Inflation is on the rise again, and many families are struggling to make ends meet. Childcare and transportation costs soar while wages stagnate. These pressures are especially acute for workers in low-wage roles, which account for nearly half of U.S. employees. These workers are more likely to be women and people of color, deepening racial and gender inequities in income and wealth.
It’s not surprising over 70% of Americans worry about money. A sick child or a broken car can set off a chain reaction that ends in job loss. When workers face this level of instability, businesses also suffer. Employees can’t engage fully when they’re preoccupied with meeting their basic needs. Employers see higher rates of absenteeism, turnover, and vacancy as a result.
Unfortunately, most local career navigation systems lack the funding, infrastructure, and coordination to meet these challenges. In fact, public funding for training and career services has dwindled over the last four decades. Employers have cut back on training and developing their workforce too. Keeping up with rapidly evolving industry demands is hard enough. An AI-fueled economic revolution makes it harder.
If we don’t build a more robust system now, AI will likely deepen current career and income inequities. Shift Work Forward and its Network Partners are designing a new way forward that centers workers. It requires employers and institutions — including education, public agencies, philanthropy, and unions — to establish deep partnerships and coordinated, worker-informed practices that help people navigate their careers more effectively.
A Journey with No Map
Shift Work Forward’s 2023 landmark co-published report, Unlocking Economic Prosperity, painted a sobering picture of career navigation today. Successful career navigation depends on access to accurate and timely information, skills and credentials, social capital, wraparound support, and social structures and ecosystems. Yet after high school, people — especially Black, Latino, Indigenous, or low-income individuals — are largely on their own, navigating a fragmented and under-resourced “system.”
Our subsequent original research with workers helped us understand how people actually navigate their careers. We interviewed learners and workers in fields marked by disproportionate representation of people of color: manufacturing, IT, construction, childcare, healthcare support, and domestic work. Their stories revealed an unsurprising reality: a person’s zip code, race, and family income often dictates their outcomes. Social systems — including public policies, prevailing workplace practices, economic conditions, and discriminatory practices and biases — determine a person’s access to the other drivers of success.
Building a More Responsive Career Navigation System
The people we interviewed consistently expressed a strong desire for meaningful, family-sustaining work. This challenges persistent narratives that people in lower-wage jobs lack ambition. Most had participated in job training to improve their prospects, though their choices were often limited to a handful of accessible training programs. The cost and stressors of daily life frequently got in the way of completion.
Skills and credentials remain critical for upward mobility. But too many workers lack clear information about their options and the time, money or support needed to pursue them.
With our Network Partners, we want to build career navigation systems that provide workers and learners accurate information, social capital, and wraparound supports needed to access and complete upskilling programs. These three things came up repeatedly in our research with both workers and practitioners.
Accurate Information
“It does get a little frustrating seeing something you want to do but not knowing how to get there.” – Worker in Milwaukee
Workers told us they didn’t know where to go to explore career options or what resources, if any, were available. They often relied on social networks to learn about job opportunities. In most communities, career information was fragmented, outdated, or difficult to navigate. In the workplace, job requirements and pathways for advancement are often opaque or overly restrictive. AI is rapidly reshaping the labor market, raising the stakes for accessible, accurate career information. It also has potential to expand access to career navigation support.
Social Capital
“When I was a kid, I wish I had more adults say, ‘Do you need help? It’s okay to ask for help.’” – Worker in Birmingham
Workers who experienced the most success had a supervisor, advisor, or family member supporting them along the way. Their social networks shaped what doors opened to training, employment, and advancement.
Social networks shape our awareness of what’s possible from an early age. When those around you are likely to hold lower-income jobs, the information and connections they provide tend to lead to similar outcomes. Most workplaces and career navigation systems lack any intentional strategy to build social capital, so intergenerational mobility becomes a challenge.
Wraparound Supports and Resources
“Between Pell Grants and scholarships… I’ve been able to afford the school portion of it, but the living portion, something has to give… We’ve burned through savings, we’ve burned through the credit cards pretty quick this summer, and I have to find a job.” – Worker in Wichita
Nearly all the workers we interviewed struggled to sustain a job or persist in training programs due to financial and resource constraints. A few found programs that offered help with transportation, childcare, or technology. Most didn’t. Support systems are underfunded, difficult to find, and hard to access. Complex rules and cumbersome processes add barriers rather than removing them. Few employers offer these critical resources as perks that boost retention. And while these supports matter, they don’t resolve the underlying problem. Childcare, housing, transportation, and healthcare remain cost-prohibitive for too many workers.
A Turning Point for the Workforce
These challenges can’t be solved by higher education or the public workforce system alone. Over 36% of adults in the U.S. never reach post-secondary education or training, and only a fraction access workforce development services in their communities. Ensuring everyone has a fair shot at building career success requires thinking bigger. We need a career navigation system that extends beyond these institutions to include K-12 schools, workplaces, and a range of community resources, both virtual and in-person.
That may sound daunting, exciting or both. With the right approach, partners, and technology, it’s possible. It takes a systems change mindset and a commitment to sustained, cross-sector collaboration. It requires true partnership with employers and workers, so solutions reflect the wisdom of those most affected.
At Shift Work Forward, we believe in a future where workers, businesses, and communities thrive together. When we design workplaces and communities that support and enable workers’ well-being and potential the rest follows. Imagining a better world — where working families can afford the cost of living — can feel vulnerable. It’s also where systemic change begins.