Economic Opportunity Impact Report
The ReCONNECT to Economic Opportunity Impact Report provides a synopsis of the ReCONNECT to Economic Opportunity Forum and provides key statements, findings, readings and further steps to connect adult workers to information about sustainable-wage employment, identify accessible education opportunities and promote programs that remove non-academic barriers to, and provide support for, postsecondary education. We invite you to read what we’ve heard and learned, and test out our “six recommendations” in your community. We also hope you will share what you’re discovering with ReCONNECT to Economic Opportunity program lead Alicia James
Click here to download a copy of the 2019 ReCONNECT to Economic Opportunity Impact Report
In this report:
- The Summary
- ReCONNECT NC Communities
- Six Action Steps to ReCONNECT to Economic Opportunity
- The Wisdom of Connection
- Forum Voices
- Connect to Further Reading
The Summary
Economic opportunity is the key to a stable life and a thriving community. And not just for the obvious reasons, like a livable income and access to health insurance. Meaningful work fosters deep connections to friends and mentors, opens the door to training and education, and helps create a sense of purpose and well-being. A whole lot of good flows from a good job.
Right now, the pathways between our education system and our job market are muddled. Opportunity beyond high school, whether that’s higher education or training for a promising career, is not the universal expectation it needs to be. And for those trying to reenter the workforce later in life — after parenthood, military service, a health crisis, or a switch in industries or interests — there’s often no pathway at all.
“The labor market disruptions that are coming will be tremendous,” said Peter Hans, president of the North Carolina Community College System. And the people hit by those disruptions will need new options. Reconnecting adults to quality education is one of the most important things we can do for the health of our state. Emily House, deputy executive director at the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, described her state’s program to welcome adult learners back to higher education, overcoming the burdens of family, finances, and transportation to put a college degree within reach. “A program like this can break the cycle of poverty,” she said.
Ending that cycle takes on greater urgency when you look at the troubling state of economic mobility in North Carolina and across the southeast. Even in places like Raleigh and Charlotte, with booming economies, the odds of moving from poverty to wealth are strikingly low. “This is generational work,” said James Ford, co-chair of Charlotte’s Leading on Opportunity Council, which is taking a hard look at how the city and the region can encourage economic mobility. “This takes a while to penetrate.”
Long-range reform is vital, but so is the immediate work of responding to families in crisis. Pursuing economic opportunity is only possible with basic stability. Sarah Glover of the United Way of Greater Greensboro spoke about patching the temporary holes in people’s lives, making sure that a single moment of deep need doesn’t spiral into longer-term instability. “Poverty doesn’t have to be a terminal illness,” she said. “In our field poverty can be like a bad cold–miserable and treatable, and we can stop the spread.”
The difference between a treatable crisis and a chronic disconnect comes down to community support and family-sustaining work. Social service organizations are filling in the gaps created by low-quality jobs, those that don’t offer stable hours, paid time off, health insurance, or a wage that allows for some savings — all the things that cushion the inevitable shocks of life.
Cooper Blackwell, from OIC of Rocky Mount, spoke about the value of organizations that serve as “a safety net so that when people fall, they fall into the right hands.” He defined social mobility as a mix of individual initiative and community support, with the community offering a lift so that individuals can get trained, get educated, and get connected with real careers.
There’s a world of difference between a job and a career. A job might get you through the week or the month; a career can sustain you through a lifetime. A job will keep the lights on and put some gas in the tank; a career can help build a home, a family, and a future.
Turning jobs into careers isn’t just a matter of individual initiative. It’s a question of policy. Political leaders can help create the right incentives for long-term investment in people, and companies can take a hard look at their own practices in hiring and retaining employees. MC Belk Pilon of the John M. Belk Endowment encouraged corporate leaders to ask, “What is my company’s talent development strategy? Am I okay with the status quo, or can I do better?”
Doing better can be good for both the broader community and the bottom line. People who feel secure and supported are able to bring their best selves to work, said Reggie Bean, Coca Cola’s vice president for culture, engagement, and stewardship. “We have all the data we need” on economic opportunity, Bean said. “The question is what we do with it.”
There were plenty of answers to that question in Charlotte. But they all came back to one core insight: people thrive when they’re connected to economic opportunity, to meaningful work and a life-sustaining wage.
