Latest news with #economicmobility
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Study: Education still pays, but barriers to upward mobility persist in Illinois
For generations, America has been thought of as the land of opportunity, a place where anyone who worked and studied hard could grow up to achieve any goal they set for themselves. That idea has had especially strong roots in Illinois, the 'Land of Lincoln,' where a young man born in a log cabin on America's frontier rose from rail-splitter to self-taught lawyer and president of the United States. But a new study suggests that the American dream is still more elusive for some people in Illinois than for others, and that the pathway up the economic ladder is not easily scaled. The study, entitled 'Precarious Prospects,' tracked a cohort of millennials from Illinois – more than 340,000 students from the senior classes of 2008-2012 – from graduation, through their post-secondary careers and into young adulthood. The study was a joint project conducted by the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative, or IWERC, the Discovery Partners Institute, the University of Illinois, and the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. It found that educational attainment is still a strong predicter of a person's future earnings as an adult. So too is the industry that a person chooses for a career. Other factors can also influence a person's ability to complete a higher education degree, including their race, ethnicity and gender. Class-based barriers The study also found that a person's own economic background – whether they grew up rich or poor – also strongly influences their future earnings. Students who grew up in higher-income households tended to earn more than those who grew up in lower-income families, in part because students from higher-income families were more likely to complete a college degree than lower-income students. But perhaps most surprisingly, the study found that even among those who earn similar degrees and go to work in similar industries, a student's own economic background influenced their future earnings. That is, students from lower-income families tend to earn less than those from wealthier families, even after they went on to earn similar credentials. Further, the study found, among students from lower-income families, Black and Latino students and women tended to earn less than their white and male counterparts. 'The racial and gender disparities obviously are real, and there's a lot of research showing that, but I don't think it's all that's going on,' Sarah Cashdollar, associate director of IWERC and a lead author of the report, said in a podcast interview with Capitol News Illinois. 'One thing is that the same degree, such as a bachelor's degree, can have a very different payoff depending on the college that the student went to,' she said. 'And there's research that's found students from higher income families are more likely to go to colleges that have things like many internship opportunities or other work-based learning. More advising, more networking opportunities. And for some fields, those things are essential to landing a good job.' 'There's also research showing that higher income students have greater access to social networks in general that can provide those connections,' she said. Education and career choice Among all the factors the study examined, educational attainment had by far the largest impact on a person's future earnings. It found there was a gap of nearly $40,000 a year in earnings for someone with an advanced degree compared to someone with only a high school diploma. The study also found that regardless of what type of degree or credential a person earns, the industry in which they work has a big impact on their future earnings. 'For certificates and associate's degrees, we see higher earnings for construction, for mechanic and repair technologies,' Cashdollar said. 'So these are things like auto mechanics, HVAC techs, electricians, and also precision production. … These are all areas that tend to have unions, and they also have been experiencing higher demand due to lower supply in recent years, and so there's some upward wage pressure in those in those occupations.' 'And then for the bachelor's, there are many, many industries that offer higher earnings,' she said. 'Two of the highest earnings were engineering and computer and information sciences.' But the gaps between people with similar degrees from different economic backgrounds was still significant – $3,753 annually for those with less than a bachelor's degree, and $5,028 for those with a bachelor's degree or higher. Still to come The Precarious Prospects study was the first of a two-part research project made possible through a data sharing partnership between the Illinois Department of Employment Security, the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, the Illinois State Board of Education and Illinois State University. Cashdollar said the second phase of the project, due to be published later this year, will focus on those students who manage to succeed in climbing the economic ladder, despite the barriers they face. 'To give a preview, we found that there were pathways at all levels of education toward higher earning careers, but they were predominantly concentrated in bachelor's degree pathways and even higher masters and doctoral and professional (programs).' Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. 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Associated Press
17-07-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Funders commit $1B toward developing AI tools for frontline workers
