In Episode 2 of In Competition We Trust, PPI’s Diana Moss hosts Greg Asciolla, Chair of the Antitrust and Competition Litigation Practice at DiCello Levitt. Their conversation unpacks why private antitrust enforcement, especially for price-fixing, is important for competition and consumers.
Category: Uncategorized
26 of this year’s 80 MLB All-Stars are ‘international’
FACT: 26 of this year’s 80 MLB All-Stars are “international”
THE NUMBERS: Home run leaders, morning of September 3, 2025 –
| Raleigh | 51 |
| Schwarber | 49 |
| Ohtani | 46 |
| Judge | 43 |
| Suarez | 42 |
| Caminero | 40 |
| Soto | 37 |
WHAT THEY MEAN:
How “international” is American working life? Some pennant-race season perspective –
Always remembered for Fisk’s 12th-inning, Game 6 home run, the ’75 Series marks its 50th anniversary this fall. That year’s Red Sox roster, with two international players (ace Luis Tiant and middle-reliever Diego Segui, both Cuban-born), exactly mirrored the majors’ 92% U.S./Puerto Rican composition. The Big Red Machine – 20% international, 80% U.S.-born — was more like a 21st-century team, starting Dominican centerfielder Cesar Geronimo, Cuban first baseman Tony Perez, and Venezuelan shortstop Dave Concepcion, with reliever Pedro Borbon in the bullpen and Bahamian Ed Armbrister as a reserve outfielder.
A half-century later, MLB rosters have diversified and internationalized. They’re now 74% U.S.- and Puerto Rican-born, and 26% international. The leagues’ main recruiting spots outside the U.S. are still mainly on the Caribbean littoral — a hundred players from the DR and 63 from Venezuela; 20 from Cuba, 60 from everywhere else — but go deeper into Mexico and Canada, and also draw from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. A rundown:
| All Opening Day players* | 953 |
| U.S.* | 704 |
| Dominican Republic | 100 |
| Venezuela | 63 |
| Cuba | 26 |
| Mexico | 11 |
| Canada | 13 |
| Japan | 12 |
| Curacao | 4 |
| Korea | 3 |
| 9 other countries | 13 |
* An odd number, as it includes players on the DL.
** Includes 16 Puerto Rican players, puzzlingly termed ‘international’ by MLB.
To pull back a bit: Overall, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May Labor Characteristics of the Foreign-Born Workforce release finds 161.3 million people working here in 2024, including 130.9 million “native-born” workers and 30.9 million “foreign-born” workers. (BLS defines ‘foreign-born’ as the total number of “legally-admitted immigrants, refugees, temporary residents such as students and temporary workers, and undocumented immigrants”.) This would mean 19.2% of workers were born abroad. In context, this is slightly below the average for wealthy western countries: the International Labour Organization’s most recent estimate says that as of 2022 in “North America’s” (meaning in ILO geography the U.S. and Canada only), immigrants make up 22.6% of the workforce, a bit less than the 23.3% share in western Europe.
Looked at more closely, BLS’ “foreign-born” stats have immigrant labor shares highest in physically demanding hourly-wage work — construction, groundskeeping, nannies and maids, hired farmhands — and also high in top-end glamor jobs from pro sports to science labs and movie studios. The lowest shares show up in middle- and upper-middle income positions: company managers, health care providers, lawyers and paralegals, teachers, and so on. A sample list, with figures from 2025 or the most recent available year:
| Crop-picking farmworkers | 58% |
| Computer science doctorates | 58% |
| 2025 Oscar nominees | 50% |
| All farm, fishery, and forestry workers | 44% |
| 2024 U.S. Nobelists | 43% |
| Doctoral-level science & tech workers | 40% |
| Construction Workers | 36% |
| MLB | 27% |
| All major-league athletes | 25% |
| Food service | 25% |
| Personal care & services | 22% |
| All science & tech workers (2021) | 19% |
| All U.S. workers | 19% |
| Health care practitioners | 16% |
| Management jobs | 15% |
| Education & training | 12% |
| Lawyers & paralegals | 10% |
| Security services | 9% |
Bureau of Labor Statistics for all workers, National Science Foundation for engineering and science workers; Motion Picture Academy for Oscar nominations (counting individuals rather than groups and collaborations); official stats from MLB, NBA, WNBA, and MLS, plus outside writers on hockey and football for pro athletes.
