Experience and evidence tell us it will take concerted effort to help people, places, and systems in the following ways:
- Help people rebound and advance by equipping all workers and learners with the knowledge, tools, and experiences needed for career entry and advancement.
- Revitalize regional economies by investing in quality jobs and broadening access to them, co-designing talent development solutions with employers to address pressing skill demands and business growth opportunities, and empowering the community to play a role in charting a course for economic development.
- Redesign education and workforce development systems by scaling and sustaining what works, spurring innovation, dismantling inequitable and arcane structures, and fostering collective action across systems in order better serve the skill needs of all workers, learners, businesses, and regional economies.
Only through bold action across these three pillars—people, places, and systems—can state policymakers succeed in driving sustainable economic growth for all. States must invest in their human capital in order to meet the skill demands of critical industries, generate new jobs, and revitalize our nation’s most distressed communities, including urban and rural areas that have been hit the hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic turmoil it has caused. This requires a more efficient, effective, and equitable pipeline for developing talent. This is something that cannot be achieved through existing systems of education and workforce development, or through new models, unless major reforms are made to policies, practices, and funding streams that have their roots in an America and an economy that existed a half-century ago.
If state policymakers fail to lead intentionally with equity as a guiding principle, history is bound to repeat itself. The country’s recovery from the Great Recession deepened the existing divides that are becoming even more evident today; it was marked by widening wealth gaps, rising debt, and a proliferation of low-wage jobs that offered little in the way of job security, benefits, or opportunities for career advancement. Of nearly 200 metro areas that together are home to 80 percent of U.S. population, not one managed to grow its economy, raise standards of living, and reduce gaps by income, race, and place.
States can—and must—work toward a better tomorrow, one in which growth and equity can go hand in hand.