 So thank you everyone for joining us as you know We are the panel to discuss economic security in the changing workforce. So that means The contours of the workforce as it is how it's different today How the social safety net has or has not adapted as well as the kinds of roles that both the private sector And the public sector could play in granting more economic security to today's workers whether they're in the formal gig economy or otherwise and Joining me to discuss this topic are our esteemed panelists We have Sarah Horowitz who is the founder of the freelancers Union and its executive director She has been helping the new workforce build solutions together for two for nearly two decades and is a MacArthur genius fellow as well amongst other Commendations and deputy chair of the Federal Reserve of New York. She's a leading voice for the emerging economy Next we have Betsy Stevenson who is an associate professor of economics and public policy at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan She's a research fellow with the National Bureau of Economic Research a fellow of the ifo I pronounce him that correctly ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich Also worked in various capacities in the Obama administration on the Council of Economic Advisors and Labor Department as well And then Cecilia Munoz who is the president's Domestic Policy Advisor and director of the Domestic Policy Council which coordinates the domestic policymaking process in the White House Previously she had served as deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs So thank you to all of our panelists for joining me for this conversation The first thing that I wanted to talk about is who we're talking about so Sarah, I'm wondering if you could just give us kind of an overview of who this workforce is that you represent that you think should Be the focus of the conversation over the next day or so What what the modal worker looks like are we talking just about Uber drivers or is there or is there another? broader array of workers that we should be thinking about when we're talking about Who needs the social safety net to change? You know, I think that in this conversation We're talking about the gig economy the sherry economy the contingent workforce We have so many different names but I think really the best way to be thinking about this is that work itself is getting to be so short-term and that people are putting together their work lives through many of these gigs and So one of the things that I think we'll have lots to talk about is that there's really not great There's just not the numbers that we need to be seeing to get a handle on it So freelancers Union has done a study with Upwork and found that it's 54 million Americans And what we were really trying to show was the breadth of how people are working this way So some people may be independent contractors and they may have a part-time job Somebody might have a full-time job and they're going to drive on lift And so what you see is that these numbers are hard to come by but About a third of the workforce is working like this and then I think you start to see very different things There are the workers who are independent contractors and are really independent contractors I came here today and was greeted by Andrea who is working for the event company And is a freelancer and has another job and that is how many people are doing these gigs She works here like one two times a year and one of the benefits is she's really interested in policy So she gets to come here and listen and I don't know where you are Andrea But I asked if I could say this so You also have great numbers of people who are Misclassified who really tend to be lower-wage workers and that is really where we need to know what's happening in that But it really is very very big number Betsy, I wanted to ask if you could weigh in a little bit on how the social safety net Developed as it did in that so much of its sort of piggybacks off of the formal employer-employee Relationship as I understand it in a lot of other developed countries. That's not quite the case You don't have retirement programs and health insurance even unemployment type insurance and employment insurance type programs administered through that employee contract and why is it that we've developed as we did Well, I think that all the countries were trying to think about how government can help the private sector Achieve a shared prosperity for everyone and so, you know what we saw in the last century was a big movement To have the government play a role that was really important in order for the economy to move forward You know if you look at each individual case You know there are different things that happened if you know health insurance in the US President Truman tried to introduce a national health insurance plan and never came to Congress for a vote you can imagine a very different kind of health Insurance system in the United States that looks a lot more like we what we see in a lot of other countries had that actually passed at the time Instead we had a big development of private sector health insurance companies and and now we have to Reckon with you know an economy that has those private sector entities, you know similarly if you look at something like pensions You know, I can't tell you how important this was but but part of what happened was in 1942 in order to constrain Inflation there was a moratorium on wage increases But they said that didn't include benefits and so what you had was a lot of employers adding pensions in because they could They could add in a pension without violating that current law and you saw a Big increase in the number of employers who added pensions and they said they were doing this to recruit workers You still had social security, of course developed. So we're not fully A private sector type a system So we've always had the government playing a role unemployment insurance is really a government program You have experience rating for firms because we don't want firms to be taking advantage of the