the job quality crisis in the United States. Before we start, a quick review of our technology. All attendees are muted. Please use the Q&amp;A button at the bottom of your screen to submit and upload questions.</p> <p class="">Please share your perspective, ideas, examples, resources, or experiences related to today&#8217;s topic in the chat. We know we have a great audience with us today, and you have a lot of experience, so love to hear what your ideas are. We encourage you to post about this conversation on the social media platform of your choice. Our hashtag is #TalkGoodJobs. If you have any technical issues during the webinar, please contact us at eop.program@aspeninstitute.org. The event is being recorded and will be shared via email and posted on our website. Closed captions are available. Please use the CC button at the bottom of your screen to avail yourself of those if you wish.</p> <p class="">Now turning to today&#8217;s discussion, the Fixing Work in the South webinar series brings together members of the Aspen Institute&#8217;s Job Quality Fellowship Program from across the American South, practitioners who are on the frontline of expanding access to good jobs in their communities. While these fellows span a variety of sectors and disciplines, including economic and workforce development, employee ownership, worker organizing, advocacy, philanthropy, business lending and advising, and more, they share a common value, that working people deserve to thrive and prosper in our economy.</p> <p class="">Previous conversations in this series have included reimagining workforce and economic development in the South, worker and community-led strategies for a fairer economy, building new narratives on work and opportunity in the US South. These were all terrific conversations and have been recorded on our website, so if you missed them, please take a look there. We&#8217;ve been trying to cover a lot of ground in these discussions because there&#8217;s a lot of work to do to improve job quality, and there really are a wide array of opportunities for all kinds of organizations to play a role in making sure that a larger proportion of jobs are good jobs.</p> <p class="">As we try to connect people to good jobs in our communities, we cannot ignore the jobs that do not meet our standard of good. We need to focus on those jobs and develop strategies that can make those jobs better. Let me just take a minute to highlight the importance of improving job quality. The scale of the job quality problem that we face in the United States is immense. In 2023, there were 38 million, what are called ALICE households, asset-limited, income-constrained, employed. These households are employed and above the official poverty line, but still struggle to make ends meet. In addition, many of the 17 million households that are living below the poverty line also had a working family member.</p> <p class="">Of course, while a paycheck is important, a good job is more than just pay. A good job means stable schedules, fair treatment, respect, and room to grow. The American Job Quality Study paints a sobering picture. Only 40% of US workers report having a good job. Brian Goldstone, previously joined us for a book talk, just won the Pulitzer for his important book, <em>There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America</em>, in which he chronicles the experiences of five families in Atlanta. Just the title should give us all pause. Working and homeless. Why are hardworking people homeless? This book is a powerful portrayal of the toll low-quality jobs has on working people and their families.</p> <p class="">Of course, today we are regularly hearing news about the affordability crisis all across the country. While this crisis is sometimes described only in terms of rising costs, it is that the cost of essentials, housing, healthcare, transportation, and food, are rising faster than wages, which have been stagnant or increased only modestly for decades. That fact is what is causing the affordability crisis to ensnare a growing share of working Americans.</p> <p class="">The job quality crisis is a concern across the entire country, but is particularly acute in the South. In seeking to identify the most deeply disadvantaged communities, Kathryn Edin, Luke Shaefer, and Tim Nelson found the areas of most persistent poverty were in Appalachia, the cotton and tobacco belts of the Deep South, and South Texas. In their book, <em>The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America</em>, they describe the myriad systemic forces that keep these communities poor, with a variety of interrelated factors conspiring to keep unemployment high and job quality low, often depriving people of a sense of control over their lives or a sense of respect for their labor.</p> <p class="">When local economies are filled with jobs that fail to provide stability, dignity, and opportunity, community well-being remains out of reach, but it is possible to change this situation. It is possible to design jobs differently, to pursue different business strategies, to create a policy environment that encourages good jobs, to reject the false trade-off between business success and worker well-being, to unlock worker productivity by empowering workers, and by including workers in the upside when business does well. Job quality is a function of human choices, and it&#8217;s a reflection of how we choose to treat one another in economic terms. We can do better.</p> <p class="">As the saying goes, we all do better when we all do better. Today, we are rounding out our series on fixing jobs in the South and discussing what investment strategies can contribute to improving job quality. We&#8217;ll consider philanthropic investment, investments in business development, and investments in organizational capacity. Of course, we&#8217;ll be eager to hear your comments and questions.</p> <p class="">We have a terrific panel here, so let me quickly introduce them, and we will get started. Joining me today, we have Thelma Adams Johnson, president and CEO, Albany Community Together Inc., Sherra Bennett, program officer, Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, Jennifer Epps, executive director, The LIFT Fund, and Sarah Reed, president and CEO, MetaFund Corporation. Thank you all so much for joining me today. Thelma, let&#8217;s just jump in and start with you. Can you just tell us a little bit about Albany Together and the community you serve in Georgia?</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:07:24] Thelma Johnson: </strong>Oh, thank you, Maureen. I will. Albany Community Together, we go by ACT!, A-C-T, exclamation point. That exclamation point is intentional, by the way. We put it there because it has meaning to us. We are a community development financial institution based in Albany, Georgia. We&#8217;ve been at this work for well over 25 years, and our mission is pretty straightforward.</p> <p class="">We provide affordable capital, coaching, and connections that support small businesses, entrepreneurs, and community projects, where traditional banks probably can&#8217;t, won&#8217;t, or just don&#8217;t serve that industry. In Albany, it sits at [inaudible 00:08:01] in Georgia, a region where many people think about Georgia, they think about Atlanta, and not our Georgia, but the Georgia we serve looks very different. We&#8217;re in a part of the state that&#8217;s been historically under-invested, underserved, and disinvested. It&#8217;s very rural.</p> <p class="">We have a lot of small cities and counties, and where poverty rates run high, where good jobs are harder to come by, and where the kind of capital that they&#8217;re looking for to fuel small businesses have reached other places, but just hasn&#8217;t shown up in Albany and in this region, the same it has for major metropolitan communities in our state and other areas. We are happy to serve our 38 counties with access to coaching, capital, and connections, and that is Albany Community Together in a nutshell.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:08:51] Maureen Conway: </strong>Thank you so much, Thelma. That&#8217;s great. Sarah, let me come to you next, and maybe you can tell us a little bit about MetaFund and the work you do in Oklahoma.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:09:00] Sarah Reed: </strong>Absolutely. Thanks for having me. My name is Sarah Reed. I&#8217;m the president and CEO here at MetaFund. Like Thelma, or Thelma&#8217;s organization, MetaFund is a nonprofit community development financial institution, so a CDFI. We&#8217;re really focused on expanding economic opportunity in under-invested communities across Oklahoma, primarily, although we do expand outside to some of the surrounding states as well.</p> <p class="">Really, at our core, we mobilize capital, and we really feel like we can do that best through partnerships with banks, philanthropy, government, and we help direct that capital into businesses and organizations that are creating impact in our three focus areas of work, housing and health. Since our founding in 1999, we&#8217;ve deployed $470 million into communities that have historically lacked access to flexible, affordable capital. We operate similarly to a bank, but we&#8217;re mission-driven rather than profit-maximizing, and we&#8217;re regulated different than a bank. We are certified through the U.S. Treasury Department to continue our mission and our investing. We seek a double bottom line in every deal that we&#8217;re looking at, which is a lot different than typical banks. We&#8217;re looking that every deal we make is evaluated through a dual lens of both the financial return and the potential social impact return.</p> <p class="">As a CDFI, we are capitalized by banks in Oklahoma, and that&#8217;s why we like to partner with them and help make some of their nearly-bankable deals and customers get access to that capital. We really center our work in three areas. Our small business lending alongside the banks, and then deploying New Market Tax Credit dollars, which we&#8217;ll talk about later, but that&#8217;s really into large-scale economic development projects.</p> <p class="">Then our impact investing collaborative, which is based on funds from philanthropic investors, so a new capital source where we&#8217;re really investing in evidence-based social programs, through a pay-for-success model. Each of these programs, we&#8217;re looking at through that dual lens. We&#8217;ve helped to create or maintain over 6,000 jobs in Oklahoma in our history of the last 26 years, and I&#8217;m excited to talk to you guys more.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:11:28] Maureen Conway: </strong>Great, thank you so much, Sarah. Jen, coming to you next, tell us a little about the LIFT Fund.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:11:35] Jennifer Epps: </strong>Great. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much, Maureen, and the entire Aspen Economic Opportunities Program team, for bringing us together today. I think being a job quality fellow has been really grounding and energizing for me. The conversations, the learning, and the reminder that so many people across the country deeply are committed to building an economy that works for all workers. As you said, I&#8217;m Jennifer Epps, the executive director of the LIFT Fund, which is the Labor Innovations for the 21st Century Fund, mouthful.</p> <p class="">We work to bridge philanthropy, labor unions, worker organizations, and movement partners to align strategy, relationships, and resources that build worker power. We believe when workers have power, we all benefit. Our economy becomes more stable and equitable, communities become stronger, and our democracy becomes more vibrant and resilient when workers have power. Over the last 15 years, LIFT has invested over $20 million to strengthen organizing infrastructure, support base building, sustain institutions, and help workers build voice, agency, and long-term power. This has been particularly done in the South, and now we&#8217;re expanding to the Midwest.</p> <p class="">We&#8217;ve intentionally centered Black, Brown, immigrant, and historically marginalized communities because we believe that the people most impacted by economic injustice should be the folks leading the solutions. Frankly, the strongest worker movements are rooted in leadership, wisdom, and lived experience of those communities. I would say our North Star is where racial justice is foundational, labor rights are protected and expanded, and our collective worker power helps shape a thriving and equitable society for all of us. Thank you.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:13:27] Maureen Conway: </strong>Great, thank you. Sherra, certainly last but not least. Tell us about your work and the role you play at Winthrop Rockefeller.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:13:38] Sherra Bennett: </strong>Happy to, Maureen, thank you so much. First, I just want to thank Aspen Institute and the Economic Opportunities Program for really convening this conversation and giving us the opportunity to share our job quality work. As stated, I am Sherra Bennett, senior program officer at the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation.</p> <p class="">Before I get into that, I am a daughter of the Delta from the South, the Southern belt, City Charm, which really brings a lot to how I think about the work that we&#8217;re leading at the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation.</p> <p class="">We still operate under Governor Rockefeller and his vision for Arkansas, where everyone can thrive. We have over a 50-year history of investing in racial equity, economic equity, educational equity, look, all the equity forms, because we want to ensure that everyone in Arkansas can thrive. At the Foundation, I have the pleasure and honor of leading our movement-building, leadership development, and place-based work, and all of our strategies are underlaid by the ALICE framework that Maureen mentioned in the opening.</p> <p class="">We&#8217;re really focused and investing on the almost half of Arkansans who are working daily, working hard, but still unable to make their ends meet. I mentioned being a daughter of the Delta and how I came into this work. I grew up as the granddaughter of domestic workers. I remember seeing my grandmothers work hard in homes, so I can never forget how job quality shows up, not as a theory, but in your body, in your ability to plan for your life and your future. There were a lot of different things they coordinated through lines, but it&#8217;s important in noting that job quality is a very real aspect that affects everyone&#8217;s daily life.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:15:19] Maureen Conway: </strong>Thank you so much, Sarah. Appreciate that. Great. Well, glad you all set the table of who you are. Let&#8217;s then jump into thinking about some of the challenges that you&#8217;re all working on. Thelma, let&#8217;s start with you as we begin this conversation. The last several years have put strains on a lot of organizations and workplaces with the pandemic and other external challenges. You saw that as an opportunity to improve work in your organization. Tell us about what you did and how that informs your work with small businesses.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:15:53] Thelma Johnson: </strong>Oh, sure, Maureen. Before that, I want to lift up what Sherra said about being the daughter of&#8211; I&#8217;m the daughter of a sole proprietor. That is, a lot of times we try to understand the why, why we&#8217;re so passionate, why we do the work we do. We can find it in our own histories. The why for me is because I am the daughter of a sole proprietor. Because of that, recently we were offered an opportunity to give out grants for our area, but they were excluding sole proprietors because she had to be registered with the state. I had to say no to that. Going to job quality and looking at how we were moving forward from the pandemic, because of that, I have several&#8211; Am I not coming through?</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:16:52] Maureen Conway: </strong>You&#8217;re a little glitchy, yes. I know you said your internet was a little tricky today. You know what? Why don&#8217;t you try turning your camera off and see if you can just speak, if that would be maybe a little easier on your system? All right. Thelma, since you&#8217;re going to have to call in, I think I&#8217;ll come back to you. Sherra, maybe I&#8217;ll come back to you for a minute, and then we&#8217;ll go back to Thelma. Sherra, you&#8217;ve noted that there&#8217;s a critical minerals boom happening in Arkansas. I&#8217;m just wondering what are the opportunities and challenges that you see in ensuring that that boom, I think, that it benefits everyone. What is some of the work you&#8217;ve been doing in response?</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:18:04] Sherra Bennett: </strong>Thanks for that question, Maureen. Yes, in Southwest Arkansas right now, we are seeing a very large boom and influx across the lithium industry. Right now, Arkansas is the state with one of the top and highest amount of lithium that is currently preparing for economic industry and boom. I&#8217;ll be clear, there are lots of opportunities here for all Arkansans in terms of new jobs, federal investment, and helping to create greater infrastructure.</p> <p class="">With those opportunities at the foundation, we&#8217;re very interested in ensuring that some of the potential risks around low wages, weak worker protections, pathways to mobility, and really ensuring that Arkansans that are already rooted there in place are able to take hold of this industry. That their communities and the infrastructure around it are better years later. I&#8217;ll be honest, across the South, this isn&#8217;t the first time we&#8217;ve seen this. There have been oftentimes in history where industry comes, but is industry extractive or is industry coming in a way that is coming alongside communities to complement?</p> <p class="">In leading the place-based work at the foundation, we&#8217;re working, one, my work with Aspen and the job qualities framework has been pivotal in helping understand, one, how to connect with employers across different sectors and have these conversations really rooted in data and the framework about what success and being able to offer case studies and models to know we don&#8217;t have to create this from scratch. We actually have models where this has worked in other places. With that, we&#8217;re working with the community on what is your strategic vision?</p> <p class="">As a foundation, how do we use our positionality to be a convener across the different sectors and industries, to bring folks to the table, to have conversations, to figure out together what can we do? There&#8217;s a benefit in philanthropy being able to provide some additional risk capital. Are there some other elements that can help complement what&#8217;s happening there around child care, education, health infrastructure, workforce housing to ensure? Are there organizations and groups who are working to organize workers there that we can, one, have a greater effort that is not siloed and where communities have a model and can come to the table with better agency and voice?</p> <p class="">That&#8217;s some of the work that we&#8217;re doing in Southwest Arkansas to ensure that everyone feels the boom and everyone in Arkansas can thrive, especially ALICE.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:20:36] Maureen Conway: </strong>Yes, thank you. That&#8217;s really great. I love the mix of things that you described there. Jen, similar to Sherra, you&#8217;re seeing a new wave of industry development across the South and things like electric vehicles and battery manufacturing. Of course, the jobs aren&#8217;t necessarily guaranteed to be good jobs. Where are you seeing challenges in these sectors, and what&#8217;s the LIFT Fund doing to ensure that the new industrial policy works in a way that benefits the workers who are doing the building?</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:21:12] Jennifer Epps: </strong>Absolutely. One, I just want to say, Sherra, I really appreciate you talking about the lithium industry. We&#8217;ve been working on a project in California and thinking about that work as well. It&#8217;s critical and important that we learn from each other. To answer your question, Maureen, there&#8217;s no question that federal investments from the CHIPS Act to the Inflation Reduction Act to Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act have led to a boom of jobs and growth in the south.</p> <p class="">There was a study by the non-partisan group, Climate Central, that estimated that since 2018, the South has received $428 billion, that&#8217;s with a B, of public and private investment dollars in solar, wind, zero-emission vehicles, and other clean energy technology. That&#8217;s more than any other region in the country. Since 2010, manufacturing employment in the South has grown about 17%, which is the quickest growth of any region. We believe that the influx of funding is one of the most significant opportunities to improve job quality in the region, probably for the last few decades.</p> <p class="">If these jobs aren&#8217;t good jobs, the South is going to be further entrenched in extractive, inequitable economies. That&#8217;s a reality for a lot of workers, and as Sherra and Thelma talked about, for generations. What does that mean? As part of the LIFT Southern Worker Opportunity Fund, we call it, shorthand, SWO, we partner with our grantees who are leading incredible efforts to ensure that these jobs are good, and that they benefit all of the workers in the communities where they live.</p> <p class="">For example, in Anniston, Alabama, workers and community leaders partnered with Jobs to Move America, which is a great organization, for those that don&#8217;t know, to ensure clean energy manufacturing jobs at New Flyer, which is North America&#8217;s largest manufacturer of heavy-duty transit buses. They address real community needs. They built a broad coalition demanding fair access to jobs and local hire, workplace safety, and economic stability.</p> <p class="">That led to an historic agreement that cleared hiring pathways, worker protections, and impacted unionization with the CWA Local. This showed how public investment can translate into good jobs and strengthen communities. I&#8217;d also say stories like New Flyer show the possibility of when communities come together with early support and sustained investment as federal dollars move in. We can make this a wave of industrial development that actually improves workers&#8217; lives. I think we&#8217;re going to continue to see more of that work, and we&#8217;ve got to figure out how to continue to invest in it.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:24:05] Maureen Conway: </strong>Great. I&#8217;m going to go to Sarah, you next, but I think we&#8217;re good. I think Thelma&#8217;s going to be back with us in a minute. Sarah, you&#8217;ve been doing work to integrate job quality through the New Market Tax Credit. Talk to us about your lending through that program and the opportunities you&#8217;ve seen to embed good jobs in that work, and how you evaluate whether a project is actually worth investing in, or when you say, &#8220;No.&#8221; Why don&#8217;t you talk to us about those decisions?</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:24:40] Sarah Reed: </strong>Absolutely. As a CDFI, our job is not to be the doers, but to get the capital into the hands of the people that are the doers, and make sure that we&#8217;re deploying that capital responsibly. The New Market Tax Credit program, for those that don&#8217;t know what that is, it&#8217;s a federal tax credit for businesses. Provides a very large subsidy to them to incentivize them to locate businesses and economic development projects in lower-income census areas, low-to-moderate-income census areas. It&#8217;s a really powerful tool if used correctly. It actually just gained permanency in the tax code this last year, which has expanded the whole industry and availability of these tax credits.</p> <p class="">We&#8217;ve seen this as one of our biggest opportunities to influence both the scale and quality of job creation compared to our smaller business lending, which you may be creating one or two jobs in a small business with an entrepreneur that&#8217;s trying to grow. With our New Market Tax Credit program, these are usually $20 million to $40 million developments that are going into, a lot of times, rural communities.</p> <p class="">In a rural community in Oklahoma, 100 jobs being created is extremely impactful. As we&#8217;re looking at these projects, and as you can imagine, everybody is coming and wanting like, &#8220;Hey, help us build our capital&#8217;s tax, so we can go place this new manufacturing facility in Stillwater, Oklahoma,&#8221; we really want to make sure that while we are helping to finance more jobs, that we&#8217;re really financing the right kind of jobs as we&#8217;re going about our work. We&#8217;ve really made that a deliberate choice of how we focus our deployment of our allocation awards.</p> <p class="">We&#8217;ve taken the path of really looking at the sectors of manufacturing, healthcare, and then workforce-related facilities or community facilities that are helping to create more quality jobs, both in number and quantity of jobs, but also the quality of jobs. We think those are the industries where we can have the most impact with this type of investment.</p> <p class="">As we&#8217;re going through our underwriting process, Maureen, to your question, we really look beyond just the job count that&#8217;s being created, and we really look to a good job framework. We&#8217;re looking to see are the wages that they&#8217;re paying their employees of at least at or above the local living wage standards.</p> <p class="">We use the MIT living wage calculator to analyze that. We&#8217;re looking at if employees have access to benefits, paid leave, whether they have predictable schedules, and then whether there&#8217;s a real pathway for advancement. Is this giving them a job for today, or is this giving them a job that they&#8217;re building skills and credentials, abilities to advance through the company, or find even better work somewhere else down the road? Just as importantly as looking at these projects, we&#8217;ve got to be willing to walk away for money where their mouth is.</p> <p class="">We really look if a project only is going to work. The budget and the project only pencils out if they&#8217;re underpaying their employees, have a very low starting wage, or they structure most of the jobs that they&#8217;re going to be creating as contract roles, that&#8217;s usually a red flag to us that this probably isn&#8217;t one of the projects that we would be proud to support. We also look at the industries that we&#8217;re going into and try to take a global view of that as well, as far as workplace conditions, because, for instance, a meat processing facility would not provide the same quality labor conditions as a precision manufacturing facility. We really look at that broader picture.