ReCONNECT NC Communities
As part of the ReCONNECT series, each forum showcases five communities that have developed creative approaches to local concerns. By sharing the challenges and successes across the state, ReCONNECT NC will spark greater progress and help innovative community leaders find and support one another.
The Economic Opportunity forum highlighted five diverse initiatives each focused on successful efforts to connect adult, lower-income earners to information or services related to sustainable-wage employment, effective skill-enhancing training models and employer-supported initiatives. The Institute for Emerging Issues will follow these communities over the next two years as they continue their work and offer new ideas to explore.
We believe the insights and successes they discover can benefit communities across the state.
Beaufort County
Beaufort County
Building with Our Veterans
Mecklenburg County
Opportunities
Industrialization Center, Inc. (OIC) of Rocky Mount
Nash and Edgecombe Counties
Partnering for Community Prosperity (P4CP)
Cleveland County
United Way of Greater Greensboro, Integrated Service Delivery Initiatives
Guilford County
Individuals
#1 Become familiar with NC Works.
The North Carolina Department of Commerce manages this comprehensive online resource, which provides career, education, labor market, education and employer services. Individuals can also create a customized dashboard through the portal, which tailors content for their unique workforce interests and needs. Additionally, NCWorks Career Centers are located in every region of the state. These centers offer universal services to unemployed, underemployed, and comfortably-employed individuals. They are staffed by career services professionals who can assist with efforts to enter or advance in the workforce, and help career seekers navigate the workforce ecosystem. Adults in search of increased opportunities should seek out the information and support these centers offer.
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Individuals
#2 Participate in civic conversations throughout your community.
At the Forum, participants from across various sectors talked about the need for collaborative partnerships to remove barriers and connect vulnerable residents to economic opportunities. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Opportunity Task Force is an example of creating and continuing dialogue between disparate stakeholders. The Task Force brought together community members and leadership to talk across socio-economic divides and identify local challenges to economic mobility and potential strategies that require collective action to address.
IEI has launched a new “civic conversations” series—where people identify important public policy issues facing the community or the state and engage in productive discussions without anger, name-calling, or other personal attacks. Individuals across our state should participate in conversations across lines of difference to improve understanding of diverse perspectives and to begin to identify joint strategies to address them.
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Communities
#3 Learn more from our five community action models.
At the Forum, IEI featured five places across North Carolina that are working to connect adult, lower-income earners to services and training that lead to skill-enhancements and sustainable wage employment. These organizations are eager to share their experiences and offer candid advice about the challenges and opportunities they face while doing this important work. Communities across the state should connect with them to learn more.
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Communities
#4 Build local partnerships in the community to help career seekers connect to a range of support services through contact with one central entity.
Collaborative partnerships between businesses, philanthropy, government, and education institutions that provide comprehensive, holistic support services to vulnerable residents are often the first step toward pursuing economic opportunity. At the Forum, we learned that underemployed adults often face multiple barriers to increased income, and we saw how community-based organizations, with proven track records of successful outcomes, apply a holistic model of support services to local residents in order to remove barriers that keep them in economically vulnerable positions.
Crisis Assistance Ministry (Charlotte), United Way of Greater Greensboro, and Goodwill Opportunity Campus (Charlotte) are exemplary community-based models that provide integrated services to clients so they can become economically stable enough to pursue education and employment opportunities that lead to higher earnings, career advancement, and upward mobility. Community-serving organizations, government entities, adult educators and employers should come together in each county of the state to systematically think through, simplify and coordinate supports and services available to adults seeking career advancement.
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State Policy Makers
#5 Introduce Single Stop to colleges and universities across the state.
Single Stop is a technology platform available to higher education institutions that helps connect students to public benefits and resources in their community. Single Stop can refer students to community-based organizations or direct support services as part of a larger mission that focuses on poverty reduction and post-secondary education attainment by providing holistic student support services. Colleges and universities looking to offer enhanced student services should consider implementing Single Stop. As an initial step in the process, education institutions could utilize Single Stop’s consulting services, which provides recommendations to improve processes, integrate systems, and enhance on-campus support services for adults and non-traditional students.
