No matter where we are on the political spectrum, or what we think the role of government should be, most of us would agree that something is broken in America. One of the things that defines our country -- the American Dream -- is in real danger. As Jon Meacham wrote last month, "The perennial conviction that those who work hard and play by the rules will be rewarded with a more comfortable present and a stronger future for their children faces assault from just about every direction."
The ongoing jobs crisis is the embodiment of the American Dream deferred.
More than 20 million Americans are currently unemployed or underemployed, yet 3.4 million available jobs remain unfilled because job seekers lack the necessary skills. There's no dismissing the devastating human consequences of these numbers. But there is a real danger that by focusing exclusively on what is not working, we are missing out on spotlighting what is working -- the opportunities that are available, the surpluses of creativity, ingenuity and compassion that can be poured into job creation.
That's the belief behind HuffPost's new jobs section, Opportunity: What Is Working. "Every presidential election is a renewal," the historian David McCullough told me in 1999. "Like spring, it brings up all the juices." In that spirit, we will be renewing our national focus on what is working, instead of what is broken, by using the historic moment of the national party conventions to put the spotlight on solutions. We are planning to use two necessarily partisan events -- the Republican convention in Tampa and the Democratic convention in Charlotte -- as powerful platforms for presenting what should be a fundamentally bipartisan issue: what we the people can do to accelerate job creation and fill job openings.
As Walter Isaacson put it at the Aspen Ideas Festival, the word "festival" comes from the word "feast," and a feast can "bring different tribes together, tribes that often fought," and that "when they come together, they realize they share certain ideas and certain values."
The same can be true of the national conventions. With 15,000 credentialed media present at each convention, they present an unmatched opportunity for transcending the tribal mentality that too often keeps us from realizing and acting on our shared values. There is, after all, nothing left-wing or right-wing about caring for the millions of Americans who are unemployed, or those who are unable to find available jobs because they lack the necessary training.
We have partnered with an amazing group of companies, foundations, and educational institutions -- LinkedIn, Starbucks, Microsoft, The MCJ Amelior Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The Skoll Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Startup America, Purpose.com, Valencia College, as well as NBC News.
We've also brought together a great group of leaders: There's the well-known philanthropist Ray Chambers, whose extraordinary experience leading efforts on many causes -- including at-risk youth, America's Promise and most recently, malaria -- has been invaluable in guiding our efforts to make a difference in addressing our unemployment crisis; LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, who is a passionate advocate for closing what he calls "the gap between talent and opportunity"; Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, a powerful voice for renewing our focus on job creation, most recently with Starbucks' Create Jobs for USA initiative, which has raised millions to fund small business loans; Sanford Shugart, who as president of Valencia College has steered his institution to a 95 percent job placement rate, one of the highest rates among community colleges nationwide. Jeff Skoll and Sally Osberg (Skoll Foundation CEO), who help bring about large-scale change by investing in social entrepreneurs and the innovators who work with them to solve our most pressing problems; Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, who has defined innovation as "seeing old problems in new ways" -- absolutely essential as we are looking at new ways to create jobs; Luis Ubiñas, president of the Ford Foundation, which has been focusing on next generation job strategies, affordable home ownership, and education access; Scott Case, CEO of Startup America, which has raised over $1 billion in commitments to support the growth of startups across the country and provide valuable resources to help young companies grow; and Jeremy Heimans of Purpose.com, a leader in igniting social change through technology, who is bringing together innovative organizations across America that are kickstarting job creation.
At both conventions, we will host events, including an exhibition showcasing social entrepreneurs, small businesses, and innovative ideas that create jobs and provide skills and training for our workforce; and a lunch panel discussion that will highlight concrete job creation initiatives, as well as big ideas for future job growth. As Ray Chambers put it, we will commit to "encourage everyone in the private sector, from businesses to individuals, to try and use creative and new ideas to help someone else get connected to an economic opportunity."
