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Joan Fitzgerald is a professor of public policy and urban affairs at Northeastern University and the author of Greenovation: Urban Leadership on Climate Change.
If we don’t develop a national industrial policy for
clean-energy production, the strategies of other nations will displace American companies and jobs.
The green economy will get an $80 billion boost from President Barack Obama’s recovery package in the form of direct spending, loan guarantees, and tax incentives. A clean-energy economy offers not just savings in imported oil and reductions in carbon emissions necessary to save the planet but jobs and new industries — and not just […]
Conversion to solar and wind energy is an environmental necessity and an industrial opportunity. Success will require a concerted national policy.
One out of every six full-time U.S. workers earns less than 125 percent of the poverty line — under $18,865 a year for a family of three. And the share of low-wage workers is considerably higher in many of the sectors with the most job growth: retailing, hotel and food services, health care, and human […]
There are good jobs to be had in environmentally friendly development, and construction jobs are just the beginning. Thousands of jobs are in products that go into green buildings. The job potential in renewable energy production is even more impressive. The Renewable Energy Policy Project estimates that producing 10 percent of the nation’s electricity with […]
How to generate more good jobs for Americans? Conventionally, policy-makers and economists give great weight to two strategies — education and economic development. Presumably, a better educated workforce will command higher pay. And economic development will generate more jobs, one hopes good jobs. But there are limits to what these two approaches can accomplish, given […]
Lilliana Diaz has operated a child-care business in her Lowell, Massachusetts, home for more than four years. Often rising before dawn and putting in 10-hour days, she guides eight toddlers through a busy schedule of reading, playtime, meals, and more. To get to this point, Diaz completed a 63-hour training course, then earned a Childhood […]
Low-wage jobs cause stagnant living standards only when they are dead-end jobs. Deliberately designed occupational pathways can enable people to move up as they acquire more skills: Entry-level wages may be low, but people advance beyond them. A plumbing apprentice, a junior associate in a law firm, a medical intern or a news clerk at […]
High-quality child care is the biggest missing element in welfare-to-work efforts. Despite additional funding under welfare reform, the care available to most low-income women and their children is usually custodial and unreliable. Many former welfare recipients themselves work providing child care — at low wages in unstable employment. So upgrading child care would actually serve […]
Nobody is happy with the nation’s nursing homes. Too many patients are receiving substandard care. Workers, particularly nurse’s aides who provide the majority of direct care, suffer from low wages, lack of benefits, understaffing, inadequate training, and limited career opportunities. Families are often appalled at how their loved ones are treated. Owners and managers struggle […]
