Six National & Local Economic Initiatives that Advance Equity

Jun 29, 2025

“To refuse to participate in the shaping of our future is to give it up. Do not be misled into passivity either by false security (they don’t mean me) or by despair (there’s nothing we can do).

Each of us must find our work and do it. Militancy no longer means guns at high noon, if it ever did.

It means actively working for change, sometimes in the absence of any surety that change is coming.”

Audre Lorde

BLUF: Bottom Line Upfront

Opportunity@Work & STARs Movement
A national initiative to expand access to high-quality jobs for STARs—workers Skilled Through Alternative Routes—by removing outdated degree requirements and aligning workers' real-world experience with public sector opportunities. Already implemented in over a dozen states and cities, this effort aims to create career pathways for the 70 million Americans—10 million of whom are Black—without four-year degrees.
Maryland’s $24 Million Workforce Equity Investment
Governor Wes Moore’s administration has committed $24 million over six years to train 1,200 Marylanders—especially those facing systemic barriers—for skilled construction and infrastructure jobs, aiming to close the racial wealth gap and address labor shortages in public works.
National Fund for Workforce Solutions – Equity in Apprenticeships
Eight U.S. cities are partnering with community colleges, unions, and employers to build equitable career pipelines and expand apprenticeships, especially in infrastructure and energy sectors. This initiative seeks to dismantle exclusionary practices that have long kept people of color and women out of high-quality, well-paying jobs.
Per Scholas – High-Tech Workforce Training
This rapidly growing nonprofit offers free, intensive tech training to underserved communities. With 84% of participants identifying as people of color and more than half starting with only a high school diploma, the program elevates incomes from around $10K to approximately $42K annually—helping graduates secure sustainable careers in fields like cybersecurity and cloud computing.
Albuquerque’s Guaranteed Income Pilot Program
Using cannabis tax revenue, Albuquerque is funding a $4 million pilot that provides $750 per month for 36 months to low-income families in neighborhoods affected by school absenteeism. It’s part of a growing national trend toward guaranteed income as a solution for economic inequality.
Returning Citizen Assistance Program
The Center for Employment Opportunities provides direct cash aid—$2,750 in early post-release payments—to returning citizens. This minimal investment resulted in a 41% reduction in parole violations and a 64% decrease in violent violations within the first year, demonstrating that economic stability is essential for successful reentry.
A Call to Purposeful Action
While hope can feel elusive amid economic injustice, progress comes not from passivity but from deliberate action—especially when certainty isn't guaranteed. As Audre Lorde reminds us, militancy today means working tirelessly to reshape systems that have long excluded many. The path to racial economic justice isn't handed to us—it must be constructed: brick by brick, policy by policy, and investment by investment.

Introduction

The last sentence of Audre Lorde’s quote encourages me to maintain hope and faith for better days ahead for our country—and for all those who have been hurt, are currently hurting, or are likely to get hurt shortly (i.e., Tr*mp’s Big Beautiful Bill).

On most days, holding onto hope and faith is a very difficult notion to wrap my mind and heart around. However, I must do something—and sometimes, numerous things—that actively work toward a more racially equitable and just future.

This week, my focus is on the economy.

Throughout much of U.S. history, the economy prioritized and favored Whites—White workers, White business owners—through White-led and White-centered policies. For our first 150 years or so, this was explicit—an economy of the Whites, by the Whites, for the Whites.

For most of my life (I was born in 1961), that’s how the economy mostly operated. African Americans' access to the economy, jobs, and wealth remained limited, restricted, and out of reach.

Thankfully, large numbers of African Americans no longer face the economic realities of the 1960s (when Jim Crow ended), but the rising economic tide in the half century afterward not only didn’t raise all boats, but left too many African Americans (and people of nearly every race) thrashing around in marshes, inlets, and other backwaters,

How?

Through inequitable policies, discriminatory practices, and a total lack of national and political will to make right on the economic exclusion and oppression of African Americans in the first century and a half of our nation’s history.

In the “Transforming Pathways to Economic Prosperity” chapter of my book, It’s Never Been a Level Playing Field, I highlight eight transformative solutions for greater economic prosperity for African Americans:

Issue Baby Bonds to All Newborns
Incentivize Guaranteed Basic Income Programs
Provide Massive Investments ($100 Billion) in Workforce Development and Training
Replicate and Scale Successful State-Level Community College Career Training and Apprenticeship Programs
Move Millions More Lower-Wage Workers to Higher-Wage, Higher-Skill Jobs by Removing Artificial Higher Education Requirements
Ramp-up Private Sector Investments in Black Businesses and Communities
Make Transformative Investments in Black Businesses and Entrepreneurs
Return Black Farmers to Lands Rightfully Theirs

Below, I spotlight several initiatives that correspond with the three recommendations I have bolded above.

