WorkRise will host a set of webinars from October 18 to October 20, 2022 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET as part of a three-day conference entitled, "Charting a Resilient Future for US Workers: Solutions to Navigate an Uncertain Economy." The webinars will highlight the highs and lows that workers and families have faced as a result of seismic shifts in the economy. The COVID-19 pandemic dealt a once-in-a-lifetime economic shock, followed by a robust government response to stabilize the economy. Nearly three years later, a tight labor market has led to historic wage growth and better jobs—particularly for workers earning low wages. Inflation, however, has undermined these gains, and policies to control prices could lead to higher unemployment. Longer-term trends such as income inequality, automation, climate change, and demographic shifts pose uncertainty for the present and future of work.

The conference explores the challenge and promise of the current moment, innovative policies and practices aimed at improving job quality and economic mobility, and creative, cross-sector solutions that are turning risk into resilience so that workers, businesses, and communities can thrive. Each day’s webinar will be anchored around a specific theme – The Challenge and Promise of the Current Moment (October 18); Innovative Practices to Shape the Future of Work (October 19); Turning Threats into Opportunity (October 20) – with presentations from stakeholder networks, including workers, employers, policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and advocates who will share actionable insights and solutions to navigate the road ahead. Workers will also share reflections on their experiences with economic uncertainty and their hopes about the future.

In the face of a public health emergency, economic downturn, or other unexpected circumstance, TANF agencies and other human services providers are required to reimagine and adapt previous expectations, behaviors, and service provision for a digital, dispersed, and/or displaced environment. At the same time, TANF agencies often face growing caseloads and increasing needs from participants who are struggling because of various crises.

OFA developed this three-part podcast series to increase awareness about state TANF agency responses to the unexpected as they relate to legislation, agency staff, and service provision to participants. The series leverages content from earlier resources which aggregate disaster response efforts across the country. The podcasts include interviews with representatives of the Owens Valley Community Development Center (California); the Maine Office of Family Independence, Department of Health and Human Services; the Vermont Department of Children and Families; the Colorado Department of Human Services; TANF of Sonoma and Marin (California) as well as the Office of Human Services Emergency Preparedness and Response (OHSEPR), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the Labor-Management Partnerships Program at the University of California at Berkeley.

Objectives of this podcast series include:

• Identify state and federal policy responses to natural disasters and other public health emergencies including, but not limited to, hurricanes, recessions, and other calamities that directly impact TANF staff and clients.
• Equip TANF agencies with information and resources to support their staff and participants during major transitions.
• Highlight innovative and adaptive service provision solutions during unexpected events such as natural disasters, public health emergencies, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Explore options for pivoting employment-related services to prepare and upskill TANF participants for sudden labor market shifts.

This report provides statistics on food security in U.S. households throughout 2021 based on the Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement data collected in December 2021. Statistics showed that 10.2 percent of households were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 3.8 percent with very low food security. About 56 percent of food-insecure households participated in one or more of the three largest Federal nutrition assistance programs: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); and the National School Lunch Program during the month prior to the 2021 survey.

This report is the second in a series on the implementation and impacts of a novel program that sought to integrate Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education (HMRE) into an employment training program for young adults. To develop and implement the program, Family and Workforce Centers of America, a long-standing provider of employment training in St. Louis, Missouri, enhanced one of its traditional employment training programs to include lessons from a widely implemented relationship education curriculum, along with additional content on workplace relationship skills and personal finances. The integrated program called Career STREAMS (Strengthening Relationship Education and Marriage Services) offered daily workshops for two weeks covering employment-related topics and information on HMRE, weekly booster sessions following the workshops, and individualized case management and job development services. This report documents the study methods, describes program costs and implementation, and presents program impacts after one year.

For much of 2022, the U.S. has enjoyed an unusually strong labor market. Unemployment is historically low, and job creation is well above the level needed to keep pace with population growth. By some measures, such as wage growth, the labor market is especially solid for many lower-wage workers. However, this does not mean that all workers are participating in the labor market at the rates they had prior to the pandemic. This blogpost summarizes research indicating less-educated couples became more likely during the COVID-19 pandemic to include only one labor force participant. The findings indicate that parents of young children report that caregiving is increasingly the reason given for their labor force nonparticipation.

Human-Centered Design (HCD) is a problem-solving and design approach that appears to have potential for promoting effective, efficient, and compassionate service delivery aligned with the mission of the Administration for Children and Families. However, implementation of HCD within human services is relatively novel. This brief presents a definition of HCD that is applicable to the context of human services delivery, differentiates HCD from similar design and problem-solving approaches, and describes how HCD is being used in human services. It also explores what is currently known about evaluation efforts to date including facilitators to HCD implementation.

The Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin at Madison will host a webinar on September 28, 2022 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET which will discuss research on the shift in work and family life among low-income parents. While labor market conditions have shifted significantly in the early 21st century, supports and resources available to families have not always kept pace with needs and demand. This has created particularly challenging circumstances for lower-income households with children and has highlighted the need for policy innovation. This webinar features presentations from researchers who contributed to “Low-Income Families in the Twenty-First Century: Effective Public Policy Responses,” a recent issue of The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences.

Early adulthood is a critical life stage for education, employment, relationship formation, and reproductive health, but young adults’ experiences in these areas are highly varied. Using averages to describe youths’ experiences may miss meaningful differences that could alter their developmental trajectories. Understanding these trajectories—and their implications for youth of varying races, ethnicities, and genders—can help researchers, practitioners, and policymakers support young people’s development and ensure greater well-being into their adulthoods. This brief summarizes findings from a new report which reveals different employment pathways taken by young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds through the use of trajectory analysis—a person-based approach that allows clustering people into meaningful patterns based on their employment earnings and the fringe benefits they receive.

UpSkill America — an initiative of the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program — and the Latinos and Society Program at the Aspen Institute, with support from Google.org, launched the Digital Skills and the Latino Workforce research project to better understand the challenges and opportunities that Latino workers and Latino business owners face to succeed in the digital economy. The Aspen Institute will host a webinar on September 22, 2022 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. ET during which participants will learn more about promising approaches to digital upskilling of Latino workers, students, and households implemented by organizations around the country.