Workforce Matters hosted a post-election/2025 preview workforce policy briefing for funders last month with representatives from the National Skills Coalition, Unidos US, and the Joint Center.
We are pleased to share key takeaways from the conversation below and welcome members to follow up with us on the next steps.
- Workforce development continues to be a bipartisan issue with broad appeal. Forming strategic partnerships and unlikely allyships may help move priorities forward over the next four years.
- As the new administration takes office, these three principles from the National Skills Coalition may be helpful in guiding our work:
- sustaining and deepening commitments to engaging working people;
- focusing on fixing systems rather than people;
- being flexible on tactics and what constitutes a win.
- State coalitions across the country are working on articulating and protecting their accomplishments under the past administration’s infrastructure and clean energy investments. Regional funders may want to pay attention to and support the work of these coalitions.
- Coming reauthorizations of the Perkins Act and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act may be an opportunity to reimagine parts of our workforce system to improve coordination with the educational system, outcomes, and the system’s ability to address the needs of working people in our rapidly transforming economy.
- The new administration’s proposed changes to immigration, threatened mass deportations, and pullback from DEI initiatives will impact both workers and employers. Workforce funders may want to pay particular attention to how these changes impact worker safety, protections, and compensation.
In closing, our speakers encouraged Workforce Matters funders to maintain commitments to racial equity, even in the face of a challenging environment. Corporate funders have a particular role in advocating for their workers and supporting initiatives that promote equity, including aligned interests of expanding workforce housing and addressing labor shortages. All funders can also invest in more profound engagement with diverse communities, particularly the working class. Finally, it will be important for funders to preserve as much flexibility as possible so that field partners and grantees can continue their work to advance equitable workforce policy.
