Economic Fairness
Ensuring Good Jobs And Access To Services
Overview
The goal of this work is to help low-wage working families achieve economic self-sufficiency.
The Challenge
In the United States, millions of families have found that working hard is no longer a path to basic economic security. One in four working families (and the 21 million children in those households) is dependent on employment that offers poor job security, low pay, few benefits and little opportunity for advancement.
What We're Doing
We support two strategies to help low-wage workers move toward self-sufficiency.
First, to improve job quality held by low-wage workers, we focus on:
- Expanding access to unemployment insurance
- Ensuring that all workers earn a family-supporting wage and have access to paid sick days and paid family leave
We also help increase access to work supports by:
- Promoting efforts to adequately fund and expand coverage of benefits such as tax credits, food stamps, health care and child care
- Encouraging states to make benefit application processes more integrated, flexible and responsive to the needs of working families
- Expanding the delivery of benefits to new settings such as workforce services programs and community-based organizations
Learn more about how our strategies and approaches shape our grant making.
From the Newsroom
- Employment Report Underscores Importance of Job Creation and Support Grantee findings show troublesome trend for U.S. employment growth
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News from Ford:
National Fund for Workforce Solutions Recognized With Inaugural Award from Social Innovation Fund
Ford grantees among 11 nonprofits honored by Washington’s Social Innovation Fund for promising new approaches to America’s social challenges.
- New Study on the Promise of Investing in Your Workforce Grantee workforce study makes the case that "bottom of the ladder" employees can determine 90 percent of companies' profitability
Regions
Team
What We're Following
- Labor Market Impacts of the Great Recession of 2007-09 Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity reports employment, unemployment and underemployment gaps among U.S. workers
- The Three Faces of Work-Family Conflict Comprehensive look at the extent of work-family conflict in the United States and what the federal government can do
- Improving Access to Public Benefits Report urges funders, policymakers and government to expand access for low-income families to benefits programs
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