program and that kind of Thinking about how you design government programs in a way that means that the private sector works better Is really important and I that is something That means that there is going to be some interaction between the private sector and government something like experience rating When it comes to social security But there's clearly a role for the government This is not something that you know, we should be expecting the private sector to do and that's you know one of the reasons why we despite the big growth in pensions we passed Social Security Social Security Act and You know, so security has grown and I think there's nobody out there today or very few people out there today Who want to see that kind of social safety net end? So Celia what are some of the ways that today's workers are less protected? Let's say by the social safety net then their counterparts from eras past or ways that they're more exposed to risk Well, the obvious example is with the retirement system, which is completely different and you know my dad worked in the auto industry He has a pension You know nobody from my generation does and the likelihood of that like a defined benefits plan like that For example is gone is greatly greatly diminished for folks in the workforce. So that's an obvious example But we you know saw it happening with the health care system the Affordable Care Act actually obviously is Making a huge difference with respect to making sure that people have coverage if they're not getting coverage through their employers So and you know the disparities that we're seeing with just with respect to wages disparities with respect to access to leave You know, we're in an environment where folks in the middle-class folks working to get to the middle-class really do feel like They are getting squeezed and they are getting less out of this Relationship than previous generations and I think one big question as Betsy suggests is sort of the role of government in Pushing back and creating these kinds of structures the Affordable Care Act is a great example But you know and the president has proposed things like wage insurance Structures to allow small businesses to Pool into 401k plans for their workers for example as potential government approaches to some of these challenges But but we're kind of experimenting on all fronts in supporting You know groups like Sarah's and others in a conversation about about work of voice workers have lost a lot of leverage And that's something that that the president feels really strongly. We need to be doing something about Sarah You want to I think that one of the major things that's like really missing is the social movement, right? Like we had major social movements in the 1930s that really helped bring about all these great changes And I think that that's what we're starting to see now is we're seeing what's happening Across the country with different with the fight for 15 which is really exciting where it's fast come fast food workers with Drivers that we're starting to see that Workers are starting to say that we need something here And I think that it won't necessarily be because government is gonna we all we all smart people will figure this out But I think it will be this combination of some agitation of people talking about what their issues are and what they want to see in partnership with policy makers and I think that that's really the thing to be asking ourselves like the Roosevelt Administration did which was how do we help build a movement? And so we came up with the National Labor Relations Act that let unions be and then unions had a business model in a Way of being but I think we've forgotten that we have to go back to a period in time Where we have to say what's the success metric gonna be for our elected officials that they're gonna show us how much they built these next Organizations, well, how did they use the levers of government to make institutions and organizations for working people grow? And I think that to me would be like the super exciting. Well, so the question is Through through the through the development of labor organizations and popular movements and things like that to some extent That's why some of these firms themselves started providing some of these benefits, right? Unions were bargaining on behalf of workers workers were realizing what kind of leverage they had even if they weren't organized and Over time what we have seen is that firms are sort of shunting more of the risk that used to be on their balance sheets onto The individual balance sheets of workers themselves, right? If we're talking about retirement security or even health insurance Or wage security or various other kinds of benefits and the question is why? Is it because of the decline of influence of labor organizations? Is it because of globalization? Is it because firms just said health insurance has gotten too expensive and so I'm not we're not going to deal with that anymore Is there a different way that firms themselves? See their role in society. I mean, I think that you know people face a lot of risk in their life and They shouldn't have to deal with that risk on their own, but it's not clear that Businesses are equipped to handle that risk for them and that's why there is a role for government We don't want people to feel tethered to a particular job because that job is going to be the one that's going to protect You know going to be the one that's going to help them in retirement We want them to be able to move to where they get a better opportunity So the idea of portability the idea of being able to You know to make movements means that we can't expect Businesses to be the ones who shoulder all the burden for helping people smooth risk They're a little bit better able than an individual employee is to handle that risk But who's even better to handle that risk is for us to share it as a society and the way for us to share it As a society is to do it through government and not to do it through individual employers are their private sector opportunities though for To sort of step