Our Work
We are meant to work. The drive to create, to share, and to secure a good life is part of who we are. Our state’s sustained unemployment is more than just an economic problem and it affects more than just those who are unemployed. Leaving talented Minnesotans idle when our state needs help is a political and moral problem too.
But jobs, of course, aren’t created in a vacuum. At the root of our current recession is slack consumer demand. Businesses don’t hire when no one will buy their goods or services. Consumer demand is down because Minnesotans incomes have stagnated. This is not a new problem of last three years; this is a growing problem of the last thirty. Improving job quality is itself a strategy to fix our economy.
Minnesotans need new jobs and good jobs, but we will never fully thrive if some of us are systematically excluded from getting them. From two-tiered benefits structures to outright discrimination, people of color, women, Native Americans, immigrants, the disabled, and the poor have for generations been excluded from full participation in our economy. The Minnesota of the next three decades will succeed or fail based on how we widely we share opportunities.
To shift economic power in Minnesota we need to create new jobs, make jobs better, and, as we are doing through our Justice 4 All Campaign, improve access to jobs.