Empowering the New American Worker: MarketBased Solutions for Today's Workforce

Empowering the New American Worker identifies what Cato Institute scholars believe to be the most important market-oriented policies for today's American worker, covering a broad array of issues including education, housing, remote work, health care, child care, transportation, criminal justice, and licensing.

Since at least 2016, policymakers on both the right and the left have lamented the plight of the American worker and promised to fix it. Unfortunately, the most common "pro-worker" policies today -- heavy on government intervention in labor, trade, or other markets -- suffer from critical flaws. They overlook the numerous laws and regulations that distort markets, harm American workers, and breed economic sclerosis. They ignore market‐based solutions that can boost workers' independence, mobility, wealth, resilience, and quality of life-all without the inevitable economic and political problems that come with more spending and bureaucracy. And, perhaps most importantly, they target an "American worker" that often bears little resemblance to the U.S. workforce's complex and ever‐changing reality, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recent trends in manufacturing, remote work, independent work, globalization, and other areas argue for new policies for a New American Worker. Instead of promoting a certain kind of job, promising cradle-to-grave protection from disruption, or presuming that the employment and lifestyle trends of today will last beyond tomorrow, policymakers should seek to maximize Americans' autonomy, mobility, and living standards.

Each chapter of Empowering the New American Worker identifies the problems facing American workers and suggests pro-market ways for federal, state, and local officials to better address these challenges. These policies will give individuals the freedom and resources they need to be the American worker they want to be -- not the one many policymakers think they should be -- and to be happier and more prosperous in the process.

Scott Lincicome is the director of general economics and Cato's Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies. He writes on international and domestic economic issues, including international trade; subsidies and industrial policy; manufacturing and global supply chains; and economic dynamism.