</p> <p class="">We also try to make sure we&#8217;re considering the broader community support. Is this a good corporate citizen? Do they already exist in the community? What does that look like by the rest of the community? Is it someone we would be proud to support? Are they creating the right kind of jobs? Are they giving back to the community in other volunteer or support, or is this a new company coming in? What have they looked like in other existing markets? We always try to make sure we incorporate that community aspect because I think, as you guys say, it&#8217;s really important to have that buy-in from the local people that live there and are going to be working in that facility.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:29:31] Maureen Conway: </strong>No, I love that. That&#8217;s great.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:29:33] Jennifer Epps: </strong>Yes. <strong>[unintelligible 00:29:34]</strong> It&#8217;s not a just a nice-to-have, but we want to make sure that we&#8217;re putting the dollars where it&#8217;s going to have the most benefit.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:29:42] Maureen Conway: </strong>Yes, I know. I love that you think about the miserable things, but also you&#8217;re thinking about how is the community fit. That&#8217;s really great. Thelma, I think that if you come off mute, hopefully, we can come back to you.</p> <p class="">[silence]</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:30:05] Thelma Johnson: </strong>Can you hear me?</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:30:07] Maureen Conway: </strong>Okay. Yes, we can hear you. You were talking to us about why you&#8217;re passionate about this work and how you come to this. Then you were going to tell us about the ways that you improved work in your own organization and how that informs your work with small business.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:30:31] Thelma Johnson: </strong>Right. Thank you. I was talking about what happened during COVID-19 and the lessons that we learned, and what happened here in Albany, being number four based on the population, with the number of incidences and deaths from COVID-19. We all had to do the <strong>[inaudible 00:30:47]</strong>, and we had to come back&#8211; You can&#8217;t hear me?</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:30:57] Maureen Conway: </strong>You dropped for a minute, but I can hear you now.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:31:01] Thelma Johnson: </strong>Okay. We had to social distance and shelter in place. After coming from that, I had to realize offering them, was it a good job? Was it a quality job? Did they have everything they needed to have to come back to work? One of those things were childcare because we had some births that happened as a result of COVID. For whatever reason, I don&#8217;t know. Didn&#8217;t try to figure it out, but we needed to have them at work. We went to a hybrid work experience, only three days a week and two days off because we found out during COVID many of those small childcares closed down because of exposure. We started allowing our employees to bring their children to work.</p> <p class="">If they&#8217;re there, we saw productivity go up. We had to create lactating rooms, opportunities for that, and opportunities for children to be in a safe place for their parents to work. Removing that barrier to childcare and allowing them to come back to work, and letting them know that we were providing that benefit to help them to continue to work because they wanted to. They just didn&#8217;t want to be out.</p> <p class="">During that, we had to start looking at every job we require our borrowers to create because every loan we make, there&#8217;s a job creation requirement attached. That was a learning experience that helped me to understand the importance of good jobs and just a quality job, in addition to the pay. What are the benefits that you&#8217;re offering, and how can you do those benefits better to help make sure that employee knows that they have a place where they can come to work and be productive?</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:32:53] Maureen Conway: </strong>Yes. Thelma, I love what you described because I think so much of thinking about what&#8217;s a quality job is, listening to the folks who are doing the job, and them saying what they need and what&#8217;s going to work for them. I love how you gave such a specific and great example of doing that. That&#8217;s really fantastic. Actually, why don&#8217;t we take this quickly? I see there&#8217;s a question about, Sarah, for you on New Market Tax Credits, whether they&#8217;re only for new building or are they available for retrofitting or renovating existing spaces? Is it just for something new, or can you use it for something existing?</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:33:39] Sarah Reed: </strong>No, New Markets can be used for a lot of different things. Sometimes it&#8217;s building a new building, real estate. Sometimes it&#8217;s acquiring an older building and completely renovating it, which we&#8217;ve seen a couple of those. I actually like those projects because it&#8217;s taking oftentimes a shuttered building that is just sitting in a community doing nothing and just really revitalizing that and oftentimes bringing jobs back to the community that were lost when that former employer left. We actually are working on one right now that&#8217;s that case. It can be used for both.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:34:14] Maureen Conway: </strong>Great. Thank you. Digging in on strategies. Sherra, I&#8217;m going to come to you. There are a lot of large corporations in Arkansas. I&#8217;m wondering if you could tell us how you think about investing in strategies, including worker organizing, to encourage those corporations to change how they design work, and what are some of the lessons you&#8217;ve learned in doing that work?</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:34:44] Sherra Bennett: </strong>Absolutely. Happy to answer that question. The one thing that I will say, and it connects to what Thelma talked about in just the framework of listening to workers, I think that often we talk about concepts, job quality, and frameworks. For a lot of folks, it can feel pie-in-the-sky, especially for corporations. Honestly, it&#8217;s very similar to the golden rule of treating people how you want to be treated and knowing that there&#8217;s reciprocity in that.</p> <p class="">I always say we really anchor our work and our strategy around the four things.</p> <p class="">I call them the 4 Ps. People, places, possibilities, and power. One, we start with the equity framework of thinking about people. We&#8217;ve mentioned and talked about ALICE. Knowing that disproportionately people of color and women are affected most, so we try to take frameworks to think about that piece, and how does that connect to childcare, education, some of the other pieces when we&#8217;re having conversations with corporations.</p> <p class="">When I think about places, so in Arkansas there&#8217;s a real context around regional economies. When we think about Tyson and their work and other corporations in Northwest Arkansas, they have the ability, and they shape regional economies. That&#8217;s super important to know because the rural communities that are around those larger epicenters rely on these corporations for jobs. Places is very important in thinking about corporate hubs and rural communities that are dependent upon those major employers.</p> <p class="">Then, from the possibilities, we want to ensure that when we&#8217;re having conversations with corporations, we are thinking about pathways and not just paychecks. What is mobility, advancement, and stability? A lot of the things that Sarah mentioned when she talked about how they think about corporations and employers that they want to invest and lend to. We think about whether it&#8217;s creating a pathway for people to move from surviving to thriving, are there opportunities for workers to build wealth, and is there a pathway that is greater or does it have a lot of different ceilings.</p> <p class="">Then, when we think about worker power and organizing, that for us is the distinction that makes all of the difference. To be quite honest, there is a lot of sensitivity and nuance in building this coalition and this power and working to have authentic organizing and accountability while also bringing employers to the table where they understand that there&#8217;s a connected through lines and just getting people comfortable with knowing, saying that it is okay for workers to have power. That we should be okay with wanting people to have power and agency and really centering that.</p> <p class="">We believe that job quality improves when workers have a voice in shaping their workplaces, not just being participants, and looking at them as whole people, whole beings, and not just labor inputs. Really just working to humanize the work and that we&#8217;re all coming to the table as Arkansans that care about our state, that care about our economy, that care about our country, and to figure out together, &#8220;We might not agree on everything, but it is in our best vested interest that we all come to the table.&#8221;</p> <p class="">I want to note that when we talk about Tyson, we have seen massive, great improvements in how they&#8217;re thinking about job quality. In Northwest Arkansas, they opened a childcare facility for their workers. Really expansive benefit frameworks that include education access that is free of charge, healthcare, time off. All of the things, again, treat people how you want to be treated. You deserve to go to the doctor. You deserve to go see your child in a play. There&#8217;s accountability. We need to show up. I show up to work every day.</p> <p class="">It&#8217;s important that we&#8217;re thinking about this work holistically, centering people and sitting folks down, and just remembering the golden rules and what&#8217;s at stake. Maureen said this when we started our conversation. &#8220;Things are better when we all do better.&#8221; Maybe I butchered it, but we believe that if we do better, we&#8217;ll do better. I would say that&#8217;s how we center our framework and really work to bring workers and organizers to the table with employers to have these types of job quality conversations.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:38:59] Maureen Conway: </strong>Thank you, Sarah. I love that. I love the people, places, possibilities, and power framework. That is fantastic. Jen, let me come to you while we&#8217;re on the topic of organizing. Oftentimes, we don&#8217;t remember that the South has a rich tradition of labor organizing, and we just think of that as being a place that&#8217;s anti-union. Some state policies may reflect that sentiment, but it&#8217;s still an area where worker and community organizing is alive.</p> <p class="">I think your work has sought to bring labor unions together with other organizing entities like worker centers, and really bringing different groups together to drive change. Can you tell us about your investments in that work and give us an example or two of what that work shows is possible?</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:39:57] Jennifer Epps: </strong>Yes. I&#8217;m enjoying this conversation. I appreciate all of the mention in the conversation that&#8217;s been had before and hearing you talking about what&#8217;s going on in Arkansas. I argue that none of that is possible without workers stepping up and saying what they need and giving the opportunity to have a voice. Then I also want to&#8211; don&#8217;t forget to double click on what Sarah talked about in terms of there are businesses, and there are folks out here that want to double bottom line. I was like, &#8220;Ooh,&#8221; I wrote that down. It&#8217;s so good.</p> <p class="">To answer your question around the South has certainly earned its reputation around being the most anti-union region in the country for sure. I do think in spite of all of that, and in spite of the reputation, there&#8217;s unions in the region, and there&#8217;s robust worker and community organizing that&#8217;s happening. The organizing is definitely challenging, and some of the well-known institutions in the South to create jobs where workers are being paid family-supporting wages, having real benefits and protections, and union stability. I think that there is a lot of organizing that&#8217;s happening in spite of some of the things that we heard and seen and experienced over our country&#8217;s history, and particularly in the South.</p> <p class="">For example, I&#8217;ll give Step Up Louisiana, which is a worker-led group that&#8217;s actively organizing communities and elected leaders on a national, and have been on a national dollar store chains campaign to make sure that those workers can earn a decent living. Communal organizing, they&#8217;re doing direct action, and they&#8217;re doing systemic advocacy. It led to incredible wins on both health and safety and back wages that were owed through their advocacy, both on a national level and with their stockholders, frankly.</p> <p class="">We&#8217;ve seen incredible promise when those workers, those dollar store workers, come together and they&#8217;re saying, &#8220;Actually, we need to be safe. There needs to be more than one person working when we&#8217;re here because it&#8217;s not always safe, and anything can happen.&#8221; Maybe back to COVID and thinking about the PPP, all of those things played a part into putting the pressure that&#8217;s needed on the dollar store chains to make sure that they protect their workers.