With this in the background, baseball has evolved in parallel with the U.S. generally. Like their top-of-the-economy peers in Hollywood and science, MLB teams now draw from a larger talent pool — this year’s top-ten home-run list features six Americans, two Dominicans, a Venezuelan, and Babe Ruth-like pitcher/slugger Shohei Ohtani — and probably have a higher overall quality of play. U.S.-born players, on the other hand, faced more competition to get their roster slots. It’s probably a mistake to draw too many big-picture lessons or policy ideas from this, but see below for some data on America’s larger workforce trends, and comparisons from the other five big leagues. Coda first, though, for those who weren’t watching in July:
The 2025 All-Star game ended with a six-player “home run swing-off” tiebreaker pitting the National League’s two Americans and a Venezuelan — Kyle Schwarber, Kyle Stowers, and Suarez — against a Cuban-American-Mexican AL trio. (Arozeranda, Rooker, and Aranda.) Ohio native and Indiana University grad Schwarber won it for the NL with a flawless 3-for-3 — three swings, three home runs — at-bat. Not quite Fisk’s 1975 drama, but still pretty good.
FURTHER READING
PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:
- Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
- Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
- Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
- Offer a positive alternative.
Baseball:
The Opening Day rosters featured 245 international players, making up 26.5% of the 953 players out on the grass in the sun, riding the bench, or gloomily parked on the DL.
… Now: July’s All-Star rosters.
… Then: MLB’s ’75 Series retrospective, plus the Baseball Almanac’s count of that year’s international players.
… Tomorrow: The Dominican Summer League’s next-generation talent.
And the Society for American Baseball Research has a backstory on Cuban and Dominican baseball.
Some more close-ups:
Hollywood’s 2025 Oscar nominees.
The 2024 Nobel Prizes.
USDA’s look at America’s 1.17 million hired farmworkers.
And the National Science Foundation on the sci/tech workforce.
Worldwide perspective:
The International Labor Organization estimates 155.6 million “international migrant” workers as of 2022. That would be 4.7%, or one in every 20, of the world’s 3.3 billion workers. The lowest foreign-born rates are 0.7% in North Africa and 3.7% in East Asia; the highest, in the Persian Gulf monarchies, are above 50%. As above, the U.S.’ 19.2% appears to be a bit below the Canadian and European figures.
American big picture:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ most recent Labor Characteristics of the Foreign-Born Workforce brief, out last May, with figures for 2024.
A trawl through this report’s back issues (available online to 2003) finds two big trends. One, the “foreign-born” worker share has been rising over time and especially fast in recent years – from the 14.5% share of in 2004, to 16.6% a decade later in 2014, 17.2% in 2021, and last year’s 19.2% – both through both high levels of immigration and the aging of the native-born workforce. (About 4 million Americans retire each year.) And two, foreign-born workers have grown relatively more educated over time — 56% now have “some college” or “BA or higher,” as against 37% in 2004 — meaning the “smile” curve may be flattening out. The Trump administration’s deportation campaign has very likely slowed the first trend — fewer foreign-born maids, groundskeepers, construction crews, and farm hands — and accelerated the second.
And around the leagues:
NBA: If MLB’s scouts spend their road time on Caribbean beaches or in Japan, their basketball counterparts draw more from a more global pool with a European focus. The National Basketball Association’s 2024-2025 season was 28.0% international with 21 Canadian players, 14 French, 13 Australians, 6 Serbs, and a record 5 from Cameroon.
WNBA: The Women’s National Basketball Association, meanwhile, features 41 international players on this season’s 173 roster spots, for a slightly lower 23.6%. DC’s Mystics play Australian guards Georgia Amoore and Jade Melbourne, along with forwards Sika Kone and Aaliyah Edwards, who are respectively from Mali and Canada.
MLS: Majority-international Major League Soccer has so much available foreign talent that it has an “International Rule” capping international players at 241 of the league’s 852 slots. Kind of a squishy rule, though, as it declares Canadians “domestic” to get a North American 50.1% majority player share.
