National Skills Coalition’s Post

That's a wrap! Election years are an important time to highlight what people are talking about at their kitchen tables. As we wrap up National Skills Coalition’s Public Perspective series, a few reflections on what I've seen change and what I've seen hold steady in NSC's public opinion research over the last several national election cycles: 🗳️Voters see value in skills training. It's tangible. They see the impact it's had on people they know. They see it as essential to jobs that power communities and the economy. This hasn't changed. 🗳️Skills training is a profoundly bipartisan issue, and voters see it as a place where policymakers could be working across the aisle. This also hasn't changed. 🗳️Over election cycles, the percentage of voters who wish elected officials prioritized public investment in skills training (as well as a range of specific policy solutions) has remained high, but the likelihood of it impacting their vote has increased. 🗳️The biggest change I see is that voters see a direct connection between access to high quality skills training and the biggest issues facing the country: the digital divide, the emergence of AI, climate change, caregiving, national security, job quality and equity. A lot of things have contributed to this shift, but I think one is the work people in this field have done to make visible the multiple pathways people take to acquire skills and the value of those skills. As with every election cycle, we've taken this research on the road sharing it with candidates of all parties at the state and national level, in state houses, the halls of Congress, caucuses and conventions. The reception gives me great hope. And this is thanks to our incredible network of advocates as well as national partners who've joined us on the Public Perspective series including UnidosUS (@WeAreUnidosUS) and Opportunity@Work. Check out the full series on our website. And let's keep working together to make sure the American people’s perspectives are heard. And a special thanks to the NSC coms team for their work on this series: Carlos D., Nicky Lauricella Coolberth, Brittany Powell, Tianna Montgomery. https://lnkd.in/gqNVvmus