A coalition of funders, including the Gates Foundation and Ballmer Group, will spend $1 billion over 15 years to help develop artificial intelligence tools for public defenders, parole officers, social workers and others who help Americans in precarious situations. The funders announced Thursday that they will create a new entity, NextLadder Ventures, to offer grants and investments to nonprofits and for-profits to develop tools for those who often manage huge caseloads with few resources. 'The solutions that we're investing in, the hundreds of entrepreneurs that are going to bring forward solutions that incorporate leading edge technologies, are going to do it by coming alongside people who are living through some of the struggles in the economy,' said Brian Hooks, CEO of Stand Together, a nonprofit started by Kansas-based billionaire Charles Koch. The other funders include hedge fund founder John Overdeck and Valhalla Foundation, which was started by Inuit cofounder Steve Cook and his wife Signe Ostby. Ballmer Group is the philanthropy of former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his wife Connie. The funders declined to reveal the exact financial commitments made by each of the contributors. The point of investing in these AI tools is to spur economic mobility, a focus all the funders share, they said. The funders believe there are many ideas for how AI technologies could help match people with resources after a disaster or an eviction, for example, or help a parole officer close out more cases for people who have met all of the criteria but are waiting for the paperwork to be processed. 'As we traded notes on where we were making investments and where we saw broader gaps in the sector, it was readily apparent that there was a real opportunity to come together as a group of cofunders and cofounders to establish a new kind of investment organization,' said Kevin Bromer, who leads the technology and data strategy at Ballmer Group. He will also serve as a member on NextLadder's board, which will include three independent board members and representatives from the other funders. NextLadder will be led by Ryan Rippel, who previously directed the Gates Foundation's economic mobility portfolio. The funder group has not yet determined if NextLadder will incorporate as a nonprofit or a for profit organization but said any returns they make from investments will go back into funding new initiatives. NextLadder will partner with AI company Anthropic, which will offer technical expertise and access to its technologies to the nonprofits and companies it invests in. Anthropic has committed around $1.5 million annually to the partnership, said Elizabeth Kelly, its head of beneficial deployments, which is a team that focuses on giving back to society. 'We want to hand-hold grantees through their use of Claude with the same care and commitment we provide to our largest enterprise customers,' Kelly said, referencing Anthropic's large language model. Hooks, of Stand Together, said philanthropy can reduce the riskiness of these types of investments and offer organizations more time to prove out their ideas. 'If we're successful, this will be the first capital to demonstrate what's possible,' Hooks said. Researchers like those at the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in humanitarian action have studied some of the risks associated with using AI tools when interacting with sensitive populations or handling high-stakes interactions, for example, in humanitarian contexts. They recommend assessing whether AI is the best tool to solve the problem and, crucially, if it works reliably and accurately enough in high-risk settings. They also recommend assessing tools for bias, considering privacy protections and weighing the cost of potential dependence on a specific provider. The National Institute of Standards and Technology also emphasizes that trustworthy AI systems should be accountable to users and that it should be possible to explain or trace how a tool arrived at a certain conclusion or decision. Hooks emphasized that any AI tools NextLadder invests in will be shaped by the needs and feedback of these frontline workers. Tools that don't work for them, won't succeed, he said. Even with the potential risks of AI tools, he said it's imperative that groups that are struggling to move up the economic ladder have access to new technologies. 'The idea that we would deprive those who are struggling in our country from the benefits of the leading edge solutions is unacceptable,' Hooks said. ___ Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP's philanthropy coverage, visit
Al Arabiya
17-07-2025
- Business
- Al Arabiya
Funders commit $1b toward developing ai tools for frontline workers
A coalition of funders including the Gates Foundation and Ballmer Group will spend $1 billion over 15 years to help develop artificial intelligence tools for public defenders, parole officers, social workers and others who help Americans in precarious situations. The funders announced Thursday that they will create a new entity NextLadder Ventures to offer grants and investments to nonprofits and for-profits to develop tools for those who often manage huge caseloads with few resources. 'The solutions that we're investing in, the hundreds of entrepreneurs that are going to bring forward solutions that incorporate leading edge technologies, are going to do it by coming alongside people who are living through some of the struggles in the economy,' said Brian Hooks, CEO of Stand Together, a nonprofit started by Kansas-based billionaire Charles Koch. The other funders include hedge fund founder John Overdeck and Valhalla Foundation, which was started by Inuit cofounder Steve Cook and his wife, Signe Ostby. Ballmer Group is the philanthropy of former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his wife, Connie. The funders declined to reveal the exact financial commitments made by each of the contributors. The point of investing in these AI tools is to spur economic mobility, a focus all the funders share, they said. The funders believe there are many ideas for how AI technologies could help match people with resources after a disaster or an eviction, for example, or help a parole officer close out more cases for people who have met all of the criteria but are waiting for the paperwork to be processed. 