About D4AD
Choices about education and job opportunities are among the most consequential decisions that individuals will make for their financial well-being. Yet, most people – especially low-income Americans from disadvantaged backgrounds – make these decisions with less data-driven insight than is the case when choosing a movie to watch at night. An estimated 13 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, in many cases because they don’t know where to go to get the information they need to navigate the labor market. Opportunities are out there, but workers are simply not able to find them or to get the training needed to obtain them. This not only hurts the neediest in our society—low-income Americans from disadvantaged backgrounds—but also hurts overall economic growth as productive jobs and skill needs go unfilled.
The Data for the American Dream (D4AD) initiative aims to support innovative efforts to expand access to education and career data through partnerships that might include both public and private agencies and organizations. The goal of the D4AD initiative is to help students and jobseekers make better career decisions in a changing economy through data-driven information, and especially to help low-income, lower-skilled, underemployed, and unemployed Americans access better jobs and education opportunities.
D4aD Grantees
Colorado Workforce Development Council
Powered by a multi-agency, public-private data trust, My Colorado Journey will unite the existing fragmented ecosystem of data and allow for the creation of new datasets that connect services, programs, and education and employment opportunities.
Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget
Operating in partnership with Michigan’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, a regional workforce development system, and academic and research institutions, this project will focus on creating a suite of tools that will aid displace workers and unemployed or low-income individuals in making the transition to successful, sustainable employment.
New Jersey
Department of Labor
Targeted at customers of the state’s human services programs and other disadvantaged populations, New Jersey’s D4AD project will build an interactive website containing smart disclosure tools that will help jobseekers make informed decisions about training. Project partners include state agencies and organizations from the non-profit and private sectors and academia.
NEWS
Check out our blog post providing a brief summary of the jobs report released August 7, 2020 and how it relates to the D4AD initiative.
Making Data Work for Low-Income, Lower-Skilled, Unemployed, and Underemployed Individuals seeks to identify potentially successful approaches to help fulfill the transformational promise of big data in the education realm for these key populations. The accompanying one-pager distills this brief and recommendations for impacting target audiences.
@D4ADream
We remember the late Justice Ginsburg for her defense of the Equal Protection Clause & role in creating more just conditions for all workers. D4AD sites are working to address educational, employment, & economic inequalities & inequities by connecting workers to better pathways.
Thrilled our MI grantees had an opportunity to speak at the #MWConf about the State of MI's partnership w/ @UpjohnInstitute, @MichWorksAssn & @MiWorksSW.Read more about this effort to provide personalized career pathway recommendations to job seekers here: https://d4ad.com/home/michigan/
We're excited about this partnership and project! @D4ADream https://twitter.com/MichWorksAssn/status/1306235949181960192
Looking forward to hearing about these survey findings.
Reminder: Register for Wednesday’s Public Viewpoint webinar for a conversation on serving aspiring adult learners, featuring Strada researchers and postsecondary education leaders: https://hubs.ly/H0wchKP0
NSC's call to action brings up many reasons as to why D4AD efforts to provide workers--especially those who are not well-served or not served at all-- with just-in-time info & support to find beneficial pathways to upgrade their skills are so urgent. More: http://ow.ly/ZzmY50BoCgM
Policymakers must invest in workers and small businesses most impacted by this recession, as well as workers held back by structural discrimination.
National Skills Coalition's "Skills for an Inclusive Economic Recovery" offers solutions:
https://www.nationalskillscoalition.org/news/blog/skills-for-an-inclusive-economic-recovery-a-call-for-action-equity-and-accountability
OUR PARTNERS