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State Policy Makers
#6 Consider creating a state-sponsored program to remove barriers to adults seeking additional education.
Tennessee Reconnect strategically aligns government, education, and employers to improve workforce and economic development outcomes in the state by providing tuition-free community and technical college for adults. A similar program in North Carolina would allow more adults to return to school, retrain, upskill, and prepare for advanced careers, with higher earnings, and it would funnel more people into the education pipeline, which would help North Carolina work towards achieving postsecondary education attainment goals established by the My Future NC Commission. The North Carolina General Assembly should conduct a study to determine the feasibility of a state-sponsored program, similar to Tennessee Reconnect, which removes access and affordability barriers to higher education. In addition, other organizations, such as the My Future NC Commission and the NC Chamber, should initiate efforts specifically recognizing the importance of increasing adult access to education and retraining opportunities.
The Wisdom of Connection
Speakers from every region and every part of the political spectrum focused on how we examine ways to connect adult workers to information about sustainable-wage employment, identify accessible education opportunities and promote programs that remove non-academic barriers to, and provide support for, postsecondary education. Here are some of their words.
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“Listen to the people that you’re trying to serve. Listen before you solve.”
Michelle Gethers-Clark,
United Way of Greater Greensboro
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“I’m an unconventional Dean, and you have to be unconventional when working with adult learners.”
Laura Colson McLean,
Johnson C. Smith University
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“When our interactions with each other become transactional, and it becomes about winners and losers...we think opportunity isn’t a non-renewable resource—[but] all of us can have opportunity.”
James Ford,
Leading on Opportunity
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“Poverty doesn’t have to be a terminal illness...in our field poverty can be like a bad cold - miserable and treatable, and we can stop the spread.”
Sarah Glover,
United Way of Greater Greensboro
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“The most important thing to help someone is a person who’s connected with them so there’s a trusted relationship.”
Carol Hardison,
Crisis Assistance Ministry
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“We all move through our worlds through the value of social capital.”
Brian Collier,
Foundation for the Carolinas
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“You gotta think big about what you want to accomplish, and act small — one community at a time.”
Gary Salamido,
NC Chamber of Commerce
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“If this state is ever going to realize its full potential there has to be opportunity for all...that’s our path forward.”
Peter Hans,
NC Community College System
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“Whether you live in Charlotte or Conetoe, we are all North Carolinians.”
Senator Dan Blue
NC General Assembly
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“Job creation isn’t the only issue...so many jobs go unfilled because there isn’t a skilled workforce. We have got to solve this problem and we have to figure it out together.”
D. Craig Horn,
NC General Assembly
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“I am the product produced by the possibilities of parternship.”
Travis Mitchell
UNC-TV/Public Media NC
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“I challenge everyone to look at the big picture—and the big picture is that we have to change policy. Unless we focus on the policies that create barriers to economic mobility, we’ll be stuck in this milieu. We have to change policy if we’re going to make a difference.”
Dr. Jerome Williams, Jr.,
Novant Health
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“We are one team with a collective, common goal...Work across divisions, work across the state, and then expand that to your partners, other state entities, other community-based organizations, [and] employers. We are one team, we are one North Carolina. If we work together to achieve the common goal then we’re creating opportunities for people who may not have otherwise had them.”
Yvette Holmes
DHIC
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“[This is personal for me, I am a lifelong North Carolinian]...I’ve seen some amazing things in this country; but I have seen no place that matches the hospitality, the scenery, the opporunities and the goodness of North Carolina.”
Maurice Smith
Local Government Federal Credit Union
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“Engage potential funders around your assets, not your deficits - communities often focus on the latter and forget the former.”
Tara K. Myers,
NC Department of Health and Human Services
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“Connecting people to sustainable wage employment has ripple effects across our economy. Individuals and their families will see improved living standards, and local employers will have access to a talent pipeline that meets their needs. When more people earn higher wages they have more disposable income to contribute to the local economy. While being disconnected from opportunity is a problem for some of us, the impact of reconnecting to economic opportunity has benefits for all of us.”
Alicia James
Institute for Emerging Issues
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“[We] recognize how important the workforce is, the supply chain part of the business, the communities we do business in, and putting them on the same level as shareholders is significant, but not new for Duke [Energy].”
Stephen De May
Duke Energy
See more in full report.
