Brookings Metro

In late October, President Joe Biden issued an apology—the first of its kind by a sitting U.S. president—for its Indian Boarding Schools program. It comes in the wake of the U.S. Department of the Interior's second and final volume of its Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative investigative report, which quantified the scope of the economic, social, and human impacts of one of the most destructive assimilation policies in American history.?? With President-elect Donald Trump set to retake office in January, Rob Maxim and Glencora Haskins say it is imperative that the steps President Biden and the Interior Department have taken do not wither on the vine. Given the destructive legacy of Trump’s last term for Indian Country—as well as the anti-diversity, assimilation-centric rhetoric he and his proxies expressed on the 2016, 2020, and 2024 campaign trails—it will be essential for congressional, state, philanthropic, and private sector actors to take steps to secure future investment and policy change to promote Native American welfare, prosperity, and self-actualization.? By gaining a deeper knowledge of the boarding schools and other policies levied against Native Americans, individuals can more easily understand the lingering health, economic, and other impacts that U.S. government actions have on the survivors of those policies and their descendants, Maxim and Haskins write in their new analysis.? Read more: https://lnkd.in/eYYBViDg?

The youth apprentices at our event on Monday truly blew me away. If you are an educator, workforce leader, employer, parent, high school student -- I implore you to listen to what they have to say and share their wisdom. Here were some key takeaways for me: 1) Employers often lament the lack of "soft skills" and "career readiness skills" among young workers. The professionalism that all three of the former apprentices brought to the Brookings stage in abundance is not something that young people get from school -- it takes experience in the workplace. It takes counselors, teachers, employers, and parents all working to make that opportunity possible and make the transition smooth. When a Senator tells 20 year-old Frankie to consider working for him in the Senate, you know you're doing something right. 2) Make learning count in all its forms. Lateefah said it so well, paraphrasing her here: You've got to believe. If you believe that time in the workplace is valuable, then value it as much as an AP course. Give students credit for what they are learning in the workplace. Remove the barriers they have to get to work, whether that means adjusting the schedule or providing transportation. Leah noted that in her college class, she was learning material that her peers found difficult, but she learned it "years ago" in her apprenticeship. Why doesn't that count? 3) Each one of them embodied their own unique career and personal identity, in part as related to their career choices. The apprenticeships gave them a chance to try something out and navigate to what felt right to them, and then they owned it, full stop, even if the first thing they tried wasn't the right fit. At the end, Jubei emphasized that we consider their journeys and consider ways to make paid, work-based pathways available to more people. He said, "I'm a success story. I'm real." The full video of the fireside chat between Frankie Mansaray and Senator John Hickenlooper, as well as the panel of youth apprentices Jubei Brown-Weaver and Leah M. Sloan and CityWorks DC VP Lateefah Durant is here: https://lnkd.in/eafTZptS. Many thanks to Brookings Metro and our co-sponsor CityWorks DC, as well as Senator John Hickenlooper, Noel Ginsburg, CareerWise USA, and their partners for setting all this in motion in 2106 with a delegation to Switzerland. Photo credits: Grant Ellis. Happy National Apprenticeship Week, y'all! #NAW2024

Despite growing momentum behind the idea that quality jobs should be a central aim of economic and workforce development in the U.S., there remains remarkably little consensus on what exactly a “quality job” is in quantitatively measurable terms. Brookings Metro has therefore developed a simple, actionable, and replicable method to provide a starting point for defining quality jobs at the regional level.? Ryan Donahue, Mayu Takeuchi, and Glencora Haskins' data provide a starting point for measuring the health of regional economies in a way that recognizes a healthy labor market is one where the skills of workers are identified and rewarded without regard for race or gender—not just one in which median wages are increasing or a growing share of workers earns more than $25 per hour.???? Read more: https://lnkd.in/e4zBv2Hk?

Emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) are dominating the tech industry, but certain groups—including women and many workers of color—remain underrepresented in technology-oriented fields, despite the importance of diverse workforces for firm, industry, and national competitiveness.? ? In a new report, Rob Maxim and Mark Muro analyze a subgroup of “highly digital” tech jobs that make the most intensive use of computer technologies, referred to as computer, engineering, and management, or “CEM,” and find that these occupations pay well above the national average and play a central role in enabling the future direction of the digital economy. Yet these occupations remain highly unequal by gender, race, and place, and the U.S. has made little progress over time in remedying these inequalities. Maxim and Muro say that Black, Latino or Hispanic, and Indigenous workers are all underrepresented in these jobs relative to their share of the population, and therefore?don't have equal access to these important economic opportunities. Similarly, women remain underrepresented in the best-paying CEM occupations. These inequalities are exacerbated by a concerted legal and policy effort to roll back initiatives aimed at reducing disparities across race and gender—an effort that President-elect Donald Trump endorsed during his 2024 re-election bid.?But Maxim and Muro argue that?far from being unnecessary overreach, proactive policies aimed at reducing disparities by race and gender are still needed to support the well-being of the digital economy. ? ? The authors say that what is needed is not a wholesale retreat from efforts to create a more equitable digital economy. Instead, creative new policy efforts are necessary to invest directly into communities that have previously been shut out of the economic benefits of the digital economy—whether those are historically underinvested metropolitan areas or demographic groups that have had less access to this work.? ? Read more: https://lnkd.in/eHQRVMtq?

