This July, the United States marked 250 years since its declaration of independence. Over those years, the nation underwent continual reinvention. On the economic front, successive transformations turned the US into the world’s leading industrial power in the 20th century, and then into a largely service economy by the 21st. With the unpredictable pace and scale of technological advancement, it’s difficult to know what the next 250 years might hold for America’s workers.

That said, we tend to see the country as a work in progress. When asked in a recent Gallup poll about the state of the American Dream, most respondents described it not as having succeeded or failed, but as unfinished.

Indeed, in America’s early years, few enjoyed the principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that the Founders espoused. A fifth of the population was enslaved. Women held vanishingly few rights. But in fits and starts, and occasionally in great leaps, ever more Americans came to share in the country’s promise. Most continue to hold that pursuing the American Dream is a worthy goal. But that optimism is tempered by a diminishing belief that everyone in the country can achieve it.

In this edition of Resource Roundup, we look at how working in the US has changed and promising strategies to put workers first and strengthen the American Dream. Read a call from union leader Sarah Nelson for a reinvigorated labor movement. Then, learn about domestic workers’ fight for dignity, the deeply American roots of employee ownership, and what we should consider when figuring out how to support workers at risk of displacement by AI.

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The Nation

How to Win the Next 250 Years for the Working Class

Our perception of what the US economy should deliver for its workers is shaped in large part by the successes of organized labor in the twentieth century. But the last few decades have seen union membership slip precipitously, despite public approval reaching record highs. 

Association of Flight Attendants President Sara Nelson issues a call in The Nation for renewed strategic boldness, focusing especially on supporting those workers who are new to organizing. Recalling the words of the labor figure Mother Jones, who pointed to the solidity of the forces aligned against labor, Nelson emphasizes the need for solidarity across differences of identity and finding common cause in the fight for a fairer economy. 

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The 19th

How generations of nannies and cleaners fought for — and won — their rights

A prosperous economy often rests on work that goes unnoticed. Since the founding of the nation, domestic workers have taken charge of the chores of countless households, like raising children, caring for the elderly, cooking, and cleaning. Yet despite their intimately personal labor, these workers have time and again been excluded from the labor protections afforded most others, including the right to unionize. 

But workers have nonetheless banded together to stand up for their dignity, from an 1881 strike for higher pay among Black washerwomen in Atlanta, to winning federal minimum wage protections in 1974, to the 2010 passage of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in New York. 

Read journalist Chabeli Carrazana’s account of domestic workers’ centuries-long fight for dignity and the work that remains to be done.

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Salon

The Founding Fathers backed Thomas Piketty — and feared a powerful 1 percent

The answer to the question of what a fair distribution of wealth looks like in a capitalist democracy is hotly debated. The nation’s founders offer guidance, believes the employee ownership scholar Joseph Blasi. John Adams, for one, thought that a broad distribution of capital in the form of land could protect against an undue concentration of power.

The economy has since transitioned to one of industrial production, and then of service provision, but an analogue for the ideals of the early Republic can be found in employee ownership, especially employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), Blasi argues. ESOPs and other forms of profit-sharing make sure that workers benefit when businesses succeed. 

Revisit Blasi’s 2014 call for greater profit-sharing, one rooted in the founding principles of the US. 

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Molly Kinder

We can’t retrain our way out of AI’s economic disruption

The rise of artificial intelligence might spell the beginning of a new economic era. And once again, the effect on American workers is highly uncertain. Molly Kinder, a leading workforce policy researcher, sees a parallel between the current moment and the economic realignment brought about by a rapid increase in free trade at the turn of the 21st century. 

Retraining programs, like federal Training Adjustment Assistance, touted as a “bridge” for factory workers out of a job, didn’t meet the challenge. Millions of workers lost their jobs, hollowing out industrial communities and contributing to today’s political tensions. Programs trained workers for jobs that might not have existed in their communities or were a step down the economic ladder. The needs of a middle-aged worker supporting a family weren’t likely to be met by entry-level employment in a different sector. 

The lesson that deindustrialization taught us is that it’s about industries, not workers, when it comes to addressing displacement. Building industries that provide middle-class employment and providing workers pathways into them offers promise. But when it comes to AI, we’ll have to think bigger, Kinder argues. Policies that discourage layoffs, provide jobs guarantees, and offer a means to direct the wealth that AI creates towards the public’s benefit might all be on the table this time around.