Economic Opportunities Program

The Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy.

We recognize that race, gender, and place intersect with and intensify the challenge of economic inequality and we address these dynamics by advancing an inclusive vision of economic justice. For over 25 years, EOP has focused on expanding individuals’ opportunities to connect to quality work, start businesses, and build economic stability that provides the freedom to pursue opportunity.

We collaborate with national and local leaders across the United States — nonprofit leaders, policymakers, labor leaders, business leaders, educators, academics, and more — and we actively seek input and ideas from individuals and communities affected by proposed approaches to address economic opportunity challenges. Through our leadership and fellowship programs, applied research and evaluation, data and analysis, and dialogue with diverse stakeholders, we work at both local and national levels to build understanding and galvanize action to address the challenge of economic opportunity in America.

Events

What Employee Ownership Means to Workers
Economic Opportunity

What Employee Ownership Means to Workers

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Work and the Social Contract in the Age of AI: How did we get here?
Economic Opportunity
Disposable Workers: A Book Talk with MIT Sloan Professor Paul Osterman
Economic Opportunity
The Impact of Foundational Skills on Workforce Success
Economic Opportunity
Employee Ownership Ideas Forum 2026: Owning America’s Future
Economic Opportunity
Ownership During the AI Revolution
Economic Opportunity

Ownership During the AI Revolution

| Washington, DC

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When Work Isn’t Enough: Improving Job Quality for ALICE Households
Economic Opportunity
Investing in Job Quality in the South
Economic Opportunity

Investing in Job Quality in the South

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Coming of Age at Work: Good Jobs for Teens
Economic Opportunity

Coming of Age at Work: Good Jobs for Teens

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Publications

Foundational Skills: Early Insights from Employers and Providers
Publications

Foundational Skills: Early Insights from Employers and Providers

This publication examines how fragmented skills, credentialing, and workforce data systems limit the potential of skills-based hiring and advancement, and outlines a shared vision for building the interoperable infrastructure needed to create a connected skills ecosystem that benefits workers, employers, educators, and governments.

From Crisis to Continuity: Optimizing CDFI Capital and Partnerships for Natural Disaster Response
Publications

From Crisis to Continuity: Optimizing CDFI Capital and Partnerships for Natural Disaster Response

Traditional emergency aid through SBA or FEMA takes time, and lower-income communities often face significant approval hurdles. Speed is essential to business survival.

Skyscraper and sky, viewed from below
Publications

Building Shared Success: A Guide to Small Business Job Quality Advising for CDFIs

This tool offers guidance for business advisors at CDFIs on how to have conversations with small business owners on job quality improvements.

Policy Brief on the Study, “Employee Share Ownership, Management Practices, and Labor Productivity: An Analysis Using Establishment Level Micro-Data from the US Census”
Publications

Policy Brief on the Study, “Employee Share Ownership, Management Practices, and Labor Productivity: An Analysis Using Establishment Level Micro-Data from the US Census”

  • Fidan Ana Kurtulus
  • Eric Hoyt
  • Paige Ouimet
  • Joseph Blasi
  • Douglas Kruse
  • Richard Freeman
  • William Castellano
Employee Ownership and ESOPs: What We Know from Recent Research (2026)
Publications

Employee Ownership and ESOPs: What We Know from Recent Research (2026)

  • Joseph Blasi
  • Douglas Kruse
From Silos to Systems: Building the Skills Ecosystem America Needs
Publications

From Silos to Systems: Building the Skills Ecosystem America Needs

This publication examines how fragmented skills, credentialing, and workforce data systems limit the potential of skills-based hiring and advancement, and outlines a shared vision for building the interoperable infrastructure needed to create a connected skills ecosystem that benefits workers, employers, educators, and governments.

Upskilling Playbook: Getting Started with Apprenticeship
Publications

Upskilling Playbook: Getting Started with Apprenticeship

This chapter walks organizations through the key decisions and steps required to launch a successful apprenticeship program.

Shared Success by the Numbers
Publications

Shared Success by the Numbers

This infographic shares statistics on impact of the Economic Opportunities Program’s Shared Success demonstration. Dive into a detailed breakdown of the diverse businesses and entrepreneurs involved in this work.

Blog Posts

Resource Roundup: Data Centers and the Workforce
Blog Posts
The Workforce of the Future Starts with Adult Basic Education
Blog Posts

The Workforce of the Future Starts with Adult Basic Education

To create a future-ready workforce system, we must move beyond outdated credentials and analog processes to one that is skills-first, transparent, data-driven, and aligned with the evolving needs of workers, educators, and employers.