Over the past year, I have interviewed dozens of workers and executives about #GenerativeAI– from Hollywood writers to insurance underwriters, lawyers, marketing directors, academics, freelance illustrators and investors. Time and again, I have heard the same concern: that AI could replace the work of earlier career professionals who are just starting out. At first, I thought these concerns might be outliers. Most academics were suggesting the opposite, pointing to a “levelling up” trend where the use of generative AI boosts inexperienced workers the most. But the more I studied the exposure data and the more I spoke to professionals at all levels, the clearer the risks became. In a new essay for Bloomberg Weekend Edition, I draw on this research and discuss AI’s threat to entry-level work and career ladders. If AI takes over the work typically done by junior employees, the basic logic of white-collar apprenticeship — tedious work in exchange for valuable experience — will break down. The damage that could do to the next generation of professionals might not be visible until it’s too late. https://lnkd.in/eThkuge3

I am so excited for everyone to hear from the former CityWorks DC youth apprentices who will be joining us today on the The Brookings Institution stage to share their perspectives on opportunity in America. Join us at noon ET / 9am Pacific. for a fireside chat with Senator John Hickenlooper followed by a panel discussion. Register: https://lnkd.in/eafTZptS

New Brookings Metro Research | State departments of transportation control over $180 billion in annual spending—but their investment decisions could be more transparent and they could work more closely with their local partners. https://lnkd.in/eCmR4EyM State DOTs have long been one of the most important agencies in government at all levels. Their sheer fiscal and legal clout gives state DOTs enormous influence over the geographic extent of our communities and how people and goods move on a daily basis. In an ideal world, they would closely partner with localities, transit agencies, and ports + airports to design communities that are safe, affordable to travel within, and resilient to changing weather patterns. Yet for all their import, the public knows strikingly little about how they operate. Who decided to resurface or widen a roadway? How much do states share gas taxes with the localities who help generate revenue? So, for the past year, Ben Swedberg and I measured—without pretense, using DOT’s own information—how accountable they are. On the one hand, the results are concerning. States consistently fail to set targets for all their long-range goals or measure progress to reach them. Most don’t demonstrate how the projects that receive funding will advance those long-range goals. Maybe most concerning, states only send about 14% of total funding without strings to their local partners, less than half of their revenue contributions via VMT. Even legislatures and independent commission often fail to provide direct oversight of all the spending. On the other hand, we found so many promising practices across the country. AZ and IA sharing fiscal resources. UT and CO planning together with localities. MD and VA showing why they pick certain projects. These examples—all available for download and via interactive at the project website—provide a menu of policies for state officials and external stakeholders to learn from and replicate. Critically, Congress will have a major opportunity to learn from this work. With the IIJA expiring in two years, now is an ideal time to think about new accountability practices and local revenue sharing to help deliver safe, affordable, and resilient communities.?

President-elect Donald Trump gained some minority voters in this election, but the data suggest that recent small deviations from long-term minority voting patterns could be a short-term blip that hasn’t truly transformed the GOP’s voter base. In a new analysis, William H. Frey says that the shift in Latino or Hispanic support for Democrats was most prevalent among Latino or Hispanic men who flipped to Republican support, and voters who did not graduate from college.? Based on these results, the Trump administration certainly has a chance to prove itself to the minority voters he gained in the 2024 presidential election. But Frey concludes that it is much too soon to pronounce the Republican party has undergone a multiracial transformation. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ek4YXyHZ?

How does funding for #transportation flow across the country? And how do states plan and implement different investments? Check an expansive new Brookings Metro report by my colleagues Adie Tomer and Ben Swedberg who break down the details: https://lnkd.in/ePr6tC6y

In the 2024 U.S. election, Donald Trump won counties representing a minority share of national GDP, but he made notable gains from the 2020 election. Mark Muro and Shriya Methkupally share their findings: https://lnkd.in/eWvqpzHH