NFL: The least “international” among the big leagues, the National Football League also seems to be the least analyst-friendly, as we haven’t found an up-to-date list of international players. Their 2023 list reported 88 international players with “at least one snap” in 2022. Much like MLB dubiously counts Puerto Ricans as “international,” the NFL’s “international list” includes 7 U.S. citizens from American Samoa. (They also recruit in the independent Republic of Samoa.) The other top sources are 22 Canadians, 19 Nigerians, and 7 Australians.
NHL: The “nation” in National Hockey League is not the U.S. but Canada, even if most of the rinks are now south of the 49th Parallel and won’t freeze even in March without artificial help. The NHL’s 712 players last year included 291 Canadians, 204 Americans, 216 Europeans (topped by Swedes, with Russia and Finland next), and one Aussie.
ABOUT ED
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.
RFK Jr. Wants Us to Trust Health Tracking Devices and Apps. Should We?
As people are turning to health tracking devices and apps for understanding, tracking, and treating their health more than ever, current U.S. law has not evolved to protect this sensitive data. Despite this, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants all Americans wearing health tracking devices by 2033, claiming it will improve health monitoring and detect disease earlier.
Wearables are any device worn by individuals to track health and activities. To function, these devices (e.g., smartwatches, fitness trackers) are connected to apps to allow a user to review their data. In addition, users can manually input data into apps. While wearable devices and their connected apps are already common in the U.S. and other countries, the scale of Kennedy’s plan raises serious data privacy and security concerns around how health data from these devices is collected, stored, and shared on their connected apps.
Many U.S. users are under the mistaken impression that health information collected through health tracking apps is protected by U.S. privacy laws. However, the main federal health privacy law, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), covers only health care providers, insurers, and their business partners. Commercial health apps fall outside HIPAA’s protection, which means they can legally collect and share user data ranging from daily steps to blood pressure to mental health diagnoses.
Without a national privacy law in place, it is unclear who controls and can use sensitive consumer data entered into these apps either manually or through a wearable device. For example, BetterHelp, a mental health and therapy app, was fined $7.8 million by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) after it was found to have shared users’ sensitive mental health data with third-party advertising platforms, including Facebook and Snapchat. The FTC alleged BetterHelp violated §5 of the FTC Act for deceptive practices because the company assured customers their data would not be shared with third parties and conversations would be kept private.
In the European Union, the same platforms are held to stricter standards under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR, which many regard as unduly rigid, nonetheless holds organizations responsible for handling data, including requiring them to meet a lawful basis for processing data and being held accountable when not meeting these standards. For example, Fitbit, a widely used health tracking app connected to Google wearable devices, but is usable without a device, must receive explicit consent from users before processing health data.
U.S. law and regulatory policy have not been meaningfully updated to account for the rise of artificial intelligence and digital health technology. In 2021, Senator Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.) introduced the SMARTWATCH Data Act. The aim was to ensure health data collected by wearables through their connected apps would be protected under similar standards that apply to traditional health data. But the bill did not advance past committee.
Congress needs to create a federal framework to enforce data privacy before RFK Jr. moves forward with a national wearable initiative. Although the FTC has taken action against individual companies, fines on large companies are typically viewed as a slap on the wrist. Consumers need a new federal law to stop companies from collecting and selling data once wearable apps are downloaded. Wearables and their connected apps offer real benefits, such as early detection and long-term tracking of chronic conditions; however, privacy, consent, and data transparency must come first.
Without updated data laws, Americans will continue to be vulnerable to the misuse of their health data. Data such as fertility, heart rate, and sleep patterns will become a valuable, sellable commercial product to companies. This kind of mass data collection risks creating a system that prioritizes profit over user safety. The Trump administration should not pile more risk on consumers by failing to protect the privacy and security of health tracking devices and apps.
Kahlenberg for Heterodox Academy’s Inquisitive Magazine: Class Matters
Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited excerpt from pages 120-26 of Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges (Public Affairs, 2025).