Forum Voices
During the ReCONNECT to Economic Opportunity forum, we gathered comments and insights from the participants in the room and those watching online. Here’s what some of them had to say.
On Economic Opportunity
“Supporting adults for greater economic opportunity takes a network of support and a holistic approach to barriers.”
“We have to be honest with the realities of life if we truly want to affect people’s opportunities positively and effectively.”
“Supporting adults for greater economic opportunity takes a network of support and a holistic approach to barriers.”
““We must all work together to remove or minimize the inevitable barriers that block opportunity pathways.”
“Speakers talked about practical and concrete things they have done, or are trying to do, to help North Carolinians gain economic mobility.”
“The presenters were very knowledgeable and I received a lot of information about what is taking place across the state and comparably in other states outside of NC.”
I Learned…
“New places to find help for those in need.”
“The importance of meeting people where they are.”
“Local communities can come together to make an impact now.”
“Gained more insights into economic and workforce development efforts in communities and across the state. Through conversations with others I gained valuable insights, perspective and connections.”
Parting Thoughts...
“Being able to learn more about issues facing North Carolina, what’s being done, who is in the mix doing something, and figuring out how I can be part of the solution was impactful.”
“Excellent topic for the forum to discuss, and bring together people throughout the state to help tackle economic mobility.”
“Great event with great information. Cross-sector connections will be key to tackling this issue in Charlotte and throughout North Carolina.”
“The networking opportunities - conversations during breaks and lunch - were just as valuable as presentations.”
See more in full report.
Connect to Further Reading
Where Is The Land of Opportunity?, Executive Summary
In 2014, economist Raj Chetty released an intergenerational mobility study with findings that ranked Charlotte 50th out of 50 metro areas, nationwide, for intergenerational economic mobility. Results indicated that children born into the lowest income quintile experienced limited opportunities to improve economic outcomes by the time they reached adulthood.
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Charlotte-Mecklenburg Opportunity Task Force Report
In 2015, the City of Charlotte formed the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Economic Opportunity Task Force in response to last place mobility ranking from Raj Chetty’s Opportunity Project. In 2017, the Task Force issued a report that identified challenges and long-term goals for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region. Legacy impacts of segregation were named as a core barrier to mobility, along with three determinants believed to have the largest influence on an individual’s opportunity trajectory: early care and education, college and career readiness, and child and family stability. The report declared an intentional focus on systems and structures approach to addressing these barriers to economic mobility. It also emphasized the need for cross-sector partnerships and collaborative infrastructure within the community to promote opportunity access for all residents.
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State of the South: Building an Infrastructure of Opportunity
MDC is a nonprofit organization that provides research, analysis, and advisory services to communities in the south that are focused on removing barriers to economic mobility for their most vulnerable residents. In State of the South: Building an Infrastructure of Opportunity, MDC emphasizes the importance of the education-to-career continuum, especially as more jobs require additional levels of education. Also, the critical need for improved access to good jobs that “pay family-supporting wages, provide access to benefits such as health insurance, retirement savings, paid vacation, sick leave, and provides real potential for career advancement” is well-documented. This report articulates the need for an infrastructure of opportunity to advance our state’s workforce, and preserve our state’s economic prosperity for years to come.
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State of Working North Carolina
The North Carolina Justice Center (NCJC) is a nonprofit organization with a dedicated poverty reduction mission and a commitment to economic and social justice issues. In the State of Working, NCJC conducts statewide labor market analyses that examine historic and current employment trends. This report also identifies transportation, justice-involvement and education attainment as significant barriers to economic opportunity, and outlines potential benefits of achieving equitable employment outcomes for our state’s economy.
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My Future NC: A Call to Action, Final Report
My Future NC is a statewide nonprofit organization that facilitates cross-sector collaboration between education, industry, and government leaders to promote education attainment throughout the state. Earlier this year, the My Future NC Commission announced an ambitious postsecondary attainment goal that aims for 2 million North Carolinians to have a high quality postsecondary degree or credential by 2030.
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Recommended First in Future Podcasts
Laura Colson McLean, Johnson C. Smith University
Jeff Michael, UNC Charlotte Urban Institute
Vi Lyles, City of Charlotte, Mayor