in and provide some sort of some form of security in the green room We were talking a little bit about the role of you know The labor force at nonprofits or or someone else to try to get together and try to pull risk Yeah, can that work? Well, I mean I think that really what we're talking about to be blunt is money No, and so you know it would seem to me that what you want to do It's figure out like how are we going to you know risk is a euphemism for money as well because We're seeing people's income go up and down and up and down and we really have to if we want to the economy By the way is growing at 1% Consumption is down because middle-class and working-class people don't have the money Henry Ford had the insight that if you give auto workers money, they will buy the cars We're back in Henry Ford times again where we got to start getting Working in middle-class people to have money because they then have to be able to spend if you agree with that paradigm And that's another talk But what I think we have to do is say maybe the ways that we used to get money from employers is going to be different And so what we call it is new mutualism is to say that the next role of government has to be a distributed role of government Not for like social security, which needs to be centralized. It's a great program. It needs to say great But to like unemployment why couldn't local Organizations and unions and nonprofits and faith-based groups have the ability to take a piece of that Operation get paid for it which would then give them revenue and would then start to build new kinds of constituencies You'd be able to really have huge cultural variations And you know a lot of experimentation and you'd build it in so that the ones that were great did great the ones that were Bad like failed and we isn't there isn't there sort of a always a risk of adverse selection though Like if it's not if you don't have mandates if not everybody opts into Not everybody has to opt in to unemployment insurance for example, then it's just you're gonna death spiral right people who are most at risk of losing that's why it needs to be both about money But also about leverage going back to Sarah's point earlier point about movements that you both need to create the structures for Certainly for the labor movement itself But for other other new kinds of organizations that that advocate on behalf of moving these things forward But also create structures that that actually engage consumers in this effort So the same tools that make it possible for people, you know to supplement their incomes by driving an Uber car Or to work in this gig economy are the same tools which can potentially allow for folks to organize And and you see some examples of this in organizations like co-worker.org We whipped it up along with Sarah's organization and the Worker voice summit that we did last October at the White House Homecare workers are also organizing with care.com on a pledge for the kinds of treatment that That they're hoping to that they hope to expect out of employers so that we have platforms that can allow For for workers to organize with each other But also hopefully to engage consumers so that I might go back to this idea that at some level a lot of people in This country have learned to care about the quality of life of the chicken which winds up on their plate And that we could maybe Apply the same principle to the quality of life of the workers who get that What what kinds of tools or platforms are you thinking of when you say that there there's room for these kinds of So just to make it a little more concrete I use the example of co-worker.org which is it's a small organization It's that the example that we lifted up in the summit that we did is it's a small organizing effort But they allowed they created a mechanism for workers who worked at Starbucks who wanted to campaign to be able to have visible tattoos Right, which is not quite the standards that we're looking for but it's a start But what it did was provide a platform for people who work for the same company But who were not part of a labor union to connect to each other to advocate for something that they cared for and It got the attention of the company and they won So the question is can you replicate that in a broader way on other kinds of issues that matter to the workforce? And very importantly to get back to Sarah's point. What's the financial model that can help such organizations? grow and thrive and Expand their capacity to to support the workforce and I think that that is like the the next role of government is to say It's not just the outcome that we'll know that we're having a success But what's our distribution line? You know when you talk about adverse selection that implies that the groups will hold The risk but they don't have to only play that role they can market They can do plan design. They can be early-stage innovators on what's even needed You know any kind of thing that you want to do is always going to have 10 or 20 components to it Let's start to experiment and say well, you can't like take on risk That's like too hard right in the beginning But you're gonna try these other levels and it's really you know We've seen examples of this before Not to keep harping on the Roosevelt's but this time Teddy was really the one who really? Brilliantly figured out how to support cooperatives because he said urban areas are getting so much money and are advancing so quickly And so we have to start to figure out how we're gonna like give birth to this whole Movement of cooperatives which now are very much in red states and are very Sophisticated in their economic structures, and they have banks and secondary cooperatives But that's because the government said it's their job to build and help these Independent organizations grow and I think as we're sitting here struggling with a society where people are so alienated and alone and Isolated which is not what you need in a network linked society Part of it is that we have to be building that social infrastructure, and that's a that's a job for government