'As we traded notes on where we were making investments and where we saw broader gaps in the sector, it was readily apparent that there was a real opportunity to come together as a group of cofunders and cofounders to establish a new kind of investment organization,' said Kevin Bromer, who leads the technology and data strategy at Ballmer Group. He will also serve as a member on NextLadder's board, which will include three independent board members and representatives from the other funders. NextLadder will be led by Ryan Rippel, who previously directed the Gates Foundation's economic mobility portfolio. The funder group has not yet determined if NextLadder will incorporate as a nonprofit or a for profit organization, but said any returns they make from investments will go back into funding new initiatives. NextLadder will partner with AI company Anthropic, which will offer technical expertise and access to its technologies to the nonprofits and companies it invests in. Anthropic has committed around $1.5 million annually to the partnership, said Elizabeth Kelly, its head of beneficial deployments, which is a team that focuses on giving back to society. 'We want to hand-hold grantees through their use of Claude with the same care and commitment we provide to our largest enterprise customers,' Kelly said, referencing Anthropic's large language model. Hooks of Stand Together said philanthropy can reduce the riskiness of these types of investments and offer organizations more time to prove out their ideas. 'If we're successful, this will be the first capital to demonstrate what's possible,' Hooks said. Researchers like those at the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in humanitarian action have studied some of the risks associated with using AI tools when interacting with sensitive populations or handling high-stakes interactions, for example, in humanitarian contexts. They recommend assessing whether AI is the best tool to solve the problem and crucially if it works reliably and accurately enough in high-risk settings. They also recommend assessing tools for bias, considering privacy protections and weighing the cost of potential dependence on a specific provider. The National Institute of Standards and Technology also emphasizes that trustworthy AI systems should be accountable to users and that it should be possible to explain or trace how a tool arrived at a certain conclusion or decision. Hooks emphasized that any AI tools NextLadder invests in will be shaped by the needs and feedback of these frontline workers. 'Tools that don't work for them won't succeed,' he said. Even with the potential risks of AI tools, he said it's imperative that groups that are struggling to move up the economic ladder have access to new technologies. 'The idea that we would deprive those who are struggling in our country from the benefits of the leading edge solutions is unacceptable,' Hooks said.
Forbes
17-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Bill Gates, Charles Koch And Three Other Billionaires Are Giving $1 Billion To Enhance Economic Mobility Using AI
Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg; Guerin Blask for Forbes Bill Gates and Charles Koch An Avengers-esque group of billionaires is teaming up with an AI giant for a new venture aimed at helping low-income Americans rise from poverty. It's getting harder to climb the economic ladder in America. So five billionaires, who have all risen to great heights from different starting points, have banded together in an attempt to reverse the trend and to restore belief in the idea of the U.S. as a land of equal opportunity. On Thursday, the charitable foundations of billionaires Bill Gates (net worth: $116.9 billion), Charles Koch ($67.5 billion), Steve Ballmer ($142.5 billion), Intuit founder Scott Cook ($7.7 billion) and hedge fund investor John Overdeck ($7.4 billion) announced a more than $1 billion pledge to fund a new philanthropic vehicle focused on economic mobility called NextLadder Ventures. That entity will partner with artificial intelligence giant Anthropic and will support organizations focused on using AI and other emerging technologies to improve the financial trajectory of low-income Americans. 'Entire communities are coming apart at the seams [and] upward mobility is fading for huge numbers of people, especially those who need it most,' Koch wrote in his latest book, 'Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions For A Top-Down World.' 'Suicide rates are rising, as are deaths from drug is on a trajectory toward a two-tiered society–one in which fewer people get ahead and more fall behind.' Now Koch, with four other billionaire cofounders and NextLadder Ventures, is hoping to help change that. 'It's exciting that this has been cofounded by five individuals and organizations who have long track records of investing in economic opportunity,' says NextLadder Ventures' CEO, Ryan Rippel, who previously led the Gates Foundation's economic mobility efforts and served as interim chief of staff to the Gates Foundation's CEO and as special assistant to its co-chair, Bill Gates. 'In the course of doing this work over the years, they have all come around to a common question of, 'How do we actually do more for individuals and families who are facing these enormous barriers every day?'' Rippel tells Forbes . Rippel, 43, is passionate about the mission, having grown up in a single parent household in central Missouri after his father died in a car accident in 1985. He lost his mother to breast cancer nearly two decades later, and inherited hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical debt due to the family's lack of good insurance. His story is not unique. More than one in ten Americans are living below the poverty line, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, more than half of the country's citizens lack economic security, meaning that they aren't able to set aside any savings after dealing with their monthly expenses, per the nonprofit Urban Institute. Advances in AI and other emerging technologies could play a big role in helping to address these problems. 