Ford Foundation Announces $80 Million Initiative to Improve Economic Stability for U.S. Workers and Their Families
NEW YORK, 2 December 2009 — As unemployment in the United States reaches its highest level in decades, the Ford Foundation today announced a five-year, $80 million effort to ensure Americans get the support they need to stabilize family incomes, cope with unemployment, and keep the jobs they have.
The initiative will focus on two related areas:
- Strengthening programs and policies that improve job quality for U.S. workers, especially low-wage employees
- Helping states modernize the delivery of existing public programs to ensure working Americans are able to meet basic needs when their wages are too low to support a family
Together these efforts seek to address sweeping changes in the country’s economic landscape and workforce, which is now almost 50 percent female.
"Millions of Americans are working hard to build economic security for their families, yet antiquated labor policies actually set them up to fail," said Luis Ubiñas, president of the Ford Foundation. "The bedrock of our country is hard work, but for too many families, that hard work isn’t yielding the economic security it used to. These grants are about building a smarter system that rewards responsibility and brings basic economic security within reach of more workers."
Modernizing Unemployment Insurance Systems
The initiative will focus its investments on a series of programs and policy issues that have an enormous bearing on the ability of low-wage working families to maintain household stability, including existing benefit programs such as unemployment insurance and new policies like paid sick days.
Grants will support state efforts to modernize the unemployment insurance program. Created more than 70 years ago, the program has not kept pace with changes in the American workforce, and now serves less than half of all workers who lose their jobs. The Unemployment Insurance Modernization Act, a key part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, provides $7 billion in financial incentives to states to close these gaps. This funding has resulted in a flood of requests from states for technical assistance and training. A grant from the Ford initiative will deliver $2 million to the National Employment Law Project, the key organization providing this technical support and guidance to state advocates and agencies working to improve coverage.
Smarter Rules for the Workplace
The initiative will also focus on improving job quality to ensure low-wage workers, once employed, can remain in their jobs and find success over the long term. For instance, nearly 48 percent of private-sector workers have no paid sick leave. The urgency of this issue has gained public attention in the face of the H1N1 epidemic, in which the government has advised workers experiencing flu-like symptoms to remain at home. Without paid sick days, such workers are forced to choose between losing much-needed income (or even a job) and risking the health of their co-workers, customers, themselves or their loved ones.
An early grant from the initiative is providing $2 million to Family Values @ Work to conduct studies and develop public education efforts about paid sick days and affordable, accessible family leave. Ford's grant will allow the consortium to expand to 14 states and to strengthen coordination among grassroots organizations. It will also result in a series of best practices to share with business leaders and others concerned about these issues.
"This recession underscores the urgent need to ensure a basic level of protection and security for U.S. workers and those looking for work," said Ubiñas. "But we must also plan for the future. Smarter policies can help build an economy that works better for both families and businesses."
The initiative also seeks to modernize the delivery of government-funded benefits, such as food stamps and children's health insurance, which already exist and can give low-wage workers the support they need to stay in the workforce. It will fund pilot projects in select states to find the best ways of delivering these programs to the people who need them most. These lessons will then be shared with other states to spur innovation across the country. Helping states streamline the way they offer access to already available programs would help tens of thousands of families who find paperwork and red tape a roadblock to accessing critical support.
Giving Voice to Working Families
The Ford Foundation and its partners have a long history of work aimed at building economic security among U.S. workers. In the 1990s, Ford-supported research and advocacy efforts helped place the needs of "working-poor" families on the agenda of policymakers and the public for the first time, igniting a national movement and laying the groundwork for today's funding.
"There is a new momentum among Americans who say that the rules of the workplace ought to fit the realities of their lives. And that hard work should mean a chance to secure a stronger future," said Helen Neuborne, director of Quality Employment at Ford. "We want to harness this momentum and promote progress in communities across the country."
This new initiative is part of the Ford Foundation's Economic Opportunity and Assets Program. The initiative's goal of expanding quality employment through better jobs and greater job stability is a core component of the program's overall efforts to improve the lives of workers and their families. Together with financial asset building and expanding opportunity in metropolitan regions, these three strategies are at the core of the Ford Foundation's effort to reduce poverty.
Learn more about our work in Economic Fairness.
Read about the New York Times article.
The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization. For more than half a century it has worked with courageous people on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.