Chenoah Sinclair

Editor's Note: This blog is part of a series highlighting policy proposals from Richard Reeves and Isabel Sawhill's 2020 A New Contract with the Middle Class. The COVID-19 pandemic has helped to draw greater attention to mental health issues that can be neglected in public policy debates.

Technologies such as automation and artificial intelligence are influencing jobs and workflows across every major industry. However, businesses that want to deploy them are constrained by their capacity to keep employee skills up to date and recruit talent familiar with both the new technology and their industry. Employers will inevitably need to rethink their talent recruitment and staff development strategies.

President Joe Biden is encountering fires on many fronts as he takes office, among them a level of joblessness not seen since the Great Depression. Our policy response to the previous recession ended too soon and left 53 million Americans stuck in low-wage jobs.