A Fair Shot for Every Community: Why Good Jobs Are the American Promise

As the United States approaches its 250^th anniversary, we are called to reflect on our history and to confront a hard question: Is the American promise still within reach?

For generations, that promise has been simple and powerful — that if you work hard, you can build a stable, dignified life. But for millions of Americans today, that promise feels increasingly out of reach.

This issue resonates deeply with me. I grew up in Port Angeles, Washington, a place of extraordinary beauty and deep resilience. It is also a community that understands what economic disruption feels like.

When the timber industry declined, it was not just jobs that disappeared. It was stability. Families felt it. Local businesses felt it. People began to wonder whether our community would move from one that exported wood products all over the world to one that would export our most precious commodity — our young people.

What stayed with me then, and continues to shape my work, both in Congress and now in philanthropy, is this: people never lost the desire to work. What broke down were the systems that connect work to opportunity.

To address this gap, The Rockefeller Foundation is launching a new $100 million “Good Jobs” strategy to connect up to 1.6 million workers to quality jobs across 250 distressed U.S. communities.

Big Bet on American Workers

Despite almost 7 million open jobs — concentrated in sectors like healthcare and the care economy — millions of Americans remain disconnected from stable work. As a result, more than half of Americans report being unable to meet basic expenses. The consequences are profound: people living in the wealthiest counties live, on average, seven years longer than those in the poorest. Access to a good job is not just an economic issue — it is increasingly a determinant of health, stability, and opportunity. The research tells a clear story: that access to opportunity in the U.S. depends heavily on where you live due to stark differences in local resources and social environments that shape life outcomes from an early age.

Nationally, prime-age employment has rebounded to near historic highs, but that progress masks deep geographic divides. More than 50 million Americans live in economically distressed communities where employment rates lag significantly behind the national average. Indeed, roughly one-third of counties are now considered “distressed” — nearly twice the number of distressed counties that our country saw in 2000. These communities are not short on talent or willingness to work — they are cut off from the very jobs that could restore economic mobility.

These challenges are accelerating as entire regions are reshaped by economic change. With the rise of artificial intelligence, nearly 70% of workers are expected to face some form of disruption in the years ahead.

We are entering a new era of work. There will be new opportunities in sectors like clean energy, care, food systems, and AI-enabled industries. These sectors will create millions of jobs. But without deliberate action, too many people will remain locked out of them.

For decades, workforce and economic development efforts have been fragmented. Capital doesn’t flow to the communities that need it most. Proven ideas struggle to scale. Employers, policymakers, and training systems often operate in silos.

The Rockefeller Foundation is committed to bringing its strengths — sector expertise, capital, effective partnerships with governors, and the ability to convene major funders, policymakers, and institutions — to addressing these gaps. fewer places, deeper partnerships, and an insistence on scaling what actually works.

This strategy builds on more than a decade of domestic work and $320 million in investments by the Foundation, alongside deep engagement with partners across sectors.

The lesson is clear: isolated interventions aren’t enough. What’s needed is a coordinated, scalable approach that aligns capital, policy, and practice.

We intend to do this through a three-part approach — prove solutions in distressed communities, scale through states, and drive national adoption.

Renewing America’s Promise

The true measure of success will not be programs launched and dollars invested. It will be whether more people — across more places — can see a path to a better future.

Whether a parent can find reliable childcare and return to work.
Whether a worker can train for a new career in a growing industry.
Whether a community that has been left behind can find a path forward.
Whether AI opens new opportunities that augment human work rather than fully replacing workers.

No single organization can solve this alone. But, collectively we can do better. Too often, efforts to expand economic opportunity are fragmented. Funding is not aligned. Learning is not shared. Promising models struggle to scale. That is why we are working to bring together funders, policymakers, and practitioners to align around what makes a real difference.

Growing up in Port Angeles, if you asked people whether they wanted a new program, you might get a shrug. But if you asked whether they wanted a fair shot, the answer was clear. If America’s next 250 years are to live up to its promise, ensuring that every community has a fair shot at good work has to be at the center of how we grow.