Aspen is a place for leaders to lift their sights above the possessions which possess them. To confront their own nature as human beings, to regain control over their own humanity by becoming more self-aware, more self-correcting, and hence more self-fulfilling.
One of the key challenges facing the future of work is ensuring that all jobs are good jobs—that is, jobs that offer workers economic stability; opportunities for mobility; and basic levels of equity, dignity, and respect.
Workplace benefits, such as health insurance and retirement plans, are an important component of good jobs. But there is little consistency in what benefits are offered to workers and how those benefits are designed and administered. The term “benefits” is used widely but rarely defined. The range of benefits offered is incredibly diverse, including health insurance, paid time off, pet insurance, and gym memberships. Though grouped together, these offerings are vastly different and unequally available across the workforce, and they can have very different effects on workers’ lives.
This brief synthesizes existing knowledge on the landscape of benefits available to workers in the United States and the impacts of those benefits. It begins by defining workplace benefits and providing a brief history of their use. It then explores the connection between workplace benefits and job quality, mapping known impacts against key components of job quality. Finally, it reflects on opportunities for improvements in job quality and for future research.
The Aspen Institute’s Future of Work Initiative, part of the Economic Opportunities Program, empowers and equips leaders to innovate workplace structures, policies, and practices that renew rather than erode America’s social contract.
About the 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.
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We get it right when we focus on fundamentals: recognize that job quality matters more than job quantity; center care work as essential to economic function; build coalitions across labor, technology policy, and civil society; understand that flexibility without security is precarity; remember that workers are also caregivers, creatives, and civic leaders.
We have come a long way in making sure workers are a part of the conversation about how AI is deployed in their workplaces. But while we talk, tech monopolies are consolidating the power to make development and decisions unilaterally.
At this year’s Aspen Ideas Festival, conversations across sessions from AI to religion to capitalism kept circling around a question that’s been keeping me up at night: How do we ensure rapid, disruptive change strengthens rather than erodes American opportunity and democracy?
Because here’s the fundamental truth no algorithm can calculate: what happens when millions of working people stand together, speak with one voice, and demand the dignity and respect they deserve.
The future of work is still being written. Let’s make sure it works for all of us.
At this summer’s Aspen Ideas Festival, I had the great pleasure of facilitating a conversation with four Ideas Fest Fellows — young leaders in the fields of media, philanthropy, and economic policy — about their view of the future of work.
