The new administration faces labor market challenges not seen before. Prior to the pandemic, there were already significant issues including Black unemployment between 50 and 100 percent higher than white unemployment, low labor force participation, long-term unemployment due to job losses from the Great Recession, and far too many working adults earning too little to meet basic household needs.
But now, the pandemic has heightened these challenges and disparities. Women’s labor force participation has fallen to where it was 30 years ago. People of color have lost their lives and their jobs at much higher rates. Many of the jobs are unlikely to return, forcing workers to change occupations and industries to earn a living. If policymakers today built an infrastructure to support pathways for economic success, they would never conceive of the current collection of systems.
These profound challenges are growing more complex amid increasingly rapid changes in technology and labor markets. Yet we’re fighting a wildfire with a garden hose. The federal government addresses workforce development and transition assistance with a calcified patchwork of policies, many of them decades old.
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