and it needs to do it What's the role of? State and local governments and these kinds of issues Do it do it do it more but is there a separate role that state and local governments could carve out to try to provide more economic security to workers who were in these Less traditional types of employment arrangements I think one thing that if anybody here is like a mayor or friends of a mayor or governor Like tell call them tonight and tell them to do this Like I think that we need to be experimenting with unemployment insurance as a way to even out Income that is so episodic and to say this to your point about risk selection Unemployment if all the independent workers in America went on unemployment They would bankrupt it in about five seconds because if you are a good worker You will be unemployed many times through the course of the year So we need to start having actuarial Calculations and somebody has to try a pilot where they can find out what's the number of people that will be statistically? Significant what's the amount of the benefit and let's watch it over a period of I don't know months And let's start to see if we can think about what happens and then let's look at the person's spending or let's look at their bankruptcy rates I mean these are the kinds of things that you can't do at national level for a variety reasons But operationally we don't want it to be that big we've got to see these Experiments and we've got to have leaders who have the vision for how they're going to try it in their area For a variety of reasons I think state and local governments are where you can see these kinds of innovations But you need to take root that there are all kinds of obstacles to be able to do these things at the federal level and well We could be look a source of policy as we have been and a source of ideas As we have been and continue to be at the federal level a lot of the There's there is tons of room for innovation in this space and a lot of that innovation is going to be happening at the state and local level as well there's some incentives that were passed a few years ago Betsy might know about this that The I don't know if it was done through the through do all regulations or through law that basically Rewarded states for expanding coverage of unemployment Expanding unemployment insurance coverage something to that effect right there was some There were some incentives for for states to engage in some reforms unemployment insurance for freelancers is actually one of the harder ones to deal with because of the issue Because it's so hard to know when people can't find work versus when they choose not to to take work And so that wasn't one where I'm aware of any experimental things that were done I did want to just add something to the conversation Which is that you know you said it's about money and the thing that's underlying it though is not just money it's trust and We've seen a big decline in trust in the US and everybody knows there's been a big decline in trust in government because I don't Think you could trust Congress any less than people trust Congress today But they actually trust each other less as well. So when you ask people are most people trustworthy that People agreeing with that statement has been going down over the last several decades And so when we don't trust each other, it's actually really hard for any of these kind of you know Networks and local communities to come together and but it's also really hard just for the economy to work properly So that's why solving these problems Building trust building community Building these kinds of networks. It's not just about you know creating shared prosperity and helping workers But it's actually essential for us to continue to have strong economic growth And that's actually the vision the Roosevelt's had was not just that we protect workers We grow the economy and have economic growth by protecting workers And I that message seems to have gotten a little bit lost today Well, Sarah in the green room We were talking about one of the efforts that I guess you've been active in in New York City to try to To have the government step in when trust is lost or contracts are breached for yeah freelancers Yes, you know one. Thank you for that One thing that I think is really amazing. How many people here are freelancers or have freelanced at some point in the last few years? Great, so I mean it's it's like here and one of the most important things about these being a seasoned freelancer is that you have to Build up your network because when you have too much work You've got to give it to somebody who's not going to say anything and then we'll trade back with you Or you have to find somebody because you're lonely in the house and you want to like meet for coffee But you will you will die on the vine if you are a lonely freelancer And so what I think is so fascinating is that freelancers in their own networks have to build up this trust in fact And so I think that's like really worthwhile for us to be looking at what what are the what are the great things that are happening? And I think that we are seeing greater levels of trust now So one of the major things in New York City is we have a bill in the city council that has a majority of city council members Have already signed in support. So we are Hoping that this will be lost soon and what it says is that if you work with an independent contractor in New York City You have to have a contract and if you don't pay your freelancer You can be subject to double damages and attorneys fees and that you have to pay people within 30 60 90 days What's so significant about this number one is that the average freelancer has been stiffed $6,000 70% of freelancers have been stiffed at some point in the last year and talk about the economic implications of that It's enormous and it's very difficult because people have to then take this on as on their own So coalition of groups from SEI you the teachers union Kickstarter The New York Tech meetup the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce Many others have come