</p> <p class="">I&#8217;d also talk about Tennessee For All, which is another community coalition that&#8217;s in Tennessee that is calling on Ford Motor Company that are creating jobs in a new huge facility. I think, I want to say, it was $6 billion to put this facility up and around electric vehicles. The coalition is calling for community benefits agreements, and they are trying to address the rising housing costs, the displacement and concerns of the environmental impact, takes a lot of water to build these things. I&#8217;m sure folks are having a lot of conversations in their communities about what it means to have all of these new things that are coming up that do require some sacrifices in that community, and who has to pay for that.</p> <p class="">Anyway, I&#8217;d say that the Tennessee For All group is working diligently to engage their community and the unions on what it means to have a thriving community, what it means to have benefits for both the community and the employer as things are happening or coming in. Then lastly, I think you all had the Union of Southern Service workers here a couple of weeks ago, and in North Carolina and South Carolina, we&#8217;re seeing them build a support and raising awareness for Waffle House workers to get paid decent wages and benefits and have a stable union job. There&#8217;s a lot of examples out here, and I&#8217;m so excited that we get to support some of this and hope to continue to do that.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:43:53] Maureen Conway: </strong>Great. I love that. I love that you brought up safety, too, because I think sometimes we forget about how important just having a safe workplace is for people and just what that means. Sarah, I&#8217;m going to come to you next. I&#8217;m going to ask you the question I like to ask about tracking data and metrics. Tracking data and metrics and holding employers and partners accountable to their commitments is often an important part of job quality work. There is that phrase that, what gets measured gets managed.</p> <p class="">Sometimes it&#8217;s part of a community benefits agreement, sometimes it&#8217;s part of a performance-based contract, but talk about how that kind of work fits into what you do, and also how you hold partners accountable if the measures don&#8217;t measure up.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:44:50] Sarah Reed: </strong>It&#8217;s tough sometimes, but we have taken the approach that all of that accountability has to start at the beginning as we&#8217;re talking about term sheets, because once capital goes out the door and someone has money in hand, their incentive to really act upon whatever they might&#8217;ve told you, there&#8217;s just no incentive there. We really try to start looking at that from the beginning and write them down into a community benefit agreement. Most of our deals, if not actually all of our deals, have some form of a community benefit agreement that we&#8217;ve developed.</p> <p class="">We&#8217;ve put together a framework of basic outcomes that we&#8217;re trying to track and measure. I would say in our 26-year history, at the beginning, we probably weren&#8217;t as good at being able to track and measure those metrics. We&#8217;ve gotten a lot better over the years. There&#8217;s still not a standard industry-wide definition for all of these metrics. It&#8217;s difficult to compare apples to apples a lot of the time, but we do our best.</p> <p class="">We look at things at the get-go and say, &#8220;Okay, borrower, how many jobs do you think you&#8217;re going to create if that&#8217;s the true impact we think is going to be the outcome of that investment?&#8221; Sometimes it&#8217;s more on patients being served if it&#8217;s a healthcare facility or students being served, if it&#8217;s a childcare facility or educational facility. We have to identify what those metrics are, and then build them into a community benefit report where they say on the day one, &#8220;These are the metrics that are there, and these are what we&#8217;re projecting to create.&#8221; Then we have to follow up on that. That&#8217;s a two-way street between us and the borrowers.</p> <p class="">Depending on the complexity, we are talking to them. Some of our borrowers we talk to monthly. Maureen mentioned pay for success. We&#8217;ve got some loans that are solely dependent. We use philanthropic dollars to lend to a social service organization that, in particular, one of them is really focused on creating workforce development and job opportunities for people with significant barriers. A lot of people coming out of incarceration or addiction problems that are needing some holistic wraparound services. We have used philanthropic dollars to put upfront at risk to expand those services because we are seeing the measured evidence-based outcomes of that program.</p> <p class="">Then there&#8217;s a backend success payer that says, &#8220;I really believe in this, but I&#8217;m only going to give you money if you&#8217;re actually meeting those outcomes.&#8221; It really holds that organization accountable for doing the work that they say they&#8217;re going to do to earn those dollars. We only get repaid on our loan if they achieve those outcomes too. Through that community benefit agreement, we&#8217;re meeting with them sometimes monthly to make sure, &#8220;How are things going? Is there anything we can do within our networks to help you achieve something if there&#8217;s a bottleneck in the process that they&#8217;re going through?&#8221;</p> <p class="">We put those agreements in place and then try to track that data. We have to report some of that back up to the CDFI fund, so we&#8217;re accountable for it. We want to hold our borrowers accountable for what they say they&#8217;re going to do as well.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:48:12] Maureen Conway: </strong>Great. I see we have some questions coming in. I&#8217;m going to go to Thelma and then take an audience question. I do want to encourage our audience to keep questions coming as they come to you. Thelma, I want to ask you, you have an exciting project about a health hub in your region that focuses on building an ecosystem, supporting small businesses, and good jobs. Tell us a little bit about your vision for that work, and your approach, and what you&#8217;re learning.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:48:49] Thelma Johnson: </strong>Thank you, Maureen. I&#8217;m going to go back to what Sarah just talked about, the community benefit agreement, because this project was originally funded by New Markets and some public dollars. We had to agree while we were working with the borrower on this, we had to help them to agree to the community benefits plan because it is the direct outcomes of implementing this project of what they would see in the community, creating those jobs that would be made available to the low to moderate income individuals and taking that New Market Tax Credit investment and quantifying and monetizing it into jobs.</p> <p class="">I just wanted to make that connection and also make another connection that Sherra said. I like it. It&#8217;s the 3Ps, people, places, and possibilities, because when we think about 3Ps as a CDFI, we think about 3P projects, public, private, and partnerships. We can take it a step further and thinking about it as that project, as people, places, and what possibilities we can create by using those resources that Sarah has available, New Markets, and our resources. We create a full ecosystem that&#8217;s within us to create good jobs.</p> <p class="">With that said, Albany Community Together is the first organization in Georgia to receive a CED implementation grant. There have been many to receive planning grants, but we&#8217;re the first time to actually see these dollars on the ground in Georgia. That feels very significant to us, and it raises the stakes, and we want to get this right. We&#8217;re providing funding to this business, which is a health hub. It is known as the Legacy Wellness Center in Albany&#8217;s Harlem District, and it&#8217;s another community that has been disinvested, underinvested, and not seen many investments in the area.</p> <p class="">Because they needed affordable money, we had to be very creative, and that&#8217;s why we applied for and received the CED grant. The terms of the capital matter because the businesses can actually breathe during those first few years, because we&#8217;re going to offer very creative and patient capital. I think Sarah talked about it earlier of how we do funding as a CDFI, that pricing of the capital. This is where it really matters for this business because most small businesses during their early stages think about&#8211; they have to spend every dollar earned into servicing debt, but our investment of $800,000 in the Legacy Wellness Center is going to help them to get over that period where they can start generating capital and then repaying those back.</p> <p class="">We&#8217;re providing capital at below market rates, which directly lowers the center&#8217;s cost of operation during that critical startup window. Every dollar the center isn&#8217;t spending on debt service, it could be going somewhere else, toward hiring, fair wages, benefits, and the job creation is based on every loan that we do, so it was already a requirement. Why not make it a requirement where we can actually support a whole ecosystem of health-related businesses positioned to create these jobs, and we&#8217;re going to be providing business development services, providing them with an accelerator to help those that are in the Wellness Center, the health clinic, the dental clinic, the care practice place, the mental health, all under one roof that will create 29 jobs, and 22 of those jobs are going to low to moderate income individuals.</p> <p class="">That is the center sits right next to the city&#8217;s new public transit model, which provides access to transportation. That&#8217;s one barrier to having been able to get to a good job. This is removing that barrier and just getting to work. We&#8217;re also planning for, because I understand, and I think we all understand the importance of child care, of removing that barrier, removing that concern, that stress for those employees to have quality child care. We are planning in future phase to do on-site because a lot of families we serve, child care is the difference between holding one job and losing a job.</p> <p class="">That&#8217;s the vision, affordable capital, good jobs, and wraparound infrastructure that lets people actually keep those jobs. We are grateful, and we are happy to be putting our first CED investment to work in Georgia, and we are excited to show what&#8217;s possible, and that&#8217;s going back to those people, places, and possibilities. I just love that.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:53:23] Maureen Conway: </strong>That&#8217;s great. Thelma, can you just tell us quickly what a CED grant is?</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:53:29] Thelma Johnson: </strong>It&#8217;s Community Economic Development grant from the Health and Human Services Agency, and it&#8217;s designed to provide access to businesses to get affordable capital so that they can implement projects or businesses that are going to create jobs. We&#8217;re based by the grant to make sure that those jobs not only pay a livable wage, a wage that can be scaled and go into another area, but making sure that there are benefits that can support that business and that business can then support their employees. It has a focus on supporting employees and creating jobs, not just any job, but a good job, a good quality job.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:54:14] Maureen Conway: </strong>Thank you. Thank you so much. I&#8217;m going to take a couple questions from the audience now. One says, &#8220;I&#8217;m curious how you see organizations balancing performance and productivity with the growing need for managers and employees to better understand mental health, belonging, stress, and trauma-informed practices at work?&#8221; I&#8217;m sure several of you have thoughts on that question, so feel free to jump in.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:54:44] Sherra Bennett: </strong>I&#8217;m happy to help think through that question. Thank you, too, for submitting that question. I would say it&#8217;s important to notice that we are asking for a paradigm shift, and I think that the framing of it as a balance is often where we get stuck. It can assume that performance and productivity are separate from things like mental health and belonging, and how people are treated at work, when what we&#8217;re seeing and what our ALICE data reinforces is that when people are stressed, financially insecure, navigating instability, it will directly impact their ability to show up and stay grounded.</p> <p class="">In many ways, it&#8217;s about redefining what we mean by performance. The organizations that are getting this right are investing in things like predictable schedules, supportive management, trauma-informed practices, and workplace cultures that are actually environments where people feel like they belong. Then once you connect those two, you start to see the balance align. The point about the managers, there is a very honest leadership component where managers are on the front line to help manage what&#8217;s happening from the top down, but not always equipped and supported to lead in that way.