Joint Center President Participates in Aspen Institute’s Capitol Hill Briefing on the Future of Work

Joint Center President Spencer Overton participated in The Aspen Institute’s Capitol Hill briefing on automation and the future of work. The focus of the discussion was to “explore ways to modernize existing policies to better address the needs of today and tomorrow’s workers as they grapple with an increasingly automated economy.”

During the panel, Spencer explained that African Americans have a high risk to job loss due to automation. As noted in our report, Race & Jobs at High Risk to Automation, 27 percent of African Americans are concentrated in just 30 high risk occupations such as cashiers, retail sales, drivers, or cooks. Spencer also spoke about the need for formal evaluations of federal workforce programs to determine which programs are most effective. The Joint Center covers this topic in more detail in our 6-page fact sheet.

Other experts on the panel included MxD CEO Chandra Brown, New America Senior Fellow of National Network and Work, Workers, and Technology Molly Kinder, National Skills Coalition CEO Andy Van Kleunen, and The Century Foundation Senior Fellow Andrew Stettner.

More information on the discussion can be found here. More photos from the panel can be found below.