Congress: Invest in an Inclusive People-Centered Infrastructure Plan
Since 2017, the Trump Administration has spent “weeks” talking about the need for a wholesale update to our nation’s infrastructure. More recently, in the wake of millions of jobs lost due to the coronavirus pandemic, House Democrats have renewed their calls for a $1.5 trillion infrastructure package to rebuild our communities and put people back to work.
The good news is that both parties want to invest in our nation’s capital infrastructure: new roads and bridges, new broadband towers and energy grids, new lead-free water pipes, etc. The disappointing news: neither party’s infrastructure proposal has offered even the most fundamental investment in the people who should be given the chance to build those bridges or towers, or upgrade those energy or water systems.
Policymakers want a new infrastructure, but they haven’t thought much about giving new people a chance to be part of that rebuilding.
Based on the pending retirements of older workers in our infrastructure sectors, our nation currently needs more than 14 million workers just to keep current systems running. An infrastructure investment of $1 trillion dollars would require an additional 11 million skilled workers. And new technologies have continued to raise the skill levels required of workers across these sectors.
Yet to date we have not seen in any of the leading infrastructure proposals a commitment to investing in training at the scale that is needed. And there has been virtually no discussion about how we might give a greater diversity of people the chance to be part of that workforce, including those who have been historically excluded from some of those sectors in the past.
For the more than 40 million workers who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic — many of them low-income workers of color in the restaurant, hospitality or retail sectors — infrastructure proposals that don’t focus on people are more than just an oversight. In the face of the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on Black, Latino, and other communities of color, it’s a fundamental policy inequity that must be addressed right away before a vote is taken on any of the proposals currently before Congress.
Congress and the President should come together around a people-centered infrastructure plan, with a designated $20 billion Workforce Trust Fund that prioritizes investments in training for workers, provides sustainable funding for support services like child care or transportation to help workers succeed, and empowers local businesses and other industry partners to join with local communities to develop an infrastructure for their region’s future.
America’s voters agree with this people-centered approach to our infrastructure’s rebuilding. According to a new poll by National Skills Coalition, 89 percent of likely voters nationwide want any new national investment in infrastructure to include more funding for skills training so that local workers can access local infrastructure jobs in their own communities. This level of strong support was consistent among men (88 percent) and women (80 percent), white (85 percent) and Black voters (82 percent), and Democrats (87 percent) and Republicans (81 percent).
The public understands that any plan to rebuild local communities that doesn’t also train local residents for the jobs created by brick and mortar investments will crumble. Any plan to expand broadband that isn’t coupled with on-ramps to careers for displaced workers will be nothing more than a weak signal. Any plan to combat climate change that doesn’t re-train fossil fuel workers to build and maintain a clean energy infrastructure won’t change a thing.
Industry leaders in the construction, transportation and related infrastructure sectors recognize the need for workforce strategy as well. That’s why industry partnerships — regional collaboratives between local employers, education and training providers, workforce agencies, and local community organizations — can play a huge role in expanding opportunity and access to new infrastructure jobs for all workers. The infrastructure package that Congress ultimately votes on should include targeted investments in such partnerships and encourage them to reach out to the full range of local racial and ethnic communities that should be part of that sector’s future.
Finally, we should be transparent and accountable — to local communities and taxpayers — about how many people actually are employed through such infrastructure investments.
How many people who were out of work due to the pandemic actually found a job and were able to start a long-term career due to this infrastructure investment after COVID?
How do those employment outcomes break out for people of color, women, or for people living in the zip codes where those federal capital investments took place?
Who was hired and then shortly thereafter laid off for a temporary position, and who was given the chance to develop a long-term career that can support a family and bring enduring value to one’s community?
It’s time for Congress and the White House to come together and pass an inclusive, people-centered infrastructure package that can impact not just our nation’s physical infrastructure, but the lives of millions of American now so desperately in need of opportunity. It’s what the country needs. It’s what workers deserve.