</p> <p class="">The investment also has to be in building managers&#8217; capacity and not just expecting them to have it, which can seem overwhelming, but it doesn&#8217;t have to happen all at once or overnight. It&#8217;s this paradigm shift of figuring out what can you start changing and adapting and how do you continue to move that forward, but just realizing and stating that job quality is not separate from performance, but it&#8217;s the foundation of better performance. When we work to design workplaces that recognize people as whole human beings, you&#8217;re not lowering your standards from a job perspective. You&#8217;re actually creating the conditions for people, organizations, and performance to thrive together.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:56:47] Maureen Conway: </strong>Great. I love that. Thank you. Another question was, &#8220;Given the history of the South and the anti-union rhetoric, do you all find that there are specific challenges to making the case for quality jobs in your region?&#8221;</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:57:05] Jennifer Epps: </strong>I&#8217;ll start off, but I&#8217;d love to get Sherra&#8217;s response on this because she talks more to employers than maybe I do. I think, obviously, we can&#8217;t ignore the legacy of slavery in the South. We cannot ignore that and that the history of when there was cross-racial solidarity in organizing, it was immediately shot down with a lot of laws and a lot of policies that were passed in order to break that. I do go back to&#8211; I was looking up the quote from Frederick Douglass about, if there&#8217;s no struggle, there&#8217;s no progress. I believe that. I believe that folks have struggled before and gotten a lot done through that struggle, through that tenacity, through that ability to organize, that we will get through this time even more so now.</p> <p class="">I think there is awakening that is happening throughout this country and throughout the world around what it means to make sure that you have a voice and that, at some point, it has to be affordable for you to live. I think that if we continue this work around supporting organizations that are trying to make dents, that we will see, hopefully, in our lifetime, a transition where workers will have more power and more agency and the ability to take care of their families because that&#8217;s, I think, what we all want.</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:58:31] Maureen Conway: </strong>I love that. I&#8217;m curious, Jennifer, I really appreciate that, and I appreciate how you&#8217;re lifting up the ability of workers to do this. In so many places, not just in the South, I do feel like, though, there&#8217;s a problem. The muscles for solidarity and working together are not strong. I guess I&#8217;m wondering how you think about that challenge in particular, and what are some strategies for giving people the optimism to really pursue common cause together?</p> <p class=""><strong>[00:59:05] Jennifer Epps: </strong>Yes. I think there&#8217;s a lot that are coming up against workers and folks in general and our community. One of the things that gives me excitement, I was in New York yesterday with groups from both Alabama and Minnesota. They were talking about their work. What we saw happen in Minnesota around folks standing up, around folks supporting one another in a meaningful way, and the infrastructure that they&#8217;ve been able to build and organize a lot of workers, all the while making sure their communities were good and passing legislation that has been transformative for a lot of folks&#8217; lives, minimum wage, living wage, basically, you name it, they&#8217;ve been able to do it there.</p> <p class="">I think they show what it looks like to have multiracial cross-solidarity in a real, legitimate way that took years, clearly, but other folks are learning from that. Other folks&#8211; Where we get the opportunity to bring those folks together with folks from the South so that that solidarity is being fostered, and folks can say, &#8220;Hey, this is what happened. We&#8217;re trying to move this particular thing. Can you share some of the things that we can work on, or we could do to combat this?&#8221; It&#8217;s been really, really helpful, I think, for both groups from Minnesota and from Alabama to hear from each other and to be in solidarity with one another.</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:00:33] Maureen Conway: </strong>Great. Thank you. Sherra, did you want to jump in here? I thought I saw you. [chuckles]</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:00:40] Sherra Bennett: </strong>Why not, Maureen? Sure. Two responses. To the last question, coalition building is how we move from just individual voices to collective power, and that&#8217;s everyone. There is no single actor that can fix job quality. Employers can&#8217;t fix it by themselves, not workers, not philanthropy, not government. Alone, we are limited. Together, we have leverage. It&#8217;s critical to keep that as the cornerstone, because job quality is at the intersection of systems working together, and it requires alignment.</p> <p class="">Then, to the question about the nuance of the historical legacy of the South. That&#8217;s why place is so important to our work. We, in our place-based portfolio, we support Elaine, Arkansas, which had a very historic massacre in 1919 where workers were organizing for better pay. It is estimated over 200 women, men, and children were killed. When we go into these conversations, we get to move past that, but we don&#8217;t get to forget it. It&#8217;s critical that we balance that piece of knowing that there are, in the South, some discomfort and some uncomfortable conversations that have to happen in order to move us forward.</p> <p class="">I&#8217;m going to go back to say that has to happen. We have to center what happened before to understand why we&#8217;re in the current position and what community feels like, and worker power and voice. Once we are able to center that, to feel it, to move forward, only then can we help create a truthful conversation that&#8217;ll move us forward. All of our identities, all of our collective experiences, in Appalachia, there&#8217;s been a history of different things as well.</p> <p class="">It&#8217;s important that we&#8217;re able to note everybody&#8217;s identity and what communities have gone through, and how we use that to help structure what we&#8217;re doing together. It&#8217;s nuanced, but it&#8217;s important, and it&#8217;s critical, and it&#8217;s how we&#8217;ll move forward. This is Sherra&#8217;s opinion, my opinion.</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:02:49] Maureen Conway: </strong>[laughs] Love it, Sherra. Thank you. There is a question about what systems-level approaches are you focusing on investing in for enhancing quality employment in the South? I don&#8217;t know if anybody has a thought with respect to that.</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:03:13] Thelma Johnson: </strong>I will try to, Maureen, provide some concept from conceptual knowledge from ACT of what we&#8217;ve learned. We&#8217;ve all heard that the history is different. The labor markets are different, and the infrastructure gaps are different here in the South. When we talk about system-level work to improve job quality in the South, we have to start with what&#8217;s actually true.</p> <p class="">This is where ACT is investing our energy. You heard about the health hub. The first is capital itself. This is how we can make a difference. It&#8217;s how it&#8217;s priced and who reaches it and who has access to it. It sounds like a basic thought process, but it&#8217;s foundational. The cost of capital determines who&#8217;s able to finance a good job and what jobs a business can afford to create.</p> <p class="">A small employer paying 12% on a conventional loan is going to make different decisions about wages, benefits, than one paying 5% from the CDFI. As a CDFI, we can make a direct system-level intervention into getting affordable capital to those businesses. The second is what we&#8217;re doing with the hub, the wraparound infrastructure, showing them how it&#8217;s possible where the South has real gaps in childcare, transportation, health care access.</p> <p class="">This project is adjacent to the new transit model. Right where they will come off is where the facility. Planning a future childcare place on site, that&#8217;s one place that we can do system-level changes. The third is workforce pipelines. Showing businesses how they can use local technical colleges, local universities to source labor, to find those employees ready to come to work. If they are offering a good job that&#8217;s paying a livable wage with benefits, those wrap-around services. This is where I see ACT in being able to make changes in those system levels.</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:05:14] Maureen Conway: </strong>That&#8217;s great, Thelma. I love that. I feel like you&#8217;ve touched on a lot of systems. You touched on financial systems, you touched on social support systems, you touched on workforce systems, and maybe economic development systems. I&#8217;m wondering if any of the rest of you have any thoughts on how those systems work or how those systems could work better to support job quality. Sarah, I know you mentioned workforce.</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:05:49] Sarah Reed: </strong>I was going to say, so we&#8217;ve seen from a system approach, when you&#8217;re talking about job quality, it&#8217;s never just one thing. There&#8217;s really a lot things that go into play. Through some of our investments, we&#8217;ve seen different populations. We&#8217;ve seen those that are more employable, but they&#8217;re looking to really improve their employment situation through growth and career advancement. Then we&#8217;ve also had some of our investments that are more social service-based.</p> <p class="">They&#8217;re really looking at, these are people with significant barriers to employment. How can we provide those wrap-around services, get them stable from a health standpoint, get them stable from a housing standpoint, from a transportation standpoint, because that&#8217;s going to allow them to be more confident in their work environment? Working with employers to integrate into that process along the way, because it&#8217;s only when you put that full wrap-around support in place that those employees are going to be successful and reenter the workforce. That&#8217;s one way we&#8217;ve looked at it.</p> <p class="">Then also from a financial aspect of it, with just our lending to employers, really from a systems approach, one of the things we&#8217;ve learned is that you really have to have this conversation up front early in the underwriting portion of your conversations, because otherwise, like I said, once the money goes out the door and it&#8217;s in the hands of the employer to do whatever it is they&#8217;re going to do, build a building, buy equipment, to have it for working capital, it&#8217;s really out of your control as far as accountability goes. It&#8217;s really having those conversations early and upfront and embedding those into some of the deal terms to the extent that you can.</p> <p class="">Whether it&#8217;s using more of a carrot or a stick, it depends on the situation. Sometimes you can build an incentive into the financing structure that says if you actually do achieve these outcomes and you increase employer wages or you put these other benefits in place, maybe we&#8217;ll reduce an interest rate later on or some refund to them. There&#8217;s ways to do it that way, or there&#8217;s just covenants built into the loan structures themselves that say, really, you have to meet these metrics as part of the financing package.</p> <p class="">It&#8217;s really just looking at what you&#8217;re ultimately trying to achieve with the capital. Are we looking at job quantity or quality? I would say from an economic development lens, a lot of community economic developers really just think about the job quantity, and they&#8217;re like, &#8220;Oh, this employer is going to bring 500 jobs to the community.&#8221; If those aren&#8217;t good jobs, it&#8217;s not going to keep the people there. It&#8217;s not going to support the bigger infrastructure, especially in rural communities.</p> <p class="">Those jobs have to be good quality jobs that are going to attract not only employers to that business, but also is it going to help keep the health care system open? Are doctors going to want to live in that community? Are the schools going to be good that those employees are going to want to stay in that community as well? I think there&#8217;s a bigger system to consider as you&#8217;re talking about job quality than just the wage and just the number of jobs.</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:09:23] Maureen Conway: </strong>Great. Thank you. Before we close, I want to give you each just a quick final word. If there&#8217;s one nugget or piece of wisdom that you want to make sure that you share with our audience about the work that you do, and how to improve job quality in the South. I&#8217;m going to go Sherra, Jen, Thelma, Sarah. Sherra, kick us off. Final words of wisdom.</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:09:50] Sherra Bennett: </strong>If we truly care about economic mobility in the South, we have to care about job quality because both are present in our current reality and historical reality. The South has long been shaped by economies built on the labor of workers who were essential but not treated with dignity. For funders, this is not just an economic issue, it is a responsibility. The how matters in investing beyond programs into organizing, worker voice, and really, really, philanthropy funding, organizing, and worker voice. I would just definitely note that for job quality.