Efforts around the turn of the twenty-first century to add into college admissions considerations of socioeconomic diversity on top of racial diversity – an idea supported by many of my liberal friends – failed mostly because it did not grapple with the fundamental forces that drive university behavior. Universities deserve credit for recognizing that racial diversity is part of what makes them excellent, and they have woven a commitment to it into their DNA. But why did all the statistical analyses of admissions – including from strong supporters of racial affirmative action – find that universities pay so much less attention to class diversity for its own sake? Four explanations stand out.
Read more in Inquisitive Magazine.
Jacoby for Forbes: Ukrainian Veterans Prepare For Postwar Leadership
Nothing about the dozen men and women gathered on a summer Saturday in the nondescript classroom in downtown Kyiv signaled who they were. Pale, skinny women in punkish black mingled comfortably with beefy men in rugged work clothes. Ages ranged from early 20s to late middle age. They greeted each other warmly and shared a few jokes as they squeezed into plastic chair desks and waited for their instructor.
What they had in common: all were Ukrainian veterans chosen to participate in a program they hope will prepare them for future leadership, whether in government, nonprofit organizations, or community settings—any initiative, as the program’s cofounders put it in an interview, to “rebuild and strengthen Ukraine.”
Virtually no one in Ukraine expects peace anytime soon—they don’t believe Vladimir Putin will make peace until he has achieved his goal of subjugating his southern neighbor. But in a nation fighting to break free of Russian influence, refashioning itself as a European democracy, the future of the country is on everyone’s mind—that’s what they’re fighting and dying for—and it’s never too soon to think about rebuilding.
Read more in Forbes.
Manno for Forbes: Rethinking College Rankings: Colleges That Provide Value
At a time when college enrollment is shrinking and public faith in higher education is faltering, the question of how we measure college value has never been more urgent. Against this backdrop, the just-released 2025 College Rankings from Washington Monthly offer a way to measure higher education’s value.
In an introduction to the issue, editor in chief Paul Glastris and editor Rob Wolfe write: “Instead of rewarding colleges for their wealth, prestige, and exclusivity, we measure how much they help ordinary middle- and working-class students get ahead, encourage democratic participation and service to the country, and produce the scholars and scholarship that drive economic growth and human flourishing. These, we think, are what most Americans want from their investments in the higher ed system.”
Read more in Forbes.
The Union Podcast Episode 9: Education Reform in New Orleans on Katrina’s 20th Anniversary
Marshall for The Hill: Trump is Sinking, but Democrats Aren’t Rising — Here’s Why
Like all good flimfam artists, President Trump is a master of misdirection.
As Americans grow increasingly skeptical of his inflationary tariffs, deficit-swelling tax cuts and senseless push to gut federal agencies and research, he floods the zone with a firehose of falsehoods to shift media and public attention elsewhere.
Take his grandstanding plan to dispatch U.S. troops to Chicago and other cities, as he’s already done to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. It’s a classic “wag the dog” ploy with a Trumpian twist: Instead of fabricating a foreign military crisis to divert voters from their domestic woes, he’s invading America’s blue metros.
Crime and public disorder, including sprawling homeless encampments, are serious problems. But a rational president would partner with local leaders to alleviate them instead of putting our cities under military occupation.
Trump’s grotesquely exaggerated claims of urban anarchy discredit America in the world’s eyes so he can score political points at home. Hard-core Republicans eat it up, but the rest of the country seems unswayed by the president’s gaslighting.
Keep reading in The Hill.
Jacoby for Washington Monthly: A Deadly Night in Kyiv Makes a Mockery of the Peace Process
It was already clear at 10:00 p.m. that it would be a tough night in Kyiv. The air alert sounded at 9:24 p.m., blaring outside and shrieking out of the state-supported app on my phone. Like many in Ukraine, I checked a couple of privately run Telegram chats to see what was incoming—the chats use open-source intelligence to give real-time updates, sometimes with a text every few seconds, showing exactly what is in the air and where, pinpointed to the neighborhood. The picture didn’t look good: already two dozen little drone icons on my go-to channel’s schematic map. But none were yet in Kyiv, so I breathed easy for now and went back to my otherwise quiet Wednesday night.
