Workforce and Family Program

The American family, economy and social landscape have all undergone fundamental transformations within the last generation. The New America Foundation’s Workforce and Family Program educates and engages policy-makers and the public to build consensus around new policy solutions that benefit children, strengthen families, improve workforce skill development, help Americans balance their work and life commitments, and enhance the competitiveness of the American economy. Through its Child Well-Being Project, its Workforce and Family Building Project and its Work and Life Balance Project, the Program conducts research, holds conferences and events and promotes innovative, market-oriented solutions to pressing public problems.

The Changing Nature of Work and Family

Demographic changes are reshaping the workforce, family structures are being reinvented and globalization has placed new pressures on businesses. Most workers now change jobs frequently, many work past traditional retirement age, and virtually all need to keep their skills constantly updated. For low-income workers in particular, the best opportunities for long-term economic success lie in enhancing their job skills. Entrepreneurs, meanwhile, are looking for highly trained workers, as well as for clear, streamlined laws. Nearly two-thirds of families are now headed by either two working parents or a single working parent. Accordingly, many parents today are forced to choose between their career and economic success, on the one hand, and adequately caring for their children and elderly parents, on the other. Family breakdowns have also placed particular burdens on single mothers. Research demonstrates the benefits to society of encouraging stable marriages and two-parent involvement in raising children.

The Child Well-Being Project

The Children Well-Being Project works to increase the attention policy makers pay to America’s children. The project helps promote and host the Foundation for Child Development's (FCD) Child Well-Being Initiative. Working with Duke University and the FCD, this project hosts several events annually to draw attention to the well-being of American children. The index looks at a variety of factors, from education and health to safety and emotional/spiritual stability, and draws historical comparisons as well as comparisons with other nations. This project promotes the findings of the index in order to draw attention to the need for Americans to focus on children's policy issues. This project is also proud to work with First Focus and America's Promise in their fellow's program in an effort to make children a primary concern of American policymakers.

The Workforce and Family Building Project

The Workforce and Family Building Project holds events and develops citizen-centered solutions to strengthen America’s social contract. We are working primarily on a long-term study of the appropriate next social contract for families, employers, government and the American workforce. We believe that policies and decisions that affect family formation can improve outcomes for couples, parents and children. We seek to help entrepreneurs succeed and to help Americans gain the skills they need. Specific policy recommendations include: reducing the regulatory burden on small business; citizen-based health care; association health plans, replacing the payroll and corporate taxes with a consumption tax; enhancing regional workforce training grants in infrastructure, health care and technology; increasing the skills training capacity of community colleges; developing and disseminating technologies that allow people to acquire skills online and throughout their lives; promoting phased retirement to allow Americans to work past traditional retirement age; and empowering workers to choose their own skill training programs through individual training accounts. All of this project's work is done in the context of developing additional solutions for America’s next social contract.

The Work and Life Balance Project

The Work and Life Balance Project encourages Americans to prioritize balance and develops solutions that help make workplace flexibility the standard of American work life. We are proud to be part of the Sloan Foundation network and are co-hosting a series of briefings on Capitol Hill with Workplace Flexibility 2010 co-sponsored by leading Senators from each party. Through a consensus-based approach, we engage in peacemaking in Washington, hoping to bridge the partisan divide on work and life issues, and to bring policy makers together to find common ground.

Conferences and Public Education

The Workforce and Family Program brings staffers from both parties together with thought-leaders to develop legislative solutions to our nation’s workforce and family challenges. The Program is also working to establish a more formal bipartisan study group that is co-sponsored by one or more Senators from each party. The program highlights solutions to workforce and family issues through public events; policy papers; invited public speaking; dissemination of issue briefs and articles; and targeted outreach to top opinion leaders. In addition, the program hosts several high-profile events each year that provide a neutral meeting ground where a wide range of stakeholders in the field can deepen their knowledge of-and forge consensus around-new policy solutions that advance the interests of American families, workers and employers.