Issue Position: Jobs

Issue Position

We don't just need more jobs--we need better jobs: career-track jobs. A good job with good benefits can change the life of an individual and their entire family and a fair economy with real opportunities for anyone to succeed can change our communities and our nation.

Through Jamaal's work for Speaker Heastie, he has fought to ensure minority and women-owned businesses have a fair shot at New York City contracts and championed living wages for all workers. However, we must do more. Government must take new approaches to creating more jobs--and better jobs--to enhance quality of life and prosperity in our communities.

Jamaal works with Per Scholas, an organization that provides free technology classes, financial literacy training, credit counseling and job placement assistance to get our youth into the jobs of the 21st century economy and have success when they land those jobs. These kinds of programs, which broaden young adults' horizons by focusing on important skill sets, will be a major focus for Jamaal in the State Senate and help us get people into jobs with real career tracks--and finally close the wage gap- as it is reprehensible that women get paid less than men do for equal work.

We must also look into innovative ways of job creation, and take a serious look at a state level into worker cooperatives. As a member of the State Senate, Jamaal would look to establish a working group on worker co-ops and their viability, district-wide and state-wide.

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