That day, the news in the Western media was still all about Donald Trump’s efforts to broker a ceasefire a week earlier. Several media outlets were still analyzing what exactly had happened when seven European leaders, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, traveled to the White House on August 18 to try to undo the damage Trump caused at his chummy meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska the week before. Another story revealed European leaders were working to develop security guarantees—perhaps European soldiers at Ukrainian airports and train stations—to be implemented once a peace agreement is signed. Another shocking report detailed ExxonMobil’s secret talks with a state-run Russian energy giant about resuming business as usual when the ink on a deal is dry.
Read more in Washington Monthly.
Manno for Washington Monthly: Why AI Could Be a Boon for Workers
A recent article in the New York Times seemed to signal an AI-fueled apocalypse for job seekers. The article profiled the plight of recent college graduates who’d expected six-figure jobs with their computer science degrees but were now scrapping for shifts at Chipotle. According to one expert quoted in the Times, the jobs “most likely to be automated are the entry-level positions that [recent graduates] would be seeking.”
Recent research shows that AI is replacing entry-level jobs, similar to how mechanical automation eliminated low-skill manufacturing roles in past decades. However, this expanding definition of “expertise” will eventually create new jobs and pathways for workers to gain skills necessary to stay competitive in a post-AI era. The outcome could be the democratization of expertise and wider opportunities for upward mobility.
Read more in Washington Monthly.
New Orleans’ 20-Year Transformation Offers National Lessons on School Reform
WASHINGTON — Two decades after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, a new report from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) reveals how the city’s complete overhaul of its public education system yielded unprecedented academic gains, offering a blueprint to transform struggling school districts nationwide.
The report, “20 Years of Reinvention: Education Reform in New Orleans,” chronicles the city’s bold post-Katrina move to convert its traditional public schools into public charter schools. The move radically redefines the role of the district and shows student achievement surging across nearly every metric: test scores, graduation rates, college enrollment, and school accountability ratings.
“New Orleans proves that it is possible to build a public education system that is both excellent and equitable,” said Rachel Canter, Director of Education Policy at PPI and co-author of the report. “This transformation didn’t happen overnight; it required political courage, sustained leadership, and a relentless focus on student outcomes.”
Among the key findings:
- The percentage of New Orleans students scoring at “basic or above” on fourth-grade English tests rose from 44% in 2005 to 54% in 2024, on more rigorous exams.
- High school graduation rates climbed from 54% in 2004 to nearly 79% in 2023.
- College entry rates jumped from 37% to 65%, now surpassing the state average.
The report attributes these gains to a powerful mix of school autonomy, strong accountability, citywide public school choice, and a robust ecosystem of nonprofit partners.
“New Orleans didn’t just rebuild its schools, it reinvented the entire system,” said co-author Emily Langhorne. “The city separated the work of managing schools from operating them, embraced diverse school models, and prioritized student achievement above bureaucratic tradition.”
While acknowledging that New Orleans’ unique circumstances may not be replicable everywhere, the authors emphasize that the core principles of autonomy, accountability, and choice can be adapted to other urban districts facing systemic failure.
Read and download the report here.
The Reinventing America’s Schools Project seeks to refocus national leadership around proven strategies to improve public schools and educational achievement. We believe that American public schools must prepare children academically to be successful adults and citizens; families should have a voice in their child’s education, including a choice within the public system to find a school that best fits their child’s needs; and, though education is the province of the states, the federal government must protect the promise that every child will have access to a quality public education.
Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Find an expert and learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Follow us @PPI.
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Media Contact: Ian O’Keefe – iokeefe@ppionline.org
Jacoby for Forbes: Ukraine Looks Abroad For Joint Ventures To Boost Its Defense Industry
Before Russia invaded in 2022, Pyotr Ivanenko produced sports equipment in Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv. When Russian troops surrounded the city, bombarding it relentlessly and prompting three-quarters of the population to flee, Ivanenko, a fit man with a shaved head and ice green eyes, made a decision. “I needed to change what I was doing,” he told me an interview, “to switch to making what the country needs.” (Ivanenko is not his real name—he requested a pseudonym to protect his business and his family.)
By 2023, he was churning out homegrown armored vehicles—his company makes everything but the engines—and angling for a contract with the defense ministry. By 2025, he had developed two types of unmanned ground vehicles that can transport supplies to remote military positions, evacuate wounded soldiers, and carry a mounted gun into hostile territory, allowing a gunner in the rear to fire at the enemy from close range.
