Group items tagged

About EPI. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank created in 1986 to include the needs of low- and middle-income workers in economic policy discussions. EPI believes every working person deserves a good job with fair pay, affordable health care, and retirement security. To achieve this goal, EPI conducts research and analysis on the economic status of working America. EPI proposes public policies that protect and improve the economic conditions of low- and middle-income workers and assesses policies with respect to how they affect those workers.

The Democracy at Work Network (DAWN) is a network of certified peer advisors, all with strong social and professional ties, who cooperate in training themselves and providing technical assistance services to worker cooperatives. Our goals are to meet the demand for technical assistance and development advice with high-quality services, and increase worker cooperative technical assistance capacity from inside the movement.

The way we work is changing forever. A host of technologies-from automation to digital platforms for coordination of tasks-are reinventing not just what people do to earn a living but at a much deeper level how we organize to create value. The landscape of labor economics is in upheaval. Solutions won't come from any one agency, discipline, or company. It will take collaboration, broad public engagement, smart policy, and an openness to reinventing old economic models. The IFTF Workable Futures Initiative is a call-to-action for policymakers, platform developers, corporate strategists, activists, and of course other workers of all kinds, to join us in blueprinting these positive platforms for the future of work. The time is now to grapple with the challenges ahead, develop sustainable solutions, and create a future of work that is workable for everyone.

Efforts to get the middle class back on track have focused mostly on the jobs lost due to automation, and on programs that could retrain people to do the types of jobs that are now being created in the economy-jobs in healthcare, technology, and advanced manufacturing. But this focus on apprenticeships and employment probably won't be enough to pull the middle class from its tailspin. That's because these types of programs ask the worker to adjust to the changing economy, and in essence blame the worker for not getting the skills they need.

Experts from around the world-in academic, business, and public sectors alike-have shown that strategically investing in communities is a critical element to long-term economic development and quality of life in the 21st century. The future of communities in Michigan and elsewhere depends on their abilities to attract and retain knowledge-based workers, entrepreneurs and growing industries. Central to attracting these important commodities is the concept of PLACE. To be successful communities must effectively develop and leverage their key human, natural, cultural and structural assets and nurture them through enacting effective public policy. That's one (long) answer.  Another one is, with a tip of the cap to Fred Kent at the Project for Public Spaces, "turning a place from one that you can't wait to get through into one that you never want to leave."  I like this one better.

From Original Minds: Conversations with CBC's Eleanor Wahctel. Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Copyright © 2003 by Eleanor Wachtel. All rights reserved. Jane Jacobs is variously known as the guru of cities, an urban legend-"part analyst, part activist, part prophet." In the more than forty years since the publication of her groundbreaking book The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), her influence has been extraordinary-not only on architects, community workers, and planners but also on Nobel Prize-winning economists and ecologists. As one critic recently put it, "Jacobs's influence confirms that books matter. It isn't easy to cite another writer who has had a comparable impact in our time."

At IDEO.org, we believe that the most potent weapon against global poverty is design. The solutions, systems, and social innovation that arise from truly understanding and designing alongside the poor are the most likely to offer hope and improve lives. And for us, if we can't see real impact, we haven't done our jobs.   Born in 2011 out of the global design and innovation firm IDEO, IDEO.org is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to applying human-centered design to alleviate poverty. We partner with nonprofit organizations, social enterprises, and foundations, to directly address the needs of the poor in sectors like health, water and sanitation, financial inclusion, agriculture, and gender equity. We employ top-notch designers, an elite class of businesspeople, and development experts, making IDEO.org a flexible and creative organization uniquely situated to tackle poverty through design.   A key pillar of our mission is to spread human-centered design. Though we believe that our design process is crucial to arriving at innovative solutions, we don't think that we're the only ones who should be using it. We want everyone on board. By sharing, teaching, and empowering social-sector workers to practice human-centered design, we're elevating design as a poverty-fighting tool.   We work at home and abroad, on our own projects and promoting and supporting the work of others, spreading the practice and promise of human-centered design. IDEO.org is dedicated innovation, great design, and changing lives

Internet isn't a luxury -- not when you need to be online to apply for jobs, to access healthcare, and to communicate with elected officials. Here in LA, the big telecoms can overcharge and underdeliver because they know you don't have a choice. We want to change that. We're a group of creatives and tech workers who are building a local, community driven internet service provider to supply affordable, high-speed, net neutral broadband to Los Angeles.

"Modeling to Learn is a national quality improvement initiative in the Veterans Health Administration (VA). Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and VA Health Services Research and Development (HSRD), scientific study of Modeling to Learn is underway to determine its effectiveness increasing delivery of evidence-based addiction and mental health care (NIDA R01DA046651 and R21DA042198 ; HSRD I01HX002521; PI: Zimmerman ). Modeling to Learn supports multidisciplinary teams of frontline psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurses and certified peer support specialists in VA. Modeling to Learn was developed by a multidisciplinary team of scientists and partners known as Team Participatory System Dynamics or Team PSD. Read below to learn more about who we are and what we do. "

"From transforming conditions for low-wage workers to identifying internet security vulnerabilities, from celebrating the African American string band tradition to designing resilient urban habitats, these new MacArthur Fellows bring their exceptional creativity to diverse people, places, and social challenges. Their work gives us reason for optimism and inspires us all."

"Modeling to Learn is a national quality improvement initiative in the Veterans Health Administration (VA). Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and VA Health Services Research and Development (HSRD), scientific study of Modeling to Learn is underway to determine its effectiveness increasing delivery of evidence-based addiction and mental health care (NIDA R01DA046651 and R21DA042198 ; HSRD I01HX002521; PI: Zimmerman ). Modeling to Learn supports multidisciplinary teams of frontline psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurses and certified peer support specialists in VA. This demonstration website supports the research effort by providing a simulation demonstration to implementation science and quality improvement researchers, and to patient, provider and policy-maker stakeholders across VA, or other integrated addiction and mental health care systems."