In my book, I propose that we make transformative investments in workforce development while also rethinking our existing workforce development systems, which have never kept pace with industry and workforce changes, resulting in rapid and ever-changing shifts in our economy.

We need a workforce system that looks far different from the piecemeal, under-resourced, and outdated system we have today.

And we need one that commits to much greater workforce equity, pushing us toward closing racial income gaps and maximizing benefits for Americans who our economy has, at times, intentionally left behind.

Thus, workforce development systems (which are primarily administered locally, although funding is mostly sourced from state and federal sources) and programs must provide direct bridges to emerging and expanding economic sectors, such as high tech, manufacturing, healthcare, transportation, and construction.

I also propose a significant expansion of the emerging practice of removing unnecessary degree requirements for millions of jobs, which currently prevent those with no degrees—many of whom are African American—from fairly competing for those positions.

We Rise: Juneteenth STARs, and the Power of Opportunity

In my chapter on economic prosperity, I emphasize the need to change hiring and promotion practices for what are known as STARS – Skilled Through Alternative Routes. STARs are workers or job seekers who lack traditional academic degrees but have skills and experience that should make them eligible for millions of jobs currently out of reach in both the public and private sectors.

Opportunity@Work, a national nonprofit dedicated to reshaping the labor market to help more workers to regain upward mobility, asserts that there are over 10 million African American STARs (and nearly 70 million total across the U.S.) who have “gained vital skills through work, military service, apprenticeships, caregiving, community college, and more.” Companies and public agencies associate degrees with capability.

Opportunity@Work has teamed up with SkillUp to create a platform that helps STARs find public sector jobs matching their skills. They are working with Arizona, California, and Colorado to test this platform.

Importantly, many more than these three states are revisiting and updating job descriptions that emphasize skills and experience while removing bachelor's degrees as a requirement for many state government jobs. These include Maryland, Utah, Alaska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Virginia. Large cities like Philadelphia and Chicago have also adopted these changes.

For all these jurisdictions, this provides local and state governments with ways to tackle labor shortages, fill vacant positions, and promote more equitable hiring practices for those without a traditional 4-year college education.

See blog post on this initiative here: Link.

See more on the Chicago example here: Here.

Finally, if you want to see the latest research on STARS, here’s a great report published this spring: Report.

$24 Billion Over 6 Years to Train Skilled Trade Workers & Close MD’s Racial Wealth Gap

Close to home for me, Maryland Governor Wes Moore announced this month that $4 million in funding will be used to train the next generation of skilled trade workers and close the racial wealth gap.

His office has awarded grants to eight organizations to train 1,200 Marylanders for in-demand skilled jobs in construction and maintenance. Moore plans to spend $24 million over six years to expand opportunities for Maryland workers to help build the state’s transportation infrastructure, focusing on "Marylanders who have historically faced systemic barriers to employment including low-income individuals, justice-involved individuals, and English language learners."[1]

Advancing Equitable Career Pathways and Expanding Access to Apprenticeships in Eight Cities

The National Fund for Workforce Solutions, with funding from the Lumina Foundation and Ascendium, has launched its Advancing Equal Career Opportunity initiative with local partners in Chicago, Cleveland, Syracuse, and Springfield, Massachusetts. These cities bring together community colleges, employers, and workforce leaders to “remove exclusionary practices, align training with real opportunities, and create more equitable pathways to high-quality careers. https://nationalfund.org/explore/advancing-equitable-career-pathways/

The National Fund, supported by funding from W.K. Kellogg Foundation and JP Morgan Chase, also partners with employers, unions, and training providers in Birmingham, Des Moines, Greensboro, and Indianapolis to broaden access to pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs in the energy and infrastructure sectors, which have historically created steep and discriminatory barriers for people of color and women. Pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships, which have long been common in European economies, are finally gaining momentum in the U.S. after decades of stagnation.[2]

I’d also like to point you to a seminal report that The National Fund co-authored with the Harvard Project on Workforce, “Unlocking Economic Prosperity.” It examines the drivers and barriers that continue to disproportionately prevent Black, Latinx, and Indigenous individuals from economic mobility and does an excellent job providing an evidence-based strategy to “enable every individual to pursue rewarding careers, contributing to a more prosperous economy.”[3]

Preparing Learners of Color, Women, and Those with Only High School Diplomas for High-Tech Work

Finally, I’d like to bring to your attention another national organization, Per Scholas. Per Scholas has grown from a Bronx-based non-profit to a national workforce training provider, preparing workers for high-tech careers like cloud computing, software engineering, and cybersecurity. It covers the tuition, materials, and certifications for its intensive, 15-week programs. It has trained more than 25,000 graduates in the past 30 years.