'We had a common recognition that we're at an inflection point in the social impact and technology spaces and viewed this as the perfect time to come together and have an opportunity to go further as a group than we could individually,' says Kevin Bromer, the Ballmer Group's executive director and head of technology and data strategy. NextLadder Ventures plans to deploy its initial $1 billion funding commitment over the next seven years to support both non-profit and for-profit organizations that share its mission via a mix of grants, equity investments and revenue-based financing, where it will receive a percentage of companies' sales, rather than stock. Any profits generated by NextLadder Ventures' equity investments and revenue-based financing arrangements will be reinvested to support its philanthropic mission. While NextLadder ventures hasn't made any funding commitments yet, there are a number of non-profits and for-profit companies that its founders have backed or considered backing individually that could be a good fit for their new organization. One example is the non-profit CarePortal, which has developed a platform that connects children and families in need with local churches, businesses and community groups that can provide resources like housing, medical attention and emotional support to help keep kids out of foster care. Another is the for-profit startup Rasa-Legal, whose technology helps its customers expunge their criminal records for nearly a tenth of the typical cost. Anthropic will provide AI processing power and technical assistance at no cost to the beneficiaries of NextLadder Ventures' funding to help them innovate and bring their technological solutions to market faster. Anthropic's Claude large language models will also be embedded into NextLadder Ventures' internal systems to accelerate the process of reviewing applications and making funding decisions. NextLadder Ventures plans to add new philanthropic partners and raise additional funding over 15 years. But it also hopes to inspire other public and private funding sources to help build a market of increasingly scalable technologies that help low-income Americans, social workers, legal aid attorneys and other essential service providers overcome the biggest economic obstacles they face. Among them: job loss, housing instability, childcare, health crises and expungement of criminal records. If all goes according to plan, this market will have attracted enough outside funding that the level of required investment by NextLadder Ventures will have decreased a decade and a half from now, at which point the organization's board will reassess its future. Regardless of what happens with NextLadder Ventures, though, its five billionaire founders will likely continue to support organizations focused on economic mobility through their own charitable foundations, as they have each done for decades. This giving has already helped land three of these billionaires on Forbes' most recent ranking of America's top 25 philanthropists in February–Gates ranks no. 2, Ballmer no. 8 and Koch no. 25. ( Forbes' lifetime giving estimates only include amounts that have reached their final charitable recipients and don't count unfulfilled portions of pledges or dollars sitting in foundations or donor-advised funds that have yet to be disbursed.) With his ex-wife Melinda French Gates, Bill Gates has already doled out an estimated $47.7 billion–almost all through the Gates Foundation–to organizations focused on health and poverty alleviation. According to its 2024 annual report, the Gates Foundation made nearly $200 million of grants through its U.S. Economic Mobility & Opportunity and Women's Economic Empowerment programs last year. Gates' successor as CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, has donated roughly $5 billion to date, alongside his wife Connie, to organizations focused on economic mobility. Among the couple's largest pledges in recent years: $165 million to help dropout-prevention nonprofit Communities In Schools scale its student support services to an additional 1,000 majority low-income schools by 2027 and $175 million to support nonprofit StriveTogether's plan 'to put 4 million more young people on a path to economic mobility' by 2030. The Ballmers have also pledged nearly $600 million to Blue Meridian Partners, which has raised more than $4.5 billion so far to address poverty and boost economic and social mobility. Charles Koch, meanwhile, has given away an estimated $1.9 billion to nonprofits focused on education, poverty alleviation and criminal justice reform, almost all of which was donated through Koch's Stand Together nonprofit network, which also raises money from likeminded businesspeople and is the vehicle through which he is donating to NextLadder Ventures. While Intuit founder Scott Cook and hedge fund investor John Overdeck have yet to crack the ranks of the top 25 philanthropists, they have donated nearly $500 million apiece through their two foundations. While these five billionaire philanthropists and their foundations will continue to pursue their own initiatives, they'll be working together with NextLadder Ventures on the issue of economic mobility for at least the next 15 years. That's pretty unique, according to Brian Hooks, the CEO of Koch's Stand Together nonprofit network. 'I don't think there's ever been a collaboration among philanthropies quite like this,' Hooks says. 'The potential for all of us to do much more than we could in another situation is just enormous.'