together the domestic workers the guest workers Alliance to say this is something that is happening to low-wage Workers up through professional workers and that we're stronger together than we all come together And it's the first legislation for independent contractors as independent contractors and I think that's going to be one of the biggest trends that we're going to start to see is that independent contractors who have Not been Misclassified have to be able to start to build the safety net that is appropriate for the way they're working and I think that's What's so encouraging from Seattle and in other places across the country that people are starting to come together as independent contractors and I just think that is really important and Often gets lost because it's a little bit technical about whether somebody's an employee or an independent contractor But this is for independent contractors. So on the question of employee versus an independent contractor one of the concerns that I have heard from employers particularly smaller employers is that as the expectations expectations or rather requirements that employers are required to provide for their workers grow including sick leave parental leave Various other kinds of benefits that that raises the cost of having an employee And differentially lowers the cost of having an independent contractor who are often exempt from these kinds of requirements and it further incentivizes basically employers to have to to shift more of their labor requirements into independent Contracting and away from full-time employees That's me. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about How we deal with that concern? I mean I am fully in support of creating sick leave and creating parental leave But but those kinds of benefits do make workers more expensive particularly workers in a particular kind of contract. I Disagree with that. Okay. I actually don't think they make workers more expensive for a couple of reasons one Research has shown that paid sick leave is really valuable because People when people have communicable diseases They come to work sick and they get their co-workers sick and the thing about not having access to paid sick leave Means you come when you're starting to get sick because you don't feel that bad and you think you can make it That's actually when you're most contagious So you spread all your germs around the office then you come home and you're really sick So then you stay home on that day. You're really sick by giving people paid sick leave. There's fewer You actually can reduce absenteeism So the real and then the other thing is when somebody comes to work sick. How productive are they so what are you really losing? From which so we can contractors are exempted So the but there are a number I mean research shows the firms that treat their workers better meaning better pay High more likely to have leave are more productive better managed and more profitable So it's not so there there are some advantages to treating your workers. Well, the other thing is so That's one reason firms should do it in a lot of different getting into heaven There firms that do it tend to learn. Oh, it's not as costly as I thought it was going to be because I there's all these productivity advantages I I didn't know about until I experimented The other thing is that the research shows that it mostly comes out of workers wages So they don't actually become that much more expensive because it's really hard for us to force up total compensation That it for workers at the bottom. You do push up total Compensation and that's why these kind of policies they create uniform benefits for everyone. They you know most workers You know who would most workers would trade off the stress of having to choose whether to take an unpaid sick day For a little bit lower pay when you ask people to choose that and it turns out for most workers That's actually the choice. It's happening company total compensation does not rise by very much so firms are able to Businesses are able to adjust except for when you're dealing with the lowest paid workers And so when we pass these kind of benefits It's helping us reduce inequality by lifting up the bottom without really raising overall costs by by very much So I think a lot of employers tend to say. Oh, look, this is becoming so costly But they actually have a lot of margins of adjustment that means that it's not that costly Yeah, and anecdotally at least it seems that more firms are tempted to Reclassify maybe they're misclassifying their workers as as freelancers in order to specifically to evade some of these benefits I'm just well, this is something you hear from your members and well No, I think that it's almost like looking at well Alan Krueger did this great work on minimum wage and found that it didn't at Certain levels mean that fewer people were hired, but you know, I kind of feel like this argument We can get like three economists to argue this and three economists to argue that but at the end of the day Like we don't have a middle class like we used to and when you look at cohorts and what they're expecting to be able to To afford it's just so different and in some ways It's because we fall into the trap of having this argument that says okay If you get something better and we actually act in a civilized way It's gonna cost a lot and other people are really gonna get screwed and I kind of feel like this this doesn't help our debate I think what we really have to say is that there's a certain standard that we're not gonna fall below Because that's the right thing to do and we have to figure out how we're gonna do it Which isn't to say that you don't pay for things and you aren't mindful of it But you know at the end of the day, you know We used to have child labor and you know, maybe they like make rugs better because their fingers are small But that's completely inappropriate So we really do have to say that there's some level upon which we're not gonna fall And I think that's the problem We've gotten very comfortable using these kind of economic