Who does Per Scholas train?

84% of Per Scholas learners identify as people of color; 1 in 3 are women
More than half have only a high school diploma

The average enrollee has an annual income of $10,000 while, post-training, the average graduate makes $42,000 per year to start.[4]

Basic Income Pilot Program Introduced in Albuquerque

I have written about basic income pilots before. Several hundred have been launched over the past five years across the country, in cities and counties of all sizes.

Albuquerque joined the ranks last month.

With much of the funding coming from the city’s cannabis tax revenue, it will invest $4 million over the next three years to “correct for historical inequity and help create economic stability for those trying to build a better future for their families.” The focus is on two neighborhood districts that experience the highest rates of chronic absenteeism from elementary schools and the lowest academic outcomes. Each month, eighty households will receive $750 monthly for 36 months.[5]

I encourage everyone to continue to track this burgeoning basic income trend.

Direct cash assistance creates pathways to success after incarceration

In a unique version of basic income, a W.K. Kellogg Foundation grantee, The Center for Employment Opportunities, provided returning citizens $2,750 in three payments in the first 60 days after they were released from jail or prison and found “significant reductions in parole violations … [for those who participated] in their Returning Citizen Stimulus (RCS) program. The program, which served 10,000 people in 28 cities, found that over a 6-month period, parole violations decreased by 41%. Violent parole violations decreased by 64% in the first 12 months.”[6]

As I share in my chapter on racial justice recommendations, our nation does a terrible disservice to those returning from having served their sentences. Those citizens experience high levels of joblessness, housing insecurity, and food insecurity. Our justice system typically provides anywhere from $10-$50 of what’s referred to as “gate money” upon a prisoner’s release. “Participants overwhelmingly used funds for essential needs, with over 60% purchasing food and groceries, and 575 paying for regular expenses like rent, utilities and transportation.”[7]

Article link here.

Conclusion

I conclude in my chapter on the goal of greater economic prosperity for African Americans with this statement:

“Ultimately, our nation must find a way to undo historical economic harms by

dramatically increasing African Americans’ economic mobility,
investing generously in systems and initiatives that ultimately eliminate our racial income gaps, and
demonstrably bridging our racial wealth chasm.

Together, these moves would lead us to a far more level playing field than we now see.”[8]

As you can see, important work continues at both the local and state levels to bridge further the racial income and wealth gaps. I encourage you to support these in your city, county, and/or state!

Footnotes

[1] Governor Moore Announces First Road to Careers Funding Recipients to Promote High-Skill Workforce Development,” The Office of Governor Wes Moore, June 17, 2025, https://governor.maryland.gov/news/press/pages/governor-moore-announces-first-road-to-careers-funding-recipients-to-promote-highskill-workforce-development.aspx.

[2] “Advancing Workforce Equity in Energy and Infrastructure Jobs,” The National Fund for Workforce Solutions, https://nationalfund.org/explore/advancing-workforce-equity-in-energy-and-infrastructure-jobs/.

[3] Joseph B. Fuller, et al, “Career navigation a time of rapid change: Career navigation in a time of rapid change,” The National Fund for Workforce Solutions and Harvard Business School, Fall 2023, https://nationalfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Unlocking-economic-prosperity-final_11.17.2023.pdf.

[4] “Unlocking Potential: Changing the Face of Tech,” Per Scholas, 2022 Annual Report, https://perscholas.org/2022-annual-report/.

[5] Madeline Colli, Basic Income Pilot Program Introduced in Albuquerque, New Mexico,” Cannabis Science and Technology, May 23, 2025, https://www.cannabissciencetech.com/view/basic-income-pilot-program-introduced-in-albuquerque-new-mexico.

[6] “Direct cash assistance creates pathways to success after incarceration,” Every Child Thrives (W.K. Kellogg Foundation, May 13, 2025, https://everychildthrives.com/direct-cash-assistance-creates-pathways-to-success-after-incarceration/.

[7] Ibid.

[8] It’s Never Been a Level Playing Field: Overcoming 8 Racial Myths to Even the Field, https://www.amazon.com/Never-Been-Level-Playing-Field/dp/B0D785ZDC9/.

Leveling the Playing Field (finally!)

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