Nonprofits Need Better Jobs
Blog Posts

Nonprofits Need Better Jobs

This brief shares key lessons and takeaways that could be used to implement internal job quality practices to strengthen CDFIs and other small business support organizations. 

Adult Working Learners Vote With Their Feet: What Employers Are Learning About Foundational Skills
Blog Posts

Adult Working Learners Vote With Their Feet: What Employers Are Learning About Foundational Skills

Putting people at the center of the systems we are building means accepting that career paths are rarely linear. It requires us to build infrastructure that accommodates life transitions, recognizes informal learning, and values a worker’s agency over their own data.

Videos

Work and the Social Contract in the Age of AI: How did we get here?
Podcasts Videos

Work and the Social Contract in the Age of AI: How did we get here?

“Social contract” has quickly become one of the most-used, least-defined phrases in the AI policy conversation. This first event in a two-part series will trace the origin and history of the American social contract, examining how work became the anchor of economic security, mobility, and civic identity in the United States.

Disposable Workers: A Book Talk with MIT Sloan Professor Paul Osterman
Podcasts Videos

Disposable Workers: A Book Talk with MIT Sloan Professor Paul Osterman

For decades, economists and policymakers have debated how to help workers get better jobs. But what if the more fundamental problem is that employers have systematically redesigned work itself to make a third of the workforce expendable? In his forthcoming book, “Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment,” MIT Sloan Professor Emeritus Paul Osterman examines this idea and what it would take to reverse it.

How Tax Policy Can Help Employers Expand Access to Learning
Podcasts Videos

How Tax Policy Can Help Employers Expand Access to Learning

In this interview, Chelsea Miller of Upskill America speaks with Nick Greif of InStride about how employers can design education benefits that are more accessible, strategic, and aligned with workforce goals.

Metrics that Matter: Improving Financial Analysis of CDFI Small Business Lenders
Podcasts Videos

Metrics that Matter: Improving Financial Analysis of CDFI Small Business Lenders

CDFI boards, leadership teams, investors, and regulators have long relied on a familiar set of financial metrics to assess organizational performance.

The Impact of Foundational Skills on Workforce Success
Podcasts Videos

The Impact of Foundational Skills on Workforce Success

This is the final event in our Job Quality in Practice series. In this conversation, hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program on May 7, 2026, we hear from the Institute’s Job Quality Fellows who are embedding job quality into their work across a range of contexts and strategies — from employee ownership models that give workers a direct financial stake in their company’s success, to apprenticeship programs that create structured pathways to higher-wage careers, to worker advisory committees that bring employee voice into business decision-making.

The Necessity of Employee-Centered Strategies: A Book Talk with Steve Dawson and Jerry Rubin
Podcasts Videos

The Necessity of Employee-Centered Strategies: A Book Talk with Steve Dawson and Jerry Rubin

This is the final event in our Job Quality in Practice series. In this conversation, hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program on May 7, 2026, we hear from the Institute’s Job Quality Fellows who are embedding job quality into their work across a range of contexts and strategies — from employee ownership models that give workers a direct financial stake in their company’s success, to apprenticeship programs that create structured pathways to higher-wage careers, to worker advisory committees that bring employee voice into business decision-making.

Ownership During the AI Revolution
Podcasts Videos

Ownership During the AI Revolution

Shifting Culture to Advance Employee Ownership
Videos

Shifting Culture to Advance Employee Ownership

Our team


Maureen Conway

Vice President; Executive Director

Matt Helmer

Director of Job Quality and Worker Well-Being

headshot of Joyce Klein, Senior Director, BOI

Joyce Klein

Senior Director

Haley Glover

Senior Director

Colleen Cunningham

Director of Grants Management and Publications

Annelies Goger

Director of Research

Merrit Stüven

Associate Director

Chelsea Miller

Associate Director

Headshot of Tony Mastria

Tony Mastria

Associate Director of Communications

Natalie Foster

Senior Fellow

Louis Caditz-Peck

Senior Fellow

Dee Wallace

Senior Fellow

Leila Brown

Senior Project Manager

Bryn Morgan

Senior Research Associate

Amanda Fins

Senior Research Associate

Frances Almodovar

Senior Communications Associate

Nora Heffernan

Senior Digital Communications

Maxwell Johnson

Senior Research Associate

Maya Smith

Research Associate

Chris Huyck Trout

Senior Advisor and Consultant

Sinin Young

Grants Management Associate

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