The Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program — Events and Interviews

Latest episodes

• Building Economic Security: A Book Talk with Arindrajit Dube and Carrie Joy Grimes

  October 15, 2026 · 1 hr 3 min

  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…

• Work and the Social Contract in the Age of AI: How did we get here?

  September 28, 2026 · 60 min

  “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…

• Disposable Workers: A Book Talk with MIT Sloan Professor Paul Osterman

  September 15, 2026 · 1 hr 0 min

  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?…

• How Tax Policy Can Help Employers Expand Access to Learning

  September 8, 2026 · 37 min

  Many employers want to help workers build new skills, advance into better jobs, and meet evolving business needs, but the systems designed to support employer-provided education benefits can be difficult to navigate. Longstanding tax…

• Metrics that Matter: Improving Financial Analysis of CDFI Small Business Lenders

  September 2, 2026 · 1 hr 0 min

  CDFI boards, leadership teams, investors, and regulators have long relied on a familiar set of financial metrics to assess organizational performance. While measures such as delinquency, loan loss rates, self-sufficiency, and net asset…

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