North America Worker Prosperity Initiative

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The J-PAL North America Worker Prosperity Initiative aims to build an evidence-based playbook of strategies to increase opportunities for workers, reduce the economic barriers and social challenges in labor markets, and ensure that all workers share in the prosperity generated by technological change and economic growth.

These strategies and innovations may be related to programs designed to retrain or reskill workers; strategies to improve traditional and non-traditional educational institutions; innovative apprenticeship systems, sectoral employment programs, and alternative approaches for skill certification; strategies to facilitate worker transitions between occupations and industries; organizational practices that improve productivity, skills, earnings, or employment prospects; opportunities in alternative work arrangements; and the impact/opportunity of changing transportation modalities.

We work with nonprofits, government and industry leaders, academic researchers, and other organizations to understand what questions matter most to them and help them use rigorous evaluation to generate evidence on priority research questions related today’s rapidly shifting labor market.

Key Facts

Sectors:
Status:
  • Research RFP: Closed
  • Partner RFP: Closed
Eligibility:
Researcher RFP: Open to J-PAL affiliated professors, post-doctoral fellows, and invited researchers
Partner RFP: Nonprofit, public, or private organizations interested in testing innovative strategies to help workers
For Researchers

Request for Proposals

The Worker Prosperity Initiative is not accepting proposals at this time. J-PAL affiliates, invited researchers, and PhD students may submit labor sector proposals to J-PAL North America’s Social Policy Research Initiative (SPRI) RFPState and Local Innovation Initiative (SLII), or US Health Care Delivery Initiative (HCDI) RFP. Please reach out to our initiative team with any questions.

For Partners

Worker Prosperity Evaluation Incubator

Through our Evaluation Incubator, the Initiative partners with nonprofits, governments, and industry leaders to support the development of randomized evaluations of strategies to support workers in the face of the shifting labor market. The Worker Prosperity Initiative does not have planned incubators at this time, but J-PAL has other ongoing means of support for organizations interested in randomized evaluation. Please reach out to our initiative team for more information.

Initiative Staff

Sara van Nes, Senior Policy and Training Associate

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