Forbes
30-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Reimagining Affordable Housing To Unlock Economic Mobility For All
The relentless increase of the cost of owning or renting a home is a heavy burden on millions of households—and an economic problem we must face as a country. The more Americans are forced to spend on housing, including related costs like mortgage interest and insurance, the less money they can contribute other necessities, save for college and retirement, or generally enjoy life. That has ripple effects across the entire economy. There were 8.2 million fewer housing units than needed in 2023 to meet the needs of American families. Without decisive action, that gap could grow to 9.6 million units by 2035. This issue touches rural and urban households, young and old, and is reaching into the middle class. Research from the McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility underscores how the lack of affordable housing options, particularly in low-poverty neighborhoods and mixed-income developments, limits access to good schools and training programs, health care providers, green spaces, and other amenities. All this makes it more difficult for people to secure higher paying jobs, enjoy the qualities of life, and move up the economic ladder. That spells hardship for families. And when people cannot use their talents to the full, it is also a drag on the broader economy. And while high housing costs impact many segments of the population, the data suggests that it is particularly burdensome for Black Americans. The historic legacies of housing discrimination have been compounded by supply, demand, and geographic imbalances. Nearly 60 percent of Black renters and 30 percent of Black homeowners are moderately or severely cost burdened, meaning they spend at least 30 percent and 50 percent, respectively, of their income on housing – well above national averages. Though not without trade-offs, McKinsey estimates that closing the housing shortfall could help unlock as many as 1.7 million jobs and add nearly $2 trillion to gross domestic product through 2035. These gains would benefit all. Because Black Americans shoulder an outsize share of the housing burden, we would expect them to benefit greatly. How can this be achieved? No single policy is likely to work uniformly across cities, suburbs, and rural areas. But there is no shortage of promising ideas, and there are successful, albeit piecemeal, efforts all over the country. Many encouraging solutions, however, face implementation challenges, not least because so many different players need to work together to resolve this crisis. In the private sector, developers, development corporations, financial institutions, insurers, investors, and manufacturers all play crucial roles in construction and housing finance. They can explore new financing options and increase support and investments in innovative construction technology (i.e., modular construction). For the public sector - encompassing federal, state, and local governments, along with public housing authorities - is critical for funding and subsidizing housing. It can create incentives to use private capital effectively, enforce zoning and land use policies, and manage public programs. The social sector, including philanthropy and nonprofit providers, can support novel solutions and risk-taking, advocating for families, and providing direct services. With this framework in mind, and after looking at more than 80 different approaches, we identified five themes with the most promise: Taking specific action around these five themes could unlock an estimated 2.3 million housing units, including 700,000 for Black households, over the next decade. That would not close the entire affordable housing gap, but it would be a big step forward. Take number three, for example: Increasing off-site home construction by producing components in factories and assembling them on-site. This idea that has been around a long time, particularly modular construction which has both speed and cost benefits. But it has struggled to achieve scale, in large part because different cities have different code requirements. While these might have been meant well, the result is a series of bureaucratic hurdles that raise costs and delays. Streamlining codes and enhancing lender education around modular construction could add up to 190,000 affordable multifamily modular units over the next decade. There is an even bigger opportunity to unlock land by reimagining zoning. If jurisdictions allowed more single-family starts to be replaced by multi-family units and rezoned more vacant public land for higher-density development, that could add over one million housing units over the next decade. ### Having a good quality home at reasonable cost is fundamental to American opportunity. Concerted action to increase the supply of affordable housing could have benefits in terms of economic growth, investment, jobs, disinflation, and worker empowerment. And it would bring these opportunities closer to reality for millions.