</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:10:27] Maureen Conway: </strong>Great. Thank you. Jen?</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:10:30] Jennifer Epps: </strong>Thanks. Just on the system level, because you made me think about it a little bit, I think some of the most exciting pieces that I&#8217;m seeing on a system level around worker organizing is the sectoral work and taking on and thinking about specific sectors and how you improve that sector that could actually transform in a region or a state or just that sector in general and having a lot of implications. Thinking about clean energy, thinking about manufacturing, thinking about the <strong>[unintelligible 01:11:00]</strong> economy, all of those sectors if really taken seriously on improving standards could have a ripple effect on the rest of the world and the country.</p> <p class="">Also thinking about my wisdom around the South is so incredibly important and making sure that&#8211; I&#8217;ve heard from a lot of folks before, is that as the South goes, so goes the country. We&#8217;ve heard W.E.B. Du Bois talk about that. Really, what we&#8217;re seeing is potentially a race to the bottom. If we are not clear about making sure that standards are good and workers are treated well and have what they need in the South, we are only going to be moving the rest of the country in that direction.</p> <p class="">It&#8217;s critically important that we think about the South being fundamentally one of the most important regions that we all should be investing in. To my friend, my funder friend, and grant makers, if your mission is to strengthen the US economy, your strategy has to include the South. If the country is going to have the economy that we think is going to reach its fullest potential, we can&#8217;t let the South be the escape hatch for employers to create poor-quality jobs. I think there&#8217;s plenty of organizing that can be done. LIFT is proud to continue to do that work. We hope that you join us. That&#8217;s my word of wisdom.</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:12:36] Maureen Conway: </strong>Great. Thank you. Thelma, last words of wisdom? Oh, you just muted yourself.</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:12:44] Thelma Johnson: </strong>Oh, am I?</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:12:46] Maureen Conway: </strong>Now we can hear you.</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:12:46] Thelma Johnson: </strong>Thank you. I&#8217;m sorry about it. Yes, I&#8217;m so sorry. This is just one of those weather alert days. As I mentioned, it started to happen, but I&#8217;m glad to be at the end now. That&#8217;s a question that I appreciate because CDFIs learn best from each other. We&#8217;re a small field, and the work is hard, and there&#8217;s no reason for us to figure it out separately. We can do partnerships, understanding from everybody. The first lesson that we had to learn is that capital alone is not a strategy. We have to keep coming back to that and understand because we&#8217;re lenders. We may think that sometimes we can do the best loan, the best terms, and the most promising borrow.</p> <p class="">We have to understand, and I think Sarah had mentioned it, when we have the best intentions, if we don&#8217;t provide or try to encourage, be the convener or the connector to help provide wraparound services, then our loan may not get repaid. That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re in business to do. To make sure that we are able to revolve funding back in the community so we can continue to provide that capital but not just looking at capital alone as a strategy. I would say that&#8217;s the most important things that I can say to CDFIs in the industry trying to impact job quality, that capital alone is not the only strategy.</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:14:06] Maureen Conway: </strong>Great. That&#8217;s fantastic. I love capital alone is not a strategy. Sarah?</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:14:11] Sarah Reed: </strong>I&#8217;ll just piggyback off that, Thelma, because one thing we say a lot around here is that we&#8217;re always better when we work together, when we&#8217;re working with community partners, when we&#8217;re working with community banks. There&#8217;s really not one solution when you&#8217;re looking at capital, especially for some of those nearly bankable type businesses and organizations. Sometimes you&#8217;ve got to get creative and be flexible. I think that&#8217;s really where the CDFIs can come into play.</p> <p class="">We have a lot more flexibility with that, but that we also have to be really intentional because otherwise you can lose the mission and the meaning really fast. When it comes to the job quality aspect of what we do, I think it&#8217;s important to think about that job quantity and job quality are not the same. When you&#8217;re in that economic development, community development space, sometimes the focus really just becomes on the numbers.</p> <p class="">Maybe 200 jobs sound great, but if they&#8217;re not sustainable jobs, and they&#8217;re not creating sustainable living situations for employees, maybe you would have been better off with 60 really good quality jobs that are helping that community thrive. Just to keep things in perspective as you&#8217;re looking at opportunities and really try to put the capital where you think it&#8217;s going to be most effective and responsible.</p> <p class=""><strong>[01:15:35] Maureen Conway: </strong>I love that. Thank you. Thank you all. I love that you all, in different ways, demonstrate the wonderful focus on mission, passion for the work, and willingness to be very interdisciplinary, and don&#8217;t get too married to the method, keep focused on the mission. I love that. Thank you so much, Jen, Thelma, Sarah, and Sherra, for joining me today. This was great conversation. As always, big, big, big thanks to my team at Aspen, including Nora, Frances, Tony, Matt, Colleen, Max, and Sinin, for their support on today&#8217;s event. Thank you all in the audience for your questions, your attention, your support, your cheers.</p> <p class="">Please join us for our next event on May 19th, <em>When Work Isn&#8217;t Enough, Improving Job Quality for ALICE Households</em>. Sherra, I think we get you back for that, right? All right. If you love Sherra, and who doesn&#8217;t, come on back. Join us June 2nd and 3rd, in person or virtually, for the Employee Ownership Ideas Forum. Thank you all so much. Hopefully, we will see you again soon.</p> </details> <h2 class="wp-block-heading has-h3-variant" id="h-highlights"><strong>Highlights</strong></h2> <p class="">For highlights from this discussion,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/@aspeneop/">subscribe to our YouTube channel</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/aspeneop/">subscribe to our podcast</a>&nbsp;to listen on the go.&nbsp;<a href="https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpS-H4HC9YKMLbuzCO8VcALer5TQa8hxK&amp;si=dDUdKVgUYhhcwsxt">Check out our playlist&nbsp;</a>or click below to watch.</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <iframe loading="lazy" title="People. Places. Possibility. Power: The 4 Ps Framework for Job Quality" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XlDOHzkanxI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> </div></figure> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <iframe loading="lazy" title="Redesigning Work After COVID: Childcare, Flexibility, and Job Quality" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vsNAhlIyDSw?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> </div></figure> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <iframe loading="lazy" title="Why Clean Energy Investment Must Create Good Jobs" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PdU1v-Udk1c?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> </div></figure> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> <iframe loading="lazy" title="What Makes a Job Worth Investing In? Community Investment and Quality Job Creation" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AdUBOSNYw7U?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> </div></figure> <h2 class="wp-block-heading has-h3-variant" id="h-about-this-event"><strong>About this event</strong></h2> <p class="">This event — hosted by the Aspen Institute <a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/economic-opportunities-program/">Economic Opportunities Program</a> on May 7, 2026 — explores how philanthropic and financial capital can play a meaningful role in supporting efforts to improve job quality. <a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/job-quality-fellowship/class-of-2025-26/">Job Quality Fellows</a> from across the South will share examples from their own communities, including where they see opportunities and challenges in investing in job quality and what they’re learning. The conversation surfaces lessons about how funders and investors can show up as partners in the long-term work of building a South where good jobs are the norm, not the exception.</p> <p class="">Improving job quality takes many forms and tactics — as does the funding that supports it. Some businesses need access to capital or technical assistance to build better jobs. Workers and advocates need resources to organize, push for higher standards, and shape the policies that govern work. And the field itself needs investment to grow the knowledge, networks, and infrastructure that make progress possible.&nbsp;</p> <p class="">Our speakers include Thelma Adams Johnson (Albany Community Together), Sherra Bennett (Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation), Jennifer Epps (The LIFT Fund), Sarah Reed (Metafund Corporation), and moderator Maureen Conway (Aspen Institute).</p> <p class="">This event is part of our <a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/economic-opportunities-program/series/job-quality-in-practice/">Job Quality in Practice</a> series. It is also the fourth in our four-part miniseries,<a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/economic-opportunities-program/series/fixing-work-in-the-south-perspectives-from-job-quality-fellows/"> Fixing Work in the South</a>, which brings together<a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/job-quality-fellowship/class-of-2025-26/"> Job Quality Fellows</a> who are on the frontlines of expanding access to good jobs in communities across the American South.</p> <div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-b5423e51 wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained" style="padding-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--xsmall);padding-right:var(--wp--preset--spacing--xsmall);padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--xsmall);padding-left:var(--wp--preset--spacing--xsmall)"> <div class="wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-a89b3969 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex"> <div class="wp-block-button"><a class="wp-block-button__link wp-element-button" href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/events/investing-in-job-quality-in-the-south/">Return to Event Page<span class="wp-block-button__effect"></span></a></div> </div> </div> <div class="wp-block-group alignfull has-primary-wash-background-color has-background is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained" style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--medium);padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--medium)"> <h2 class="wp-block-heading has-h4-variant" id="h-about-job-quality-in-practice">About Job Quality in Practice</h2> <p class=""><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/series/job-quality-in-practice/">Job Quality in Practice</a>, a webinar series hosted by the <a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/economic-opportunities-program/">Economic Opportunities Program</a>, presents actionable tools and guidance to help leaders improve jobs and connect to a growing national conversation.</p> </div> <div class="wp-block-group alignfull has-primary-light-background-color has-background is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained" style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--medium);padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--medium)"> <h2 class="wp-block-heading has-h4-variant" id="h-about-the-economic-opportunities-program">About the Economic Opportunities Program</h2> <p class="">The Aspen Institute <a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/economic-opportunities-program/">Economic Opportunities Program</a> advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy.</p> </div> <div class="wp-block-group alignfull has-primary-background-color has-background is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained" style="padding-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--medium);padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--medium)"> <div class="wp-block-group alignwide is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"> <h2 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-left has-h4-variant" id="h-join-our-mailing-list">Join Our Mailing List</h2> <p class="">To receive occasional emails about our work — including new publications, commentary, events, fellowships, and more — join our mailing list.