"We have everything we need to bridge the gap between talent and opportunity," Jeff Weiner said. "The solutions are within our grasp, but there is much work to be done. Our outdated analog approaches to preparing the workforce for the jobs of the 21st century led us into this crisis. New digital technology and creative approaches will lead us out of it. Now is the time."
I was delighted to announce our jobs initiative during a conversation with Walter Isaacson at the Aspen Ideas Festival last month. As the biographer of Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs, Walter has a deep understanding of the qualities that make for true transformation. "Imagination," Einstein famously said, "is more important than knowledge."
There is an urgent need in this time of crisis to capture not only people's minds, but their hearts. Bruce Springsteen's recent hit "We Take Care of Our Own" could be our theme song:
From Chicago to New Orleans
From the muscle to the bone
From the shotgun shack to the Superdome
We yelled "help" but the cavalry stayed home
There ain't no-one hearing the bugle blown
We take care of our own
We take care of our own
Wherever this flag's flown
We take care of our own
The song is a visceral call to action for all of us. It's true that more than 20 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed. But it's also true that we have an amazing amount of untapped creativity, ingenuity, and compassion. Help is out there. But it's increasingly clear that we can't wait for Washington to send the cavalry. That's why we're showcasing solutions from every sector, and launching a larger conversation around what is working.
Contributors to Opportunity: What Is Working include our country's mayors, who are on the front lines of the job crisis. There is Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino on the potential of public-private partnerships to spur job growth; Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton on his city's efforts to alert local businesses to city contract opportunities; New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on how cities can be the new laboratories of democracy; and Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett on his city's MAPS program, which uses a penny sales tax to fund capital projects.
We're also featuring daily stories on what companies are doing to create more economic opportunities. Google, for example, is challenging conventional wisdom and manufacturing new mobile devices here in the United States. And, in a phrase we hope to hear repeated by other corporate leaders, Howard Schultz said about opening a new factory in Augusta, Georgia: "We're going to spend more money, but we're going to hire Americans. I don't apologize for it."
And we are also featuring blog posts by some of the most innovative thinkers on the subject of job creation: David Zorn, president of the Art Institute of Colorado, who sees potential in "career colleges" that provide training in specific disciplines -- and lead to higher graduation and employment rates; Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter of the Harvard Business School, who proposes measuring college performance not just by the jobs their graduates get but also the jobs they create; Institute of Pittsburgh founder Stephen A. Shelton on how non-college-bound individuals can get the training they need to find work beyond the minimum-wage job market; and Georgetown Professor Harry Holzer on the need for closer collaboration between colleges and sectors where jobs are being created.
Together, we hope to act on John Gardner's belief that "what we have before us are some breathtaking opportunities disguised as insoluble problems."
So, please join the conversation about what is working, and as always, use the comments section to let us know what you think.
Add your voice to the conversation on Twitter: twitter.com/ariannahuff
Jared Bernstein: Daddy, Where Do Jobs Come From?
Dan Froomkin: Obama, Romney and the Low-Wage Future of America
a cleaner planet. Our help is reaching people, that by the crisis have
become unemployed "in the street" "marginalized", our work also with those
people who can not afford a decent life. We are creating jobs through
our website, with a small contribution you can help so we can continue
our commitment every day.
http://www.desarrollosostenibletierra.org/
There are so many things I feel we need to embark on that would make sweeping changes to our nation.
Examples: We need to invest in our aging infrastructure which will create jobs, update our country's road, bridges, electrical grids, and many other neglected parts of our crumbling infrastructure. It will also give workers pride and joy in restoring our nation and create new buying power while supporting small businesses who would supply the goods and services needed to restore the nation.
We need to come up with a solution to get the government out of student loan guarantees. Make the banks open up and lend and force colleges and universities to have to lower tuition because they government is not going to guarantee the funds no matter how much it costs.
Obama care is a step not the complete answer. We should work together to improve it now. No more pre-existing conditions is a step in the right direction but health insurance should be more like car insurance. You can shop for it, you can move between companies based on price and who is more competitive, you would get a discount for bundling your policies etc...
