Proposal_Blueprinting Care - Public Job Banks for Community Resilience in NYC

Blueprinting Care: Public Job Banks for Community Resilience in NYC

Researchers: Althea Erickson, Marie Therese Kane, Yash Pawar

Summary: Amid economic instability and an automation and AI boom, stable employment is critical to ensuring secure livelihoods and sustainable cities. Yet in New York City, the unemployment rate reached 4.9% in August 2025, notably higher than the state unemployment rate of 4.0%.1 While unemployment rates of around 4.0% are normalized as “full employment,” this measure still leaves millions of New Yorkers out of work, and fails to account for millions more who want a job, but are not currently in the labor force. This reality is exacerbated by the Trump Administration’s efforts to make it harder for workers to access earned benefits like unemployment insurance, Medicaid, SNAP benefits, and the Child Tax Credit.2

A job guarantee addresses the problem of unemployment by providing public service jobs that pay a living wage to any individual who wants one. The key features3 of a job guarantee are:

● Permanent program with a demand-driven access (available to anyone looking for work)

● Direct net new job creation (does not displace private sector employment)

● Centrally-funded and locally-administered (paid for centrally, but implemented by local communities)

● Public money for the public good (provides public service jobs that address social and environmental needs)

● Voluntary and non-punitive (not tied to other benefit provisions)

● Productivity-enhancing and empowering (provides training, education and credentialing to workers)

● An equity-driven care economy (offers fair and open access to employment that fits the needs of the workers and addresses the barriers they face)

● Decent wages for decent work (establishes a floor of living wages and benefits)

● Preventative and stabilizing (creates as many or as few employment opportunities as needed during cyclical or structural shifts in the economy)

1 New York State Department of Labor, Labor statistics for the New York City region (2025), https://dol.ny.gov/labor-statistics-new-york-city-region

2 See: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “The Employment Situation March 2025,” April 4, 2025, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf and Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Nikolaos Rodousakis, Giuliano T. Yajima, and Gennaro Zezza, Economic Challenges of the New U.S. Administration, https://www levyinstitute org/publications/economic-challenges-of-the-new-u-s-administration/

3 Adapted from: https://wwwjobguarantee org/what/#features

● Bottom-up design (fosters broad engagement and participation from local communities)

Supporting the vision of job guarantee policies, our research aims to understand how to structure publicly-funded, locally-administered public service employment opportunities that are accessible and appealing to those most in need of work, while addressing the public service needs and priorities of local communities. We hope to map already-existing services that connect job-seekers and job-providers and apply participatory policy frameworks to identify points where community participation in key design decisions could be strengthened or reimagined.

What would a truly participatory process for local job design look like–that moves beyond “input” to build power for job seekers and local communities? How do we ensure that when public service employment is expanded or job guarantee policies are enacted, the work that is funded is determined by local communities–their priorities, the work they value? How do we ensure that residents experiencing long-term unemployment can access and benefit from the jobs provided?

A federal job guarantee envisions bold, economy-wide transformations, but such a program would ultimately need to be implemented in ways that respond to local needs and priorities. In this sense, local and municipal initiatives can serve both as precursors to a broader federal program. In the immediate term, given current political realities, implementation of a guaranteed job program would likely occur at the local or municipal level–designed to meet the diverse needs of individuals across a single municipality Although our recommendations may be applicable to many communities considering a job guarantee program, for the purposes of this study we define our community as New York City residents. We will propose a participatory process that takes into account the needs of New York City public service providers (likely guaranteed job-creators), New York City residents experiencing long-term unemployment (likely guaranteed job-recipients), and New York City residents (likely beneficiaries of public services funded by the program).

Phase #1:

Aim: Map volunteer-matching services as a model for guaranteed job bank

Justification: While there are several programs in the United States that include elements of a job guarantee program (see examples here), none of them incorporate all

of the key features of a public job guarantee. Ultimately, a job guarantee must match unemployed individuals (many of whom are long-term unemployed and face barriers to employment) with public service opportunities (which should not crowd out private sector employment). Volunteer matching services provide the closest analog to a public job bank, since they connect people to short-term public service opportunities outside the private job market. For that reason, we will begin by mapping an existing service that closely approximates a public service job bank, before adapting it for the specific needs of our community members.

Research Questions: How do volunteer matching services function for both volunteers and organizations who provide volunteer opportunities? What are the key interactions and decisions that underpin the content and structure (visible touchpoints) of the volunteer opportunity platform? How were the listed organizations identified/targeted/prioritized to appear on the platform? What is the process for listing an opportunity on the site? What is the process for finding an opportunity on the site? What happens after people apply for an opportunity?

Field: NYC Service Volunteer Opportunities Website. NYC Service, a NYC agency, provides an online platform that publicizes volunteer opportunities at local nonprofit organizations, to attract volunteer talent. This forum approximates a “job board” under an employment guarantee by offering structured positions at local organizations caring for people, places, and community

Methods:

● Semi-structured interviews with staff representatives from NYC Service, where we have identified connections

● Desktop research on NYC Service platform (and for secondary reference, New York Cares platform)

● Auto-ethnography of researchers using NYC Service and New York Cares platforms

Deliverable: A service blueprint that maps the NYC Service’s Volunteer Opportunities Website as it currently exists.

Phase #2

Aim: Prototype a Speculative Service Blueprint of a Job Bank for New York City

Research Questions: What dimensions are most important to job seekers in a job bank? Are there specific dimensions or indicators that would demonstrate whether a job bank meets their needs? Relatedly, what barriers exist for job creators (nonprofits, public agencies) to effectively attract good talent? How do they identify and prioritize needs for human capital in their work? What (political, economic, logistical, technical, linguistic) barriers stand between the long-term unemployed who are job seekers and job opportunities under the current unemployment regime (e.g. public job banks, nonprofit jobs, etc)?

Field: This research has two sub-fields. First, Long-term unemployed (LTU) people in New York City, NY: people who have been unemployed for more than 27 weeks or more while actively searching for work and no longer receive public unemployment benefits. We will narrow this field to a more specific sub-demographic of LTU people in one of the potential target populations, justifying our selection through desktop research and informal interviews. Additionally, we will study nonprofit volunteer opportunity providers, namely: NYC Service staff and city staff who have engaged in the NYC Jobs initiative.

Methods:

● Ethnographic research to understand the needs of long-term unemployed in the NYC community

● Semi-structured interviews with staff representatives from NYC Jobs and/or NY State Department of Labor, where we have existing or identified connections, to understand the unique differences between public volunteer and job matching services

● Autoethnography of NYC Jobs process for job seekers and job providers

● Semi-structured interviews with nonprofits who currently offer volunteer opportunities, and might offer public jobs via a public jobs bank

● Desk research on existing programs that include some (but not all) key features of a public job guarantee

● Desk research on methods for participatory policy design (PPL) to capture public input on community needs assessment and prioritization

Deliverable: A speculative service blueprint based off of the initial service blueprint (Phase #1) that integrates research findings to propose a model that better serves the job-seeking needs of the long-term unemployed population in NYC, the job providing

needs of local public service providers, and the community needs prioritization of NYC residents–with respect to questions of participation and access.