The Weekly Slice May 4, 2023
Aspen Partnership for an Inclusive Economy
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Inclusive Economy
Of all the components of an inclusive economy, one in particular seems fundamental: Money. If people don’t have it, and have no way to get it, they can’t take even the first step toward building a secure financial future.?
That’s why the concept of guaranteed income is so intriguing. It bypasses complicated qualification formulas, make-work morality plays, and narrow categories of acceptable expenditures, and simply gives money to people who need it. Those people spend it in a way that makes sense for them as individuals, and research shows that guaranteed income can reduce poverty and help families cover basic expenses like food, housing, and childcare.?
But guaranteed income can do more than that. Last March, the Institute’s Economic Opportunities Program hosted a discussion titled?The Promise of Guaranteed Income: A New Tool to Improve Jobs and Empower Workers, featuring leaders who have seen and studied the effects of direct cash payments. The program’s?Maya Smith?authored a?recap of the conversation in this blog post.?
What’s new:
Cash payments and guaranteed income pilot programs helped the US through Covid, and in the process created a laboratory to examine the effects of guaranteed income on job quality.
Why it matters:
The idea of guaranteed income is tied up in an assumed cultural aversion to “handouts” and the presumption that cash payments make people lazy. The data shows something different.
Key takeaways:
What it means:
“People use unrestricted cash payments to build the life they want for themselves and their families, a life that includes work that is meaningful and provides security,” says?Natalie Foster,?president of the?Economic Security Project?and fellow at the Aspen Institute?Future of Work Initiative.
What’s next:
Nothing less than a new social contract, which guarantees all people have economic stability and can use their voices to enact change.?
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Environmental Equity?
In a country full of natural beauty—purple mountain majesties, etc.—outdoor recreation is big business, and federal programs and philanthropic initiatives are supporting rural and Indigenous communities as they develop outdoor recreation-focused economic strategies.
But not all is great in the great outdoors. The sector has a history of inequitable outcomes and can put unsustainable pressure on local systems and resources. That’s why the Institute’s?Community Strategies Group?recently convened 27 rural economic and community development practitioners from a diverse range of communities to inform?Mapping a New Terrain: A Call to Action. They identified five principles to improve health and economic outcomes for rural communities and Native nations in outdoor recreation economies, as well as actionable steps to achieve them.?
The principles:
Digital Inclusion?
UpSkill America—an initiative of the?Economic Opportunities Program—has published another of its insightful case studies, this one centered on Detroit. Five years ago, research labeled Detroit the US’s “least connected” large city, and less than half of the population had cable, DSL, or fiber internet.?
Detroit also happens to be the home to Rocket Companies, which realized that the company’s future—and the city’s—depended on closing the digital divide. Through the philanthropic Rocket Community Fund, the company supported digital upskilling throughout the city, finding community partners to set up neighborhood tech hubs, train and recruit community ambassadors, and develop a tech talent ecosystem to create home-grown, high-tech jobs. And that’s just a tiny slice of what they were able to accomplish, to the benefit of community and corporation.