arguments that justify an outcome That really has gotten to be just simply a moral and so I just think that's well That's where we are and I think we have to kind of we have to hold ourselves to that Which isn't to say that the economic arguments are irrelevant or anything But let's like let's put the goal there and then let's figure out how we're gonna achieve it I think there's too much emphasis placed on what our employer is going to do Workers are just as much of an important part of this equation as Employers and we need to be asking, you know, what are workers going to do and what we want Workers to do is to be able to engage to their full potential in the economy and the jobs in which they're going to be the Most productive and so we need to have the kinds of policies in place That allow workers to achieve that that encourage people to participate in the labor force that Encourage people to be able to balance, you know work and family that that encourage people to pick jobs based on where what they're really good at Not what's going to allow them the kind of financial security They need because this is the only job that's offering time off or this is the only job that is going to allow me to pick My kid up on time from daycare those kinds of policies are things that are You know really important for the not just, you know for the economy They're important for the economy They're important because workers and what they choose to do is what ultimately determines how much we produce as an economy Not just what employers do you need to see signs that because we're having these policy conversations even when we're not You know we haven't been successful at raising them in a wage at the federal level, but the fight for 15 and others has been Quite successful in parts of the country in raising this conversation the conversation that we've been trying to leave from here about paid paid sick days paid family leave Has also taken root in other parts of the country So you see state and local governments taking this on and actually raising the standards But also you're starting to see a conversation about the sort of notion of conscious capitalism And you have employers coming forward because the argument is happening Thinking about these very questions about the well-being of the workforce and how that actually connects to the well-being of the society at large And how we all have a role to play in making that happen So even when we are not as successful as we would like to be at the federal level and advancing this policy agenda I'm increasingly convinced that having the conversation in a forceful way is like opening up It's opening up the conversation in ways around the country It's hopefully having the effect of stimulating some of the organizing efforts that we're seeing around the country that are yielding successes that I think The hope is that those are the things which will ultimately find their way back to Washington so that we can pass the national standards that we're trying to get to All right, let's open it up to audience questions now I think we have some microphones floating around so if you you have a question, please raise your hand or Stand up and we'll get someone to you nobody Over here somebody over here right now. Yeah. Yes, and please that introduce yourself as well. Sure. Hey there Amy Lightman with new America I was really interested to hear you speak about the social movement building and how you think it's sort of Coming back. I guess I'm a little more Skeptical about whether or not it's coming back because I think there were a few pockets But could you talk a little bit more about? Maybe other efforts that make you think there's sort of some systemic Effort to mobilize folks. Well, so let me just say I think that what the first step is I think we're starting to really see the frustration in a coherent way Especially in the campaigns of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders And I think people have really made it clear about what their frustrations are as workers and feeling like It's it's just been so hard And I think that part of it is that Sometimes I think Invertently kind of the do-gooders sort of decide that there's two kinds of workers like the most vulnerable and marginalized who are worthy of Concern and other workers who are maybe more middle-class And so I think what we have to do is start to to say no We're really talking about everyone for a variety of reasons including what the economy does better when when we have Have all a focus on that I would say what's particularly interesting to me is just the rate at which people are organizing in a very Decentralized and very local way. And so obviously the fight for 15 didn't just come about out of nowhere I mean, it's had incredible support from organized labor But that you are just seeing those kinds of movements and then just the ability to organize really locally So freelancers union we have something called spark Which is where local leaders in 23 cities are meeting and coming together and running their own programs and the we've built that in 15 months and You start to see that with a lot of organizations and I think we're starting to see an emphasis on mobilizing in cities and And a city agenda that I think is really Fascinating that you know, maybe it's in large part because people are saying well, it's really hard to to work in Washington We're not clearly moving things along Legislatively, so let's start looking there and I think that that is probably the the Connection between the organizing around what makes a good city and the local labor efforts And then I'd say the focus on independent contractors So those are my three and just for signs of progress as a result of those kinds of organizing efforts You know, we're keeping track We've tried to take a lot of these conversations around the country and you see there additional states that have adopted paid leave You see additional cities and states which have Advanced the ball on minimum wage But you also see it on free community college where since the president made his