(Examining the employment policies of the incoming Administration.)
A working class economy. An economy in which workers who work with their hands are paid decent wages and the wage gap between white collar and blue collar work is significantly reduced. An economy that invests in practical economy jobs and workers, and is no longer skewed toward ever-expanding college degrees and bureaucracies. An economy that recognizes it is the practical economy workers who primarily provide the goods and services that people value.
Bobby Kennedy Jr. spoke of such an economy during his presidential campaign. But among all candidates, it has been Vice President JD Vance who most vigorously has championed such an economy over the past few years. Now with the Republican Party’s emergence as the true working class party, he and Kennedy and others in the new Administration are in a position to put ideas into practice—with perhaps unlikely allies in America’s workforce system.
I. Wages and Mobility in the Practical Economy
Vance and other economic populists (Michael Lind, Oren Cass, Ryan Girdusky) have spoken and written in favor of a range of strategies to advance this economy, including strategies related to immigration controls, minimum wage increases and sector-based worker bargaining. To this list should be added strategies related to America’s vast public workforce system—the network of Local Workforce Boards, One-Stop Centers, workforce intermediaries, and training agencies active in each state. In recast form, the workforce system can play a far more effective role in assisting employers to meet their needs for entry level workers, and in improving the wages and mobility of entry level workers.
Over the past half century, the public workforce system has had as one its main goals improving the wages and mobility opportunities for lower wage workforces—certified nurse assistants, home aides, retail clerks, construction workers. To this end, the system has launched a variety of programs to directly improve wages, as well as “career ladder” programs to upskill low wage workers into higher paying jobs.
With few exceptions these efforts have met with very limited success and been short-lived. The economics of entry level jobs have proved daunting. Many practical economy industries such as retail, construction, and hospitality have very thin profit margins and flexibility to increase entry level wages. Other industries, such as long term care and services for adults with disabilities are highly dependent on government reimbursement rates, which have remained stubbornly low. The career ladder programs have faltered for multiple reasons that include the decreasing number of jobs available at advanced levels, and the emphasis in hiring on degrees rather than skills for these advanced jobs.
Added to these economic factors have been sociological ones. Among these has been the bizarre view in the Biden Administration, as reflected in its college debt relief structure, that jobs at non-profits, advocacy groups and non-governmental organizations are somehow more virtuous than practical economy jobs. (Does anyone really believe that the well-paid analyst at a progressive think tank or advocacy group is providing as valued a service as the lower-paid nurse assistant or distribution center worker?)
II. The Recalibration
A recalibration is in order. Such a recalibration will not require a new government bureaucracy or spending program. It might start modestly in the next few years with the shifting of a portion of funds in the federal higher education budgets to training and mobility projects for the practical economy. These projects in turn might start in two areas:
*Apprenticeships and other forms of workplace-based training for the practical economy.
*Partnerships with employers, employer associations and workforce intermediaries to increase investment in and the mobility of lower wage, entry level workers.
In both areas there already is a good deal of experimentation and project testing underway on the local levels. Burning Glass Institute, America Works, Apprenticeships for America, Opportunity at Work, MDRC’s Economic Mobility Lab the US Chamber Foundation’s Talent Pipeline Management, IWSI America, are just a few of the nationwide workforce groups testing approaches. Added to these are tens of initiatives by community-based organizations and employment social enterprises.
Apprenticeships, for example, have been a familiar tool for recruitment and training in the building trades for decades. Initially in the Obama Administration and subsequently in the first Trump Administration, the apprenticeship approach was expanded to fields outside the building trades: health care, information technology, advanced manufacturing, logistics. Apprentices in these fields included not only the middle class jobs in demand such as HVAC techs and pharmacy techs, but also entry level positions in demand. For these entry level positions, the apprentice approach can be especially important as it brings wage increases accompanying competencies demonstrated.
Progress has been slow on employer uptake, though, and the number of apprentices enrolled outside the building trades has been very modest. In California, one of the states with a major apprenticeship push and spending in the tens of millions of dollars, the number of completing apprentices, outside of the building trades, totaled less than a few thousand in 2023. Scaling the apprenticeship approach, as well as scaling for other workplace learning such as paid internships, will need innovators/disrupters at the White House and U.S. Department of Labor to partner with workforce groups.
Similarly, innovation/disruption from the White House and the Labor Department will be needed to scale the initial efforts of several of America’s major employers (Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Pepsi) to invest in and upskill their entry level workforces. Earlier this year, these employers came together at the Opportunity Summit in Washington DC, pledging investment in their lower wage workers. Walmart CEO John Furner announced Walmart’s commitment to dramatically increase promotion from within, as part of an emphasis on skills rather than degrees. These actions are a start, but they represent a tiny segment of the major companies, and they have yet to figure out how to assist workers in small and mid-size firms.
III. Vance, Economic Populism, and America’s Workforce System: Not-So-Unlikely Allies
During the recent campaign, the large media outlets (the Atlantic, NPR, New York Times) did everything they could to either present JD Vance as a cartoonish figure, with views outside of the mainstream or as the purveyor of “fake populism.” I would suggest that people directly read or listen to Vance’s ideas on his working class capitalism: not just his well-known Hillbilly Elegy, but also his writings and speeches on maintaining a strong middle class. A far different picture will emerge.
Further, the workforce system, even as its members largely skew left in their politics, will find an ally in Vance (as well as Bobby Kennedy and others in the new Administration) in efforts to build and maintain America’s practical economy. In fact, if workforce practitioners are able to transcend political labels and orthodoxies, they are likely to find stronger allies for advancing the practical economy worker than in the outgoing Administration.
Postscript on Thanksgiving and Politics
On this last note, and for the upcoming Thanksgiving, I’d also suggest listening to Vance’s answer at a town meeting in late October. It was prompted by an account manager at an auto supply firm who asked about the polarization in the country.
“Don’t get too personal all the time. One of the things I’ve seen, especially from some of my wife’s friends and some of my friends, is if they disagree with us on politics—sometimes they’ll get very personal about it.
“Whether you vote for me and Donald Trump, whether you vote for Kamala Harris, don’t cast aside family members and lifelong friendships. Politics is not worth it. I think, if we follow this principle, we start to heal the divide in this country.”
Read the full article here