Companies will continue to globalized in search of "customers" with money or simply fail as exponentially there will be fewer and fewer customers to support their businesses worldwide. Why, because the majority will be disconnected from the income derived from the non-human means of production that is replacing the need for labor workers. Education is not the solution, though it is critical for our future societal development. But except for a relative few, the majority of the population, no matter how well educated, will not be able to find a job that pays sufficient wages or salaries to support a family.
As a nation, we continue to ignore the possibility of democratizing future ownership of labor-displacing productive capital technologies and rising ownership incomes as a market-generated means of eliminating wage slavery, welfare slavery, debt slavery and charity slavery for the 99 percent of humanity. Binary economist Louis Kelso argued that the Keynesian model fails to recognize that “when capital workers replace labor workers as the major suppliers of goods and services, labor employment alone becomes inadequate because labor’s share of the income arising from production cannot provide the progressively better standard of living that technology is making possible. Labor produces subsistence at best. Capital can produce affluence. To enjoy affluence, all households must engage to an increasing extent in capital work”
The best jobs have been outourced but who has benefitted? Temp agencies and other short term jobs. I am just sickened by the lies from the right wing, and I am afraid we'll once again see a coming disaster that could put is in a much worse position under a Romney administration than what we have now.
You think Americans are angry now? Just wait til Mittens gets in the white house.
Currently, only the wealthy may invest in private companies as they choose. Hence, when capital is required for entrepreneurs / private companies, the upper 5% are the dictators of job creation and innovation (please them, or pay for it yourself). Remove this barrier and innovation and job growth will increase in Silicon Valley, and in inspiring areas across the U.S. (spare me the "grandma will get ripped off" red herring - Wall Street, banks, and Vegas do that job better than any entrepreneur).
As it stands, the Accredited Investor change in July 2010 required me to fire ALL of my 25 employees and find my way into the top 5% to raise capital (as none of my 250+ investors were deemed "rich enough" to make wealth as the wealthy do - investing in private companies). The Job Act (a sad band-aid) is a step in the right direction, and, may actually see light come Dec. 31st this year... won't hold my breath, and, affords our investors the right to invest up to $1M (out of $5M) in their own company!!!!
1) find work that needs to be done to better our society and
2) pay money to unemployed people who are willing to do it.
I don't care if it is funded by the public sector or the private sector, foreign or domestic, or martian! There is plenty of work to do and plenty of people who want to work and somewhere there is money to pay for it, find it. The money isn't doing anybody any good just sitting in the bank, get it moving again!
Try some demand side economics (ask Professor Krugman about that): Be the job creator: Buy American. Next time you pull out your wallet, create a jobs here in America, instead of China. If you think it can't be done, that simply tells me you don't care about it enough, that you'll take a job if someone gives one to you, but you won't exert yourself to create a job for your neighbor.
As someone involved with Workforce Development in Las Vegas, I can tell you that education, training and rehabilitation are admirable goals, but they simply don't work on a large enough scale to affect significant change when it comes to unemployment. Basically, we're trying to re-train people in industries for which plenty of other unemployed/underemployed people already possess the requisite skills. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, by teaching people how to do different jobs, why not just create the jobs that use the skill sets that many of the unemployed and underemployed already have? I'm looking at you, government, and I'm talking about a massive, national infrastructure and clean-energy project. But that won't happen because such a project would place the common good above special interests, a big no-no in today's America.
Why aren't we, the people, "too big to fail?"
Similary our economy is an 'engine'. It needs a balance of 'fuel' and 'air', or in this case capital/risk investment and a reasonable promise of return on that investment. Too much of either and the economy runs rough or stalls. The 'gas tank' is certainty of the economic environment. If investors see too much uncertainly regarding regulations, legislation, gridlock, etc, the 'gas' never gets to the engine. Government stimulus is the 'starter fluid'; you can stand over the ecomony and pump can after can of the stuff into the 'engine', but unless you open up the fuel line by removing uncertainty, you'll never get the 'engine' to run on its fuel.