logo for the Workforce Realigned book

Declining economic mobility is one of the defining challenges of our time. The path to better jobs through good training and workforce programs is narrower now than ever before. But we're seeing a promising response: innovative workforce partnerships that are building more adaptive, results-based models of funding and risk-sharing.

These partnerships—often between government agencies, employers, and training institutions—suggest a broader realignment in how we prepare the future workforce. They carefully balance incentives—making sure, for example, that training institutions have a stake in student outcomes, or that programs making progress on policy goals have a pathway to scale. They often link funding to results, defining success in advance and measuring progress along the way. And they work to expand access to education and training opportunities while fairly allocating the risks and benefits of training across partners.

Workforce Realigned: How New Partnerships Are Advancing Economic Mobility is a new book from Social Finance and the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and Philadelphia. This book contains 19 case studies and nascent ideas by leaders from government, higher education, business, and social service organizations, including former speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker, former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chair Sheila Bair, and Virginia Community College System chancellor Glenn DuBois.

The Workforce Realigned series includes a podcast and action groups to bring these ideas to life and shift funding toward positive workforce outcomes. Learn more at workforcerealigned.org.