WHY NOW

America’s young people are resilient. But the education and workforce systems designed to launch them into adulthood are under-resourced and fragmented. Against this backdrop, America’s young people face an unprecedented convergence of three forces hitting the workforce and economy: Affordability, anxiety and artificial intelligence. Together, these forces don’t just make it harder to find a job; they undermine the entire critical launchpad decade when young people ages 16-26 accumulate the education and experiences that shape their longer-term earning trajectories, professional networks, and sense of possibility.  This moment calls for a new public-private sector compact for our young people to strengthen their early career outcomes in the age of AI, ensuring they are confident, career-ready and connected to real, resilient pathways to mobility.

THE FORUM: OVERVIEW & OBJECTIVES

The AFT, CareerWise and Jobs for the Future alongside a number of other national partners will co-host a high-level, intimate VIP forum in Washington, D.C. This gathering of principals: governors, mayors, former cabinet officials, industry CEOs, national labor leaders, philanthropists, and leading education and workforce organizations are coming together to announce, expand and join public commitments to a new compact for America’s youth. Specifically, the forum will:

• Announce the Compact for America’s Youth as a national call to action, uniting education, labor, industry and government around reshaping early career outcomes for young Americans.
• Feature new compact commitment announcements from public and private sector leaders.
• Exchange and advance ideas for how to link action across public high schools, postsecondary institutions and the workforce as part of new unified early career infrastructure for the AI age.

Register Here

OVERVIEW OF THE COMPACT

The Compact for America’s Youth is a cross-sector call to action uniting education, industry, labor and government to bridge the gap between learning and the labor market. By dismantling the traditional silos that separate K-12, higher education, workforce programs and industry, the framework replaces fragmented systems with a unified early-career infrastructure. This collaborative effort synchronizes disconnected systems—ensuring that public policy and practice measure what matters for young people’s early career success in the AI age. The compact is not a program to be scaled. It is a unifying framework for joint action across the public and private sectors—a new social contract with America’s youth, defined by shared outcomes and powered by common infrastructure to improve early career experiences and outcomes in this critical moment.

TARGET AUDIENCE

The forum targets a broad spectrum of high-level stakeholders, including governors, mayors, industry and labor leaders in critical sectors from healthcare to tech to the trades. We are also engaging institutional partners such as state and local education and workforce leaders, intermediaries and philanthropies. The forum will bring together a policy, media and research audience to engage in this important dialogue to build the next generation of America’s workforce.

NEXT STEPS

Jobs for the Future, CareerWise and the AFT will be sending invitations throughout the spring and summer. If you are interested in attending, supporting or have any questions about the forum, please contact Conor Freeley conor.freeley@careerwiseusa.org or Beth Antunez bantunez@aft.org.

ADDENDUM | SAMPLE HALF-DAY AGENDA