Giving Compass' Take:

• The author explains that many Americans need better jobs in order to support their children's education because the education system relies on families. 

• What is the role of the philanthropist to help better the education system and workforce development? How will better training programs benefit parents? 

• Read the Giving Compass Workforce Development Guide to understand how certain programming can help.

For many Americans today, work does not pay enough. The costs of housing, healthcare, transportation, child care, and education have risen while wages have stagnated, leaving many working families struggling.

Roughly one in four working adults earns a wage that is insufficient to lift a family above the poverty line. Nearly one in five working people receives the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). More than a third of college graduates work in jobs that do not require a college degree.

Our education system cannot function properly if working families cannot support themselves.

The US education system’s structure is heavily dependent on the family — we depend on families to prepare children to start school and to support children’s education by participating in parent-teacher associations, attending parent-teacher conferences, or just helping with homework.

We also depend on working parents to pay the taxes needed to support their local school systems. But too many working parents have jobs and incomes that work against their efforts to play these roles. Before children even get to kindergarten, the resulting disparities in school readiness are evident.

Businesses and policymakers both have roles to play if we are to increase access to and availability of good jobs and a capable workforce prepared to do those jobs. First, the job of skills development does not rest solely with schools or training organizations.

Today’s stagnant wages have left many families struggling, and education is at best a partial answer. The education system itself is struggling because of the declining returns to work; it is not capable of being the solution to the lack of good jobs in America. To support working families, we need to think beyond training and education.

Read the full article on the connection between good jobs and education by Maureen Conway at The Aspen Institute