proposal We've seen it emerge in 27 different places and a couple of entire states as well as individual programs The same is true of expansions of child care Where we've made progress in 34 states as a result of organizing that's going on and as a result of Igniting a national debate, which is taking root in various parts of the country. So there's more room for help than you think You just have to get out of this town sometimes Question over here. Hi, I'm Valerie young with momentum in the caring economy campaign I wanted to talk about child care. You just brought it up It is you the only mention was the one you just made do you see or envision child care as not in the same Rank as paid family even paid sick days or is it just as much of a Worker's rights and a workplace economic labor force supply issue. It's very I mean from the administration's perspective It's very clear that I mean look it's obviously we think of it as something in the very best interest of kids But it's also tremendously important to the presence of parents in the workforce and And their capacity to stay in the workforce So if you look at the budget that the president has proposed the last couple of years It's the most ambitious child care focused budget Ever starting with this proposal to make pre-k available there before you rolled in this country But also going back to the earliest years And so yeah, we see this very much as a workforce issue and frankly as in Along the lines of again making sure we have the healthiest possible society and the best possible preparation for the workforce Frankly making sure every kid gets to kindergarten ready to learn is an enormous part of that overall effort You know paid maternity and paternity leave is actually a child care issue and a Investment in children's issue. So it is it's a it's a great to have for the moms and dads But it's a really important to have for the kids and we see you see the returns You know the studies show that kids as adults earn more when their parents can take paid leave when they're born I mean that's crazy, but luckily there are other countries where they've done these investments decades ago So we can actually learn what happened and it's crystal clear the investing in children from them from before they're born And early childhood pays huge dividends the best investment We could make with a taxpayer dollar and we're not doing enough of it other questions Hi Ken Mattis with the life needs work one thing that's always struck me is that there's a lot of research that supports these ideas there's also a Abundance of business case arguments that push for these changes yet They don't seem to be enough to push us over the cliff towards change What are the other conversations that we need to be having? In order to actually promote change I think one of the the biggest ones and sort of to the point of the woman of where are you seeing these changes? I think the next thing we have to do is move from sort of social media Conversations to actual institution building and I sometimes feel like there's like a disconnect generationally You know so you think about like the generations You know I don't even know how many back where people were in like elks and like the lodge and masons and it was almost like people were So oriented toward being with one another and you know What's funny my family actually had like the Harwitz Cousins Club and like seriously like there was like a dues paying and there Was like president and they like organized like all the get-togethers, and maybe that's why I do I did want to be president, but you know anyway But I do feel like we should be trying to think about You know literally it's it's not that hard You know you need to figure out something you think about how cooperative started or meet-ups You know how you could like institutionalize a meet-up by like actually kicking in five dollars You know every meeting and starting to say someone's going to be in charge of holding that money And I know that sounds like really mundane But I feel like we need to go back to that and I think like to put it bluntly sometimes I think Ronald Reagan like just one you know for a bunch of decades because We've really gotten so individualized and it's like even if you think of biodiversity and environment It's it's just not healthy. We shouldn't be so alone but we do have to form structures and Institutions and learn how to lead them and make sure that revenues exceed expenses and you know I think back to the great eras of labor where labor had banks and affordable housing and you had like You know progressive accountants and progressive Actuaries, you know, it was like we knew how to run things and I think like our do-gooder community We don't run enough like in a boring mundane way And I think that's what we should all be doing boring mundane Institution building in a very romantic visionary way As a person who relies a lot on that research and who engages in that research I think that the the research is really important for us to understand You know what we should be doing and where we should be going but as an economist It's really really essential that everybody understand that what's good for the economy is not the same thing as what's good for narrow business interests And those are two, you know, they're two very distinct things and the research tends to tell us about what's going to be good for the economy What's going to be good for society? and we need to be able to break out of You know narrow business interests and listening to employers complain You know that I don't want to offer this or that to my my worker and take the big picture look and then the research is helping us get an idea of a Vision because I also believe in visioning what would a society look like in which employers Took more responsibility for their workers in which workers had more shared prosperity in which we got the labor share back Up to where it was. We need to be thinking about that Vision and then trying to figure out how to achieve it. Well, thank you very much to our panelists And thank you for all