11.12.2012 news
Three million open jobs in U.S., but who’s qualified?
Millions of jobs are waiting to be filled, but employers say they can't find qualified workers because of "the skills gap." Byron Pitts reports.
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11.07.2012 news
New Orleans’ young people need to see opportunities: Scott Cowen
In the midst of New Orleans' renaissance, we must ask ourselves: How can this revitalization include our most vulnerable citizens? Our city recently lost Joshua Short, 25, who was raised and, coincidentally, killed on Dumaine Street.
Read more »10.15.2012 news
Parents’ Lack of Schooling Limits Incomes
Even during boom times, the difference is significant: In 2007, before the recession hit Iowa, 1.5 percent of workers with bachelor’s degrees were unemployed, compared to 7.9 percent of workers without high school diplomas. The percentage of adults without high school diplomas grows to nearly 30 percent in areas of extreme poverty.
Read more »10.12.2012 news
The Power of Having an Opportunity Plan
When I was just six years old, I made a choice in hopes of creating a legacy that my father never got the chance to do: to seize the education opportunities present to me at the moment, and make the most of these opportunities so that I could become the first in my family to attend and graduate from college.
Read more »10.11.2012 news
Connecting Youth and Business to Create Opportunity
Earlier this year, Ray Morel, a 20-year-old from the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, presented at the White House. "I feel honored, anxious, and ready to go out there," he said before introducing Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, at the White House Youth Summit on Community Solutions. What prepared him for this opportunity on the national stage?
Read more »10.10.2012 news
Voting for Opportunity - Five Questions for our Candidates
Ensuring that more Americans have greater access to the ladder of opportunity is a critical issue for our nation. In today's political discourse, candidates and office holders at every level of government and in both major parties champion the value of "opportunity." The challenge we're seeing today though is that our candidates are rarely