Research · Job Quality
LSI research examines the wages, benefits, scheduling, and capital access that decide whether a full-time job still builds a family, a home, and a future in the working-class places that built this country.
Where we focus
The wage, benefit, and workforce policies that lift incomes and build household wealth in the working-class counties the policy debate has largely overlooked, from Appalachia to the industrial Midwest to the Mississippi Delta.
See publicationsBenefits that travel with the worker instead of the employer: health coverage, retirement accounts, paid leave, and training credits designed for the contingent, part-time, and second-job workforce that now accounts for a large share of working-class employment.
See publicationsSmall business finance is the quiet precondition for good jobs. When working-class employers have access to patient, reasonably priced capital, they can raise wages, extend benefits, and keep payrolls steady through an economic cycle, anchoring consistent economic returns in the communities where they operate.
See publicationsPolicy frameworks that determine whether the productivity and opportunity gains from artificial intelligence reach working-class workers and communities. Research focuses on the wage supports, workforce development investments, and ownership structures that shape whether the entry level and task dense roles most exposed to displacement become pathways to better work or a source of further economic concentration.
See publicationsAcross pillars
LSI job quality research is developed alongside two data products that state labor departments, employers, lawmakers, and investors can query: one on the capital flowing into working-class places, and one on the benefits those jobs actually provide.
An AI-powered SMB Capital Navigator that connects entrepreneurs with the federal, state, and local financing programs that fit their business and guides them from match to funded. Useful for job quality research because wages, benefits, and employers in a county are shaped by the capital that reaches it.
Open Access to Capital → Technology companionPlace-based analytics and an enterprise-grade benefits platform for small and mid-sized employers. A2B moves owners from workforce assessment to implemented, financial-resilience benefits in days, with one-click handoffs to vetted providers and an integrated outcomes dashboard.
Open Access to Benefits →Our view
A good full-time job rests on a recognizable set of attributes: wages that cover basic necessities, stable hours, health coverage, retirement savings or an employer match, and paid time away from work to recover from illness or care for a child. These are the building blocks that help families buy a home, raise children, and retire with dignity.
Across much of the economy, those building blocks have eroded. Forty-four percent of American workers now earn less than two-thirds of the national median hourly wage.1 Roughly 19 million low- and moderate-income private-sector workers have no paid sick leave, and 42% of workers in the lowest wage quartile lack access entirely.2 Only 10% of low-income households nearing retirement hold any retirement savings, compared with 90% of high-income households.3 And a new source of pressure is emerging: current AI models could already replace 11.7% of the U.S. workforce, with entry-level and task-dense roles, the ones most prevalent in already-distressed communities, most exposed.4
The policy response has bipartisan roots. The Earned Income Tax Credit, signed into law by President Gerald Ford in 1975 and expanded under every administration since, from Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden, now lifts more working-class families out of poverty than any federal program other than Social Security.5 State paid-family-leave programs have taken hold under governors of both parties, and have lifted labor-force participation among working-class mothers in every jurisdiction that has enacted them.6 Fair Workweek statutes, portable-benefits pilots, and earned-sick-time laws have moved in states and cities led by Republicans and Democrats alike.7
LSI's job quality portfolio works on two fronts. Federal and state policy research identifies the wage, benefit, and scheduling reforms most likely to raise job quality for working-class Americans. Proprietary technology, including Access to Capital and Access to Benefits, makes the capital flowing into working-class places and the benefits those jobs actually provide legible to economic development agencies, employers, investors, and lawmakers. LSI translates the findings into options that community organizations, investors, and mission-driven actors can act on.
Job quality research updates
Occasional updates from LSI job quality researchers, including new publications, data releases from Access to Capital and Access to Benefits, and policy notes on wages, schedules, portable benefits, and paid leave.
