Economic security shouldn’t be a lottery. Yet for millions of working families, stagnant wages and precarious jobs collide with the daily grind of managing money on shaky ground — leaving stability feeling less like a plan and more like a gamble. Fixing that takes more than one lever. It takes structural reform and the tools people need to take control of their financial lives, working together.

In “The Wage Standard: What’s Wrong in the Labor Market and How to Fix It,” Professor Arindrajit Dube maps out how to rebuild a labor market that actually works for workers. In “The Joy of Money: How to Do More With and Feel Better About Your Money—No Matter How Much You Have,” Carrie Joy Grimes flips the script on personal finance, showing that financial agency isn’t reserved for the wealthy. Together, their ideas offer something rare: a real blueprint for security that starts at the policy level and ends in people’s pockets.

This conversation — hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program on October 7, 2026 — connected these dots and explored the big questions: What will it actually take to fix a broken labor market? How do practical financial tools build real agency, no matter your income? And what does an economy look like when systemic fairness and individual security aren’t trade-offs — but a package deal?

Our speakers include Dube, Grimes, and moderator Natalie Foster, senior fellow at the Economic Opportunities Program, co-founder of Economic Security Project, and author of “The Guarantee: Inside the Fight for America’s Next Economy.”

For more information about this event, including a transcript, speaker bios, and additional resources, visit our website:https://www.aspeninstitute.org/events/building-economic-security-a-book-talk-with-arindrajit-dube-and-carrie-joy-grimes/

This event is part of our Opportunity in America series:https://www.aspeninstitute.org/series/opportunity-in-america/

For highlights from this discussion, subscribe to our YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/@AspenEOP

Or subscribe to our podcast to listen on the go:https://pod.link/1503944129

“Social contract” has quickly become one of the most-used, least-defined phrases in the AI policy conversation. This first event in a two-part series will trace the origin and history of the American social contract, examining how work became the anchor of economic security, mobility, and civic identity in the United States.

From an economy whose foundations were built on forced and unpaid labor, through the rise of industrialization, the New Deal, a postwar economic boom, financialization, and then globalization, the relationship between workers, employers, and the state has been redefined repeatedly. Panelists will discuss these inflection points, focusing on who was (and was not) party to these agreements — from organized labor and industrial barons to policymakers and grassroots movements — and under what circumstances their compromises established the baseline expectations of a middle-class life.

Speakers explore the evolving role of labor and how structural shifts over the 20th century laid the groundwork for today’s economic landscape — including the extent to which AI is a novel force reshaping our society. The discussion provides essential context for today’s leaders to understand their respective roles in forging a new social contract for the 21st century — a discussion that will continue in the second installment of the series: Work and the Social Contract in the Age of AI: Where do we go from here?

This conversation was hosted by the Future of Work Initiative, an initiative of the Aspen Institute’s Economic Opportunities Program on September 23, 2026 — explores what drove this transformation, who bears its costs, and what it would take to reverse it.

Our speakers include Joseph Blasi (Rutgers University), Chris Hyams (former CEO of Indeed), Marshall Kosloff (Niskanen Center), Liba Wenig Rubenstein (Future of Work Initiative, The Aspen Institute), and Erica Smiley (Jobs with Justice).

For more information about this event, including a transcript, speaker bios, and additional resources, visit our website.

For highlights from this discussion, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or subscribe to our podcast to listen on the go.

This event is part of our Opportunity in America series.

For decades, economists and policymakers have debated how to help workers get better jobs. But what if the more fundamental problem is that employers have systematically redesigned work itself to make a third of the workforce expendable? In his forthcoming book, “Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment,” MIT Sloan Professor Emeritus Paul Osterman examines this idea and what it would take to reverse it.

Osterman documents the rise of contract workers, freelancers, and what he calls “marginal workers” — W-2 employees who are cut off from training, advancement, and any real stake in the organizations they work for. Together, these three groups now make up more than a third of the American workforce. Osterman argues that this trend is neither an accident nor an inevitable byproduct of technological change. It is the result of deliberate choices employers have made about how to structure work and manage labor costs. Osterman traces both the logic behind those choices and their consequences for worker well-being, economic mobility, and the broader social contract.

This conversation — hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program on September 9, 2026 — explores what drove this transformation, who bears its costs, and what it would take to reverse it.

Our speakers include Osterman and moderator Maureen Conway, a vice president at the Aspen Institute and executive director of the Economic Opportunities Program.

For more information about this event, including a transcript, speaker bios, and additional resources, visit our website.

For highlights from this discussion, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or subscribe to our podcast to listen on the go.

This event is part of our Opportunity in America series.