Now, like almost all Ukrainian arms manufacturers, Ivanenko has a problem. His defense ministry contract is coming to an end, and although he sells personnel carriers and robotized vehicles to fighting units all along the front line, he says he could make 10 times as many if the government had the money to buy them. But the 2025 Ukrainian budget allocates just $17.5 billion to purchase weapons, exactly half the $35 billon in equipment the domestic arms industry says it can produce. Virtually all manufacturers, large and small, are clamoring for some kind of relief.
20 Years of Reinvention: Education Reform in New Orleans
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, accelerating the collapse of an already disintegrating city public school system. Prior to the storm, almost two-thirds of New Orleans public school students attended failing schools, half dropped out, and fewer than one in five enrolled in college. The school system suffered severe financial mismanagement, corruption, and crumbling school infrastructures.
Yet in the midst of a national tragedy came an unprecedented opportunity for education reform. Louisiana transferred 80% of the city’s public schools to the state-run Recovery School District (RSD), which, over the next decade, converted them all into charter schools. The elected Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) turned most of its 17 remaining schools into charters as well. In 2018, the state “reunified” the RSD schools with the local school board. By 2020, the OPSB had converted its last two schools to charters, making New Orleans the first large U.S. school district composed entirely of charter schools.
This sweeping education reform led to remarkable academic gains. Over the last 20 years, student outcomes have grown substantially. Despite harder assessments, students have jumped ten percentage points in reading and math at fourth and eighth grade, and graduation and college enrollments have rocketed by more than twenty percentage points. In 2024, not a single New Orleans school was rated as “failing” by the state accountability system.
The New Orleans model will not translate perfectly to all American districts, given the unique circumstances of post-Katrina recovery. Nonetheless, elements of its approach provide a compelling blueprint for large bureaucratic districts. These include:
- Significant school autonomy, so school leaders have the freedom they need to craft schools that meet their students’ needs.
- Accountability for student performance, including the opportunity for schools to expand and/or replicate if successful, and to face replacement or closure if not.
- Full choice between a diverse array of educational models.
- Competition for students and dollars among schools.
- A board and superintendent largely freed of responsibility for operating schools, enabling them to concentrate on system-wide needs and issues.
The reinvention of New Orleans’ public schools represents both stunning success and critical lessons. If every major American public school system could achieve similar improvements, the effect on children across the nation would be profound.
Read the full report.
Manno for Philanthropy Daily: A Donor Playbook for Local Workforce Renewal
The promise of upward mobility remains unmet for many of America’s workers. Within the labor market, frustrations abound, for workers and employers alike:
- Employers face labor shortages while capable workers remain locked in low-wage
- Workers without college degrees and other familiar credentials can’t translate their skills into the parlance of employers who use recognizable credentials to screen for jobs.
- Education and training programs and placement agencies struggle to find jobs for their graduates because they don’t know which workplace career trajectories lead to upward mobility.
Failing to resolve these and other stumbling blocks is especially frustrating since today’s “big data” creates more information about employers, workers, and opportunities than ever before. Today’s “challenge isn’t gathering more information—it’s making sense of the information we have and putting it to work,” according to the Burning Glass Institute report Jobs That Mobilize: A Data‑Driven Playbook for America’s Workforce.
The Jobs That Mobilize report describes a structured, six-step framework and process for bringing together community stakeholders to promote worker upward mobility. Donors can use the report to take a lead role in marshaling partnerships, supporting evidence-based strategies, and building community capacity and structures to align education, training, employer needs, and worker aspirations. They can create cross-sector partnerships, invest in innovation, and foster system-wide action on workforce development issues.
Read more in Philanthropy Daily.
The Union Podcast Episode 8
Jacoby on Fox 5 DC: Ukraine After the Peace Talks
Jim Lokay talks with journalist Tamar Jacoby, who recaps President Trump’s recent efforts to end the war in Ukraine. Jacoby, based in Kyiv, provides insight on what it would take to broker a deal to stop the fighting, even as Putin’s forces continue their assault on Ukraine days after his summit in Alaska.
