New Grantees
WorkRise's new slate of grantees explores innovative strategies to enhance worker mobility, well-being, and economic opportunity.
Meet our grantees
WorkRise's new slate of grantees explores innovative strategies to enhance worker mobility, well-being, and economic opportunity.
Grantmaking and Partnerships
Led by a cross-sector Leadership Board that is ideologically diverse and representative of often-siloed groups, WorkRise invests in research on policies, programs, and practices that have the potential to accelerate economic security and mobility for low-wage workers. We fund analyses and the creation of data that shed light on labor market barriers, trends, and opportunities. And we engage in strategic partnerships that help advance evidence-based solutions in support of our mission. Learn more about our most recent request for proposals and how you can collaborate with WorkRise.
The Latest
Skills and training
Last updated on June 18, 2024How to Expand Access to Good Clean Energy Jobs among Women and People of Color
New research shows women and people of color are underrepresented in the potential workforce for high-quality clean energy jobs. Universities, employers, and unions can play a role in creating a more diverse workforce.
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Skills and training
Last updated on June 04, 2024WorkRise Shorts: Applying AI to Rebuild Middle Class Jobs with David Autor
Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor David Autor asks what artificial intelligence could enable people to do and who could be enabled by this tool.
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Economic context
Last updated on June 11, 2024Better Local Labor Market Conditions Can Help Reduce the Risk of Reincarceration in the United States
Formerly incarcerated people who face better local labor market conditions when they are released from prison are estimated to face lower likelihoods of being reincarcerated.
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The Latest
Social determinants of work
March 05, 2024
Article
Move to Opportunity or Invest Locally: What helps workers get ahead?
Federal, state, and local investment in underresourced communities is more effective in improving low-wage workers’ economic mobility than moving them to well-funded communities.
Skills and training
February 27, 2024
Video
WorkRise Shorts: Perspectives on Learning and Employment Records, with Jhacole LeGrand-Dunn
How can a learning and employment record, a new kind of credentialing tool, promote greater equity in the US jobs market? Answering this question is Jhacole LeGrand-Dunn, Senior Director, Pathways, at Digital Promise, and a member of the Retail Opportunity Network, a community of leaders focused on upskilling and economic mobility. LeGrand-Dunn explains how learning and employment records can open up more pathways to access to jobs and enable more equitable access to jobs.
February 27, 2024
Worker voice, representation, and power
February 20, 2024
Research Summary
The Racial Wealth Gap Is Smaller among Union Members
New evidence sheds light on the wealth of union households, finding greater wealth, higher pay, more benefits, and more stable employment for union members of color compared to their nonunionized counterparts.
Employer practices
February 27, 2024
Article
How Companies Can Modernize Their Approach to CSR: Strategies for a Successful Company, Workforce, and Society
This piece offers strategies to navigate the evolving landscape of corporate social responsibility in light of societal demands for more human-centered interventions.
Research
Job search and matching
Report
July 20, 2022
Search and Matching in Modern Labor Markets: A Landscape Report
This landscape report synthesizes research on how job seekers find work and how employers post and fill open positions in the labor market. It also explores frictions experienced by both parties and implications for workers’ economic mobility.
WorkRise Research
Worker voice, representation, and power
Report
July 11, 2022
U.S. Workers’ Organizing Efforts and Collective Actions: A Review of the Current Landscape
The report summarizes research evidence on the size of the voice and representation gaps workers are attempting to fill, and provides examples of different strategies workers are using to address the gap.
Grantee Research
Employer practices
Report
June 17, 2022
Employer Practices and Worker Outcomes: A Landscape Report
Commissioned by WorkRise, this report by researchers at the MIT Sloan School of Management summarizes evidence on employer practices that influence economic mobility and promising areas for research to advance the state of policy and practice.
WorkRise Research
Social determinants of work
Executive Summary
March 29, 2022
Income Inequality, Race, and the EITC
New grantee research finds the 1993 expansion of the earned income tax credit reduced income inequality among Black and white households in the lower half of the income distribution through a significant employment response among Black households.
March 29, 2022