The Better Employment and Training Strategies Taskforce (BETS) is a coalition of over 40 leading practitioners and experts who are developing strategies to modernize America’s outdated workforce policies. Several BETS work groups were established in November 2020 to develop recommendations to inform the Biden-Harris administration and the 117th Congress on issues and policy options related to topics such as federal job creation initiatives, unemployment insurance, workforce development and training, job quality, and youth employment.

Carl Van Horn, Director of the Heldrich Center and Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at Rutgers University, is serving on the taskforce along with the following members of the center’s National Advisory Board:

• Todd Greene, Institute Fellow and Executive Director of WorkRise at the Urban Institute
• Christopher King, Senior Research Scientist, Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources, University of Texas at Austin
• Mary Alice McCarthy, Director, Center on Education and Labor, New America
• Jane Oates, President, WorkingNation

Thus far, BETS members have published the following papers:

• Building Back Better: A National Jobs Strategy
• Build Back Better: Creating Infrastructure and Emergency Community Service Jobs Programs
• Building a National Unemployment Insurance System
• Modernizing and Investing in Workforce Development