</p> <div class="wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-a89b3969 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex"> <div class="wp-block-button"><a class="wp-block-button__link wp-element-button" href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/economic-opportunities-program/connect/">Subscribe<span class="wp-block-button__effect"></span></a></div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="wp-block-group alignfull has-primary-dark-background-color has-background is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained" style="padding-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--medium);padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--medium)"> <div class="wp-block-group alignwide is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"> <h2 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-left has-h4-variant" id="h-connect-on-social-media">Connect on Social Media</h2> <p class="has-text-align-left" style="padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--xsmall)">For news and updates every day, connect with us on the social media platform of your choice.</p> <ul class="wp-block-social-links has-normal-icon-size has-icon-color is-style-logos-only is-horizontal is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-social-links-is-layout-dc18818c wp-block-social-links-is-layout-flex" style="margin-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--xsmall);margin-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--xsmall)"><li style="color:var( --wdg-color-white );" class="wp-social-link wp-social-link-bluesky has-white-color wp-block-social-link"><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/eop.aspeninstitute.org" class="wp-block-social-link-anchor"><svg width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-hidden="true" focusable="false"><path d="M6.3,4.2c2.3,1.7,4.8,5.3,5.7,7.2.9-1.9,3.4-5.4,5.7-7.2,1.7-1.3,4.3-2.2,4.3.9s-.4,5.2-.6,5.9c-.7,2.6-3.3,3.2-5.6,2.8,4,.7,5.1,3,2.9,5.3-5,5.2-6.7-2.8-6.7-2.8,0,0-1.7,8-6.7,2.8-2.2-2.3-1.2-4.6,2.9-5.3-2.3.4-4.9-.3-5.6-2.8-.2-.7-.6-5.3-.6-5.9,0-3.1,2.7-2.1,4.3-.9h0Z"></path></svg><span class="wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text">Bluesky</span></a></li> <li style="color:var( --wdg-color-white );" class="wp-social-link wp-social-link-facebook has-white-color wp-block-social-link"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/AspenEOP/" class="wp-block-social-link-anchor"><svg width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-hidden="true" focusable="false"><path d="M12 2C6.5 2 2 6.5 2 12c0 5 3.7 9.1 8.4 9.9v-7H7.9V12h2.5V9.8c0-2.5 1.5-3.9 3.8-3.9 1.1 0 2.2.2 2.2.2v2.5h-1.3c-1.2 0-1.6.8-1.6 1.6V12h2.8l-.4 2.9h-2.3v7C18.3 21.1 22 17 22 12c0-5.5-4.5-10-10-10z"></path></svg><span class="wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text">Facebook</span></a></li> <li style="color:var( --wdg-color-white );" class="wp-social-link wp-social-link-instagram has-white-color wp-block-social-link"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/aspeneop/" class="wp-block-social-link-anchor"><svg width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-hidden="true" focusable="false"><path d="M12,4.622c2.403,0,2.688,0.009,3.637,0.052c0.877,0.04,1.354,0.187,1.671,0.31c0.42,0.163,0.72,0.358,1.035,0.673 c0.315,0.315,0.51,0.615,0.673,1.035c0.123,0.317,0.27,0.794,0.31,1.671c0.043,0.949,0.052,1.234,0.052,3.637 s-0.009,2.688-0.052,3.637c-0.04,0.877-0.187,1.354-0.31,1.671c-0.163,0.42-0.358,0.72-0.673,1.035 c-0.315,0.315-0.615,0.51-1.035,0.673c-0.317,0.123-0.794,0.27-1.671,0.31c-0.949,0.043-1.233,0.052-3.637,0.052 s-2.688-0.009-3.637-0.052c-0.877-0.04-1.354-0.187-1.671-0.31c-0.42-0.163-0.72-0.358-1.035-0.673 c-0.315-0.315-0.51-0.615-0.673-1.035c-0.123-0.317-0.27-0.794-0.31-1.671C4.631,14.688,4.622,14.403,4.622,12 s0.009-2.688,0.052-3.637c0.04-0.877,0.187-1.354,0.31-1.671c0.163-0.42,0.358-0.72,0.673-1.035 c0.315-0.315,0.615-0.51,1.035-0.673c0.317-0.123,0.794-0.27,1.671-0.31C9.312,4.631,9.597,4.622,12,4.622 M12,3 C9.556,3,9.249,3.01,8.289,3.054C7.331,3.098,6.677,3.25,6.105,3.472C5.513,3.702,5.011,4.01,4.511,4.511 c-0.5,0.5-0.808,1.002-1.038,1.594C3.25,6.677,3.098,7.331,3.054,8.289C3.01,9.249,3,9.556,3,12c0,2.444,0.01,2.751,0.054,3.711 c0.044,0.958,0.196,1.612,0.418,2.185c0.23,0.592,0.538,1.094,1.038,1.594c0.5,0.5,1.002,0.808,1.594,1.038 c0.572,0.222,1.227,0.375,2.185,0.418C9.249,20.99,9.556,21,12,21s2.751-0.01,3.711-0.054c0.958-0.044,1.612-0.196,2.185-0.418 c0.592-0.23,1.094-0.538,1.594-1.038c0.5-0.5,0.808-1.002,1.038-1.594c0.222-0.572,0.375-1.227,0.418-2.185 C20.99,14.751,21,14.444,21,12s-0.01-2.751-0.054-3.711c-0.044-0.958-0.196-1.612-0.418-2.185c-0.23-0.592-0.538-1.094-1.038-1.594 c-0.5-0.5-1.002-0.808-1.594-1.038c-0.572-0.222-1.227-0.375-2.185-0.418C14.751,3.01,14.444,3,12,3L12,3z M12,7.378 c-2.552,0-4.622,2.069-4.622,4.622S9.448,16.622,12,16.622s4.622-2.069,4.622-4.622S14.552,7.378,12,7.378z M12,15 c-1.657,0-3-1.343-3-3s1.343-3,3-3s3,1.343,3,3S13.657,15,12,15z M16.804,6.116c-0.596,0-1.08,0.484-1.08,1.08 s0.484,1.08,1.08,1.08c0.596,0,1.08-0.484,1.08-1.08S17.401,6.116,16.804,6.116z"></path></svg><span class="wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text">Instagram</span></a></li> <li style="color:var( --wdg-color-white );" class="wp-social-link wp-social-link-linkedin has-white-color wp-block-social-link"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspeneop/" class="wp-block-social-link-anchor"><svg width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-hidden="true" focusable="false"><path d="M19.7,3H4.3C3.582,3,3,3.582,3,4.3v15.4C3,20.418,3.582,21,4.3,21h15.4c0.718,0,1.3-0.582,1.3-1.3V4.3 C21,3.582,20.418,3,19.7,3z M8.339,18.338H5.667v-8.59h2.672V18.338z M7.004,8.574c-0.857,0-1.549-0.694-1.549-1.548 c0-0.855,0.691-1.548,1.549-1.548c0.854,0,1.547,0.694,1.547,1.548C8.551,7.881,7.858,8.574,7.004,8.574z M18.339,18.338h-2.669 v-4.177c0-0.996-0.017-2.278-1.387-2.278c-1.389,0-1.601,1.086-1.601,2.206v4.249h-2.667v-8.59h2.559v1.174h0.037 c0.356-0.675,1.227-1.387,2.526-1.387c2.703,0,3.203,1.779,3.203,4.092V18.338z"></path></svg><span class="wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text">LinkedIn</span></a></li> <li style="color:var( --wdg-color-white );" class="wp-social-link wp-social-link-threads has-white-color wp-block-social-link"><a href="https://www.threads.com/@aspeneop" class="wp-block-social-link-anchor"><svg width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-hidden="true" focusable="false"><path d="M16.3 11.3c-.1 0-.2-.1-.2-.1-.1-2.6-1.5-4-3.9-4-1.4 0-2.6.6-3.3 1.7l1.3.9c.5-.8 1.4-1 2-1 .8 0 1.4.2 1.7.7.3.3.5.8.5 1.3-.7-.1-1.4-.2-2.2-.1-2.2.1-3.7 1.4-3.6 3.2 0 .9.5 1.7 1.3 2.2.7.4 1.5.6 2.4.6 1.2-.1 2.1-.5 2.7-1.3.5-.6.8-1.4.9-2.4.6.3 1 .8 1.2 1.3.4.9.4 2.4-.8 3.6-1.1 1.1-2.3 1.5-4.3 1.5-2.1 0-3.8-.7-4.8-2S5.7 14.3 5.7 12c0-2.3.5-4.1 1.5-5.4 1.1-1.3 2.7-2 4.8-2 2.2 0 3.8.7 4.9 2 .5.7.9 1.5 1.2 2.5l1.5-.4c-.3-1.2-.8-2.2-1.5-3.1-1.3-1.7-3.3-2.6-6-2.6-2.6 0-4.7.9-6 2.6C4.9 7.2 4.3 9.3 4.3 12s.6 4.8 1.9 6.4c1.4 1.7 3.4 2.6 6 2.6 2.3 0 4-.6 5.3-2 1.8-1.8 1.7-4 1.1-5.4-.4-.9-1.2-1.7-2.3-2.3zm-4 3.8c-1 .1-2-.4-2-1.3 0-.7.5-1.5 2.1-1.6h.5c.6 0 1.1.1 1.6.2-.2 2.3-1.3 2.7-2.2 2.7z"/></svg><span class="wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text">Threads</span></a></li> <li style="color:var( --wdg-color-white );" class="wp-social-link wp-social-link-x has-white-color wp-block-social-link"><a href="https://x.com/AspenEOP" class="wp-block-social-link-anchor"><svg width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-hidden="true" focusable="false"><path d="M13.982 10.622 20.54 3h-1.554l-5.693 6.618L8.745 3H3.5l6.876 10.007L3.5 21h1.554l6.012-6.989L15.868 21h5.245l-7.131-10.378Zm-2.128 2.474-.697-.997-5.543-7.93H8l4.474 6.4.697.996 5.815 8.318h-2.387l-4.745-6.787Z" /></svg><span class="wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text">X</span></a></li> <li style="color:var( --wdg-color-white );" class="wp-social-link wp-social-link-youtube has-white-color wp-block-social-link"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@AspenEOP" class="wp-block-social-link-anchor"><svg width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-hidden="true" focusable="false"><path d="M21.8,8.001c0,0-0.195-1.378-0.795-1.985c-0.76-0.797-1.613-0.801-2.004-0.847c-2.799-0.202-6.997-0.202-6.997-0.202 h-0.009c0,0-4.198,0-6.997,0.202C4.608,5.216,3.756,5.22,2.995,6.016C2.395,6.623,2.2,8.001,2.2,8.001S2,9.62,2,11.238v1.517 c0,1.618,0.2,3.237,0.2,3.237s0.195,1.378,0.795,1.985c0.761,0.797,1.76,0.771,2.205,0.855c1.6,0.153,6.8,0.201,6.8,0.201 s4.203-0.006,7.001-0.209c0.391-0.047,1.243-0.051,2.004-0.847c0.6-0.607,0.795-1.985,0.795-1.985s0.2-1.618,0.2-3.237v-1.517 C22,9.62,21.8,8.001,21.8,8.001z M9.935,14.594l-0.001-5.62l5.404,2.82L9.935,14.594z"></path></svg><span class="wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text">YouTube</span></a></li></ul> </div> </div> <div class="card-slider alignfull has-grid-spacing-small"><div class="card-slider__nav"> <h2 class="wp-block-heading has-h4-variant" id="h-more-from-the-economic-opportunities-program">More from the Economic Opportunities Program</h2> <button type="button" class="card-slider__go card-slider__go--back" aria-label="Previous"> <svg class="svg svg--svg-assets-svg-icon-arrow-left" role="img" focusable="false" height="0" width="0"><use xlink:href="#svg-assets-svg-icon-arrow-left"/></svg> </button> <button type="button" class="card-slider__go card-slider__go--forward" aria-label="Next"> <svg class="svg svg--svg-assets-svg-icon-arrow-right" role="img" focusable="false" height="0" width="0"><use xlink:href="#svg-assets-svg-icon-arrow-right"/></svg> </button> </div> <div class="card-slider__content"><div class="dyn-card"> <div class="dyn-card__wrap"> <div class="dyn-card__media"> <figure class="dyn-card__image"> <a class="dyn-card__image-link" href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/resources-curated-for-your-organization/" tabindex="-1"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="640" height="360" src="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Feature-1-JQCE.png" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="Resources Curated for Your Organization" style="object-position: 50% 50%" /> </a> </figure> <div class="dyn-card__label"> <span class="has-meta-variant">Blog Posts</span> </div> </div> <div class="dyn-card__content"> <h2 class="dyn-card__title has-h5-variant"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/resources-curated-for-your-organization/">Resources Curated for Your Organization</a></h2><div class="dyn-card__excerpt">At the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program, we believe that every US job should be–and can be–a good job. But for too many workers, that is far from reality. That is why we launched the Job Quality Center of Excellence. </div><p class="dyn-card__meta dyn-card__date"><button class="favorite" data-id="208167" data-state="" title="Favorites are not currently available" disabled><span class="favorite__on">Unfavorite</span><span class="favorite__off">Favorite</span><svg class="svg svg--svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark" role="img" focusable="false" height="15" width="11"><use xlink:href="#svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark"/></svg></button><time>May 12, 2026</time></p><ul class="dyn-card__meta dyn-card__people"><li class="dyn-card__person"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/people/merrit-stuven/">Merrit Stüven</a></li></ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="dyn-card"> <div class="dyn-card__wrap"> <div class="dyn-card__media"> <figure class="dyn-card__image"> <a class="dyn-card__image-link" href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/wages-scheduling-benefits-explore-job-quality-by-issue-area/" tabindex="-1"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="640" height="360" src="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Feature-1-JQCE.png" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="Wages, Scheduling, Benefits: Explore Job Quality by Issue Area" style="object-position: 50% 50%" /> </a> </figure> <div class="dyn-card__label"> <span class="has-meta-variant">Blog Posts</span> </div> </div> <div class="dyn-card__content"> <h2 class="dyn-card__title has-h5-variant"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/wages-scheduling-benefits-explore-job-quality-by-issue-area/">Wages, Scheduling, Benefits: Explore Job Quality by Issue Area</a></h2><div class="dyn-card__excerpt">At the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program, we believe that every US job should be–and can be–a good job. But for too many workers, that is far from reality. That is why we launched the Job Quality Center of Excellence. </div><p class="dyn-card__meta dyn-card__date"><button class="favorite" data-id="202757" data-state="" title="Favorites are not currently available" disabled><span class="favorite__on">Unfavorite</span><span class="favorite__off">Favorite</span><svg class="svg svg--svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark" role="img" focusable="false" height="15" width="11"><use xlink:href="#svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark"/></svg></button><time>May 8, 2026</time></p><ul class="dyn-card__meta dyn-card__people"><li class="dyn-card__person"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/people/merrit-stuven/">Merrit Stüven</a></li></ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="dyn-card"> <div class="dyn-card__wrap"> <div class="dyn-card__media"> <figure class="dyn-card__image"> <a class="dyn-card__image-link" href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/videos/what-is-shared-success/" tabindex="-1"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="482" height="271" src="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-07-at-10.24.56-AM.png" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="What is Shared Success?" style="object-position: 50% 50%" /> </a> </figure> <div class="dyn-card__label"> <span class="has-meta-variant">Videos</span> </div> </div> <div class="dyn-card__content"> <h2 class="dyn-card__title has-h5-variant"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/videos/what-is-shared-success/">What is Shared Success?</a></h2><div class="dyn-card__excerpt">Video — Shared Success, a project of the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program, is grounded in the understanding that building better jobs and building stronger businesses go hand in hand. </div><p class="dyn-card__meta dyn-card__date"><button class="favorite" data-id="204847" data-state="" title="Favorites are not currently available" disabled><span class="favorite__on">Unfavorite</span><span class="favorite__off">Favorite</span><svg class="svg svg--svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark" role="img" focusable="false" height="15" width="11"><use xlink:href="#svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark"/></svg></button><time>May 7, 2026</time></p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="dyn-card"> <div class="dyn-card__wrap"> <div class="dyn-card__media"> <figure class="dyn-card__image"> <a class="dyn-card__image-link" href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/videos/investing-in-job-quality-in-the-south/" tabindex="-1"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1500" height="785" src="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/GettyImages-1178920032-1-1500x785.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="Investing in Job Quality in the South" style="object-position: 50% 50%" /> </a> </figure> <div class="dyn-card__label"> <span class="has-meta-variant">Podcasts</span> <span>Videos</span> </div> </div> <div class="dyn-card__content"> <h2 class="dyn-card__title has-h5-variant"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/videos/investing-in-job-quality-in-the-south/">Investing in Job Quality in the South</a></h2><div class="dyn-card__excerpt">This is the final event in our Job Quality in Practice series. In this conversation, hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program on May 7, 2026, we hear from the Institute’s Job Quality Fellows who are embedding job quality into their work across a range of contexts and strategies — from employee ownership models that give workers a direct financial stake in their company&#8217;s success, to apprenticeship programs that create structured pathways to higher-wage careers, to worker advisory committees that bring employee voice into business decision-making.</div><p class="dyn-card__meta dyn-card__date"><button class="favorite" data-id="191342" data-state="" title="Favorites are not currently available" disabled><span class="favorite__on">Unfavorite</span><span class="favorite__off">Favorite</span><svg class="svg svg--svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark" role="img" focusable="false" height="15" width="11"><use xlink:href="#svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark"/></svg></button><time>May 7, 2026</time></p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="dyn-card"> <div class="dyn-card__wrap"> <div class="dyn-card__media"> <figure class="dyn-card__image"> <a class="dyn-card__image-link" href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/upcoming-events-from-the-economic-opportunities-program-may-2026/" tabindex="-1"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="640" height="360" src="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Upcoming-Events.png" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="Upcoming Events from the Economic Opportunities Program — May 2026" style="object-position: 50% 50%" /> </a> </figure> <div class="dyn-card__label"> <span class="has-meta-variant">Blog Posts</span> </div> </div> <div class="dyn-card__content"> <h2 class="dyn-card__title has-h5-variant"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/upcoming-events-from-the-economic-opportunities-program-may-2026/">Upcoming Events from the Economic Opportunities Program — May 2026</a></h2><p class="dyn-card__meta dyn-card__date"><button class="favorite" data-id="202961" data-state="" title="Favorites are not currently available" disabled><span class="favorite__on">Unfavorite</span><span class="favorite__off">Favorite</span><svg class="svg svg--svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark" role="img" focusable="false" height="15" width="11"><use xlink:href="#svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark"/></svg></button><time>May 4, 2026</time></p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="dyn-card"> <div class="dyn-card__wrap"> <div class="dyn-card__media"> <figure class="dyn-card__image"> <a class="dyn-card__image-link" href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/economic-opportunities-program-monthly-digest-april-2026/" tabindex="-1"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="640" height="360" src="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Monthly-Digest-card.png" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="Economic Opportunities Program Monthly Digest — April 2026" style="object-position: 50% 50%" /> </a> </figure> <div class="dyn-card__label"> <span class="has-meta-variant">Blog Posts</span> </div> </div> <div class="dyn-card__content"> <h2 class="dyn-card__title has-h5-variant"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/economic-opportunities-program-monthly-digest-april-2026/">Economic Opportunities Program Monthly Digest — April 2026</a></h2><p class="dyn-card__meta dyn-card__date"><button class="favorite" data-id="201013" data-state="" title="Favorites are not currently available" disabled><span class="favorite__on">Unfavorite</span><span class="favorite__off">Favorite</span><svg class="svg svg--svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark" role="img" focusable="false" height="15" width="11"><use xlink:href="#svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark"/></svg></button><time>May 1, 2026</time></p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="dyn-card"> <div class="dyn-card__wrap"> <div class="dyn-card__media"> <figure class="dyn-card__image"> <a class="dyn-card__image-link" href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/explore-our-job-quality-topic-guides/" tabindex="-1"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="640" height="360" src="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Feature-1-JQCE.png" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="Explore our Job Quality Topic Guides" style="object-position: 50% 50%" /> </a> </figure> <div class="dyn-card__label"> <span class="has-meta-variant">Blog Posts</span> </div> </div> <div class="dyn-card__content"> <h2 class="dyn-card__title has-h5-variant"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/explore-our-job-quality-topic-guides/">Explore our Job Quality Topic Guides</a></h2><div class="dyn-card__excerpt">At the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program, we believe that every US job should be–and can be–a good job. But for too many workers, that is far from reality. That is why we launched the Job Quality Center of Excellence. </div><p class="dyn-card__meta dyn-card__date"><button class="favorite" data-id="200757" data-state="" title="Favorites are not currently available" disabled><span class="favorite__on">Unfavorite</span><span class="favorite__off">Favorite</span><svg class="svg svg--svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark" role="img" focusable="false" height="15" width="11"><use xlink:href="#svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark"/></svg></button><time>May 1, 2026</time></p><ul class="dyn-card__meta dyn-card__people"><li class="dyn-card__person"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/people/merrit-stuven/">Merrit Stüven</a></li></ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="dyn-card"> <div class="dyn-card__wrap"> <div class="dyn-card__media"> <figure class="dyn-card__image"> <a class="dyn-card__image-link" href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/resource-roundup-a-look-at-job-quality-in-the-south/" tabindex="-1"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1500" height="1002" src="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/GettyImages-500937966-1500x1002.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="Resource Roundup: A Look at Job Quality in the South" style="object-position: 50% 50%" /> </a> </figure> <div class="dyn-card__label"> <span class="has-meta-variant">Blog Posts</span> </div> </div> <div class="dyn-card__content"> <h2 class="dyn-card__title has-h5-variant"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/resource-roundup-a-look-at-job-quality-in-the-south/">Resource Roundup: A Look at Job Quality in the South</a></h2><p class="dyn-card__meta dyn-card__date"><button class="favorite" data-id="203652" data-state="" title="Favorites are not currently available" disabled><span class="favorite__on">Unfavorite</span><span class="favorite__off">Favorite</span><svg class="svg svg--svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark" role="img" focusable="false" height="15" width="11"><use xlink:href="#svg-assets-svg-icon-bookmark"/></svg></button><time>April 30, 2026</time></p><ul class="dyn-card__meta dyn-card__people"><li class="dyn-card__person"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/people/maxwell-johnson/">Maxwell Johnson</a></li></ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"> <h2 class="wp-block-heading has-h4-variant" id="h-about-this-post">About This Post</h2> <div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"> <h3 class="wp-block-heading has-kicker-variant" id="h-people-authors">People/Authors</h3> <div class="post-taxonomies"> <div class="post-taxonomies__layout"> </div> </div> </div> <div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"> <h3 class="wp-block-heading has-kicker-variant" id="h-series">Series</h3> <div class="post-taxonomies"> <div class="post-taxonomies__layout"> <ul class="post-taxonomy"><li class="post-taxonomy__term"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/?taxonomy=series_tax&#038;term=job-quality-in-practice">Job Quality in Practice</a></li></ul> <ul class="post-taxonomy"><li class="post-taxonomy__term"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/economic-opportunities-program/series/job-quality-in-practice/">Job Quality in Practice</a></li></ul> <ul class="post-taxonomy"><li class="post-taxonomy__term"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/?taxonomy=series_2822_tax&#038;term=fixing-work-in-the-south-perspectives-from-job-quality-fellows">Fixing Work in the South: Perspectives from Job Quality Fellows</a></li></ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"> <h3 class="wp-block-heading has-kicker-variant" id="h-programs">Programs</h3> <div class="post-taxonomies"> <div class="post-taxonomies__layout"> <ul class="post-taxonomy"><li class="post-taxonomy__term"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/economic-opportunities-program/">Economic Opportunities Program</a></li></ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"> <h3 class="wp-block-heading has-kicker-variant" id="h-tags">Tags</h3> <div class="post-taxonomies"> <div class="post-taxonomies__layout"> <ul class="post-taxonomy"><li class="post-taxonomy__term"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/tag/economic-development/">economic development</a></li><li class="post-taxonomy__term"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/tag/events/">events</a></li><li class="post-taxonomy__term"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/tag/good-jobs/">Good Jobs</a></li><li class="post-taxonomy__term"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/tag/job-quality/">Job Quality</a></li><li class="post-taxonomy__term"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/tag/job-quality-fellows-workforce-development/">Job Quality Fellows &#8211; Workforce Development</a></li></ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"> <h3 class="wp-block-heading has-kicker-variant" id="h-topics">Topics</h3> <div class="post-taxonomies"> <div class="post-taxonomies__layout"> <ul class="post-taxonomy"><li class="post-taxonomy__term"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/topic/economic-opportunity/">Economic Opportunity</a></li></ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"> <h3 class="wp-block-heading has-kicker-variant" id="h-impact-areas">Impact Areas</h3> <div class="post-taxonomies"> <div class="post-taxonomies__layout"> <ul class="post-taxonomy"><li class="post-taxonomy__term"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/impact-area/economic-opportunity/">Economic Opportunity</a></li></ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"> <h3 class="wp-block-heading has-kicker-variant" id="h-content-categories">Content Categories</h3> <div class="post-taxonomies"> <div class="post-taxonomies__layout"> <ul class="post-taxonomy"><li class="post-taxonomy__term"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/category/podcasts/">Podcasts</a></li><li class="post-taxonomy__term"><a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/category/videos/">Videos</a></li></ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> <p class=""></p> <p>The post <a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/videos/investing-in-job-quality-in-the-south/">Investing in Job Quality in the South</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org">Aspen Institute</a>.</p>