The Roosevelt Institution
The Challenge: promote investment in human capital as the centerpiece of American investment policy, over investment in physical capital or financial instruments.
Important
Progressive: accomplishing this challenge will contribute directly and specifically to the progressive values embodied by Roosevelt's Statement of PrinciplesMeaningful: our contribution to this challenge will produce a real change in the lives of our fellow human beings. One can imagine a world in which the challenge is solved, and such a world is better than the one we live in today.
Relevant: the challenge is relevant to the social contract project that Roosevelt has embarked upon
Investing in the development of human capital will help working families move out of low-wage, dead end jobs that the globalization has given birth to, and increase America's share of the world's high-wage, high-tech jobs. Human capital investments also ensure America's future success - so that our children and grandchildren's standard of living is not diminished for today's short-term gain.
Innovative
We're looking for policy challenges where innovation is needed: where there isn't already a clear solution or best practices, but solutions can be developed creatively. Our goal is to develop options, not to lobby or advocate for a solution that is already known or to debate among several yes or no outcomes or pre-defined policy choices. Other organizations do the important work of debating and lobbying, that's just not our place in the process.Typically if you're looking at a standard policy debate you can apply what's known as the "Roosevelt Reframe" to develop new strategies to advance shared values. So rather than "should we engage in race-based affirmative action in college admissions" to which the potential answers are "yes" and "no", you can ask "how do we make our colleges more diverse", a goal we hope is shared by those on both sides of that debate.
Currently, our education and training policy acts like "burial insurance" - it only helps workers improve their skills after they've lost their jobs. We need to create incentives so that employers have a stake in investing in their worker's human capital, and these investments should be encouraged and subsidized by the government. When a worker does lose a job, the government shouldn't spend training money on him/her right away - that money, and the time spent in training will be wasted if the job where the worker is re-employed doesn't need that type of training. Instead, when a worker is laid off the government should provide re-employment and job search services, and then after re-employment the government should (1.) mandate a certain amount of employer-supported training upon re-employment, and (2.) subsidize that training, but let the employer decide what kind of training will be most beneficial. This ensures that the public purse supports education and training, but it also guarantees that that training money isn't frittered away on skills that are irrelevant to the employer and the job.
Feasible
Approachable: given the level of research and discourse already available and given who else is working on the issue, college students with a range of experience levels and with varied types of expertise can contribute meaningfully to the debate and are likely to think of good ideas. We don't want something so technical only engineering majors can contribute to it, or something that is already dominated by another think tank or advocacy organization.Practical: the challenge is stated as a specific, measurable, and achievable goal, incremental progress toward which could be made by chipping away at the problem at various levels of government. The statement is not too broad or too narrow. One good way to make sure something is a good policy challenge rather than a debate or advocacy problem is to think of what sorts of innovative ideas might be produced for the 25 ideas publication series on that topic.
The UI payroll tax system is a great vehicle for ensuring that businesses bear the cost of the training and re-employment of unemployed workers. The human capital investment policy described above can be built from the UI payroll tax system. This will be embraced by businesses, who constantly suggest in surveys that the workforce doesn't have enough skills to compete in the modern economy. It will also support working families, who will see higher wages and quicker re-employment because employers know that workers will have skills that are useful to them. This is a much more feasible option, from all points of view, than the "race to the bottom" policy of "wage insurance".
I would re-frame this one pretty significantly -- we want a challenge rather than a proposal. So I'd make it "how do we invest in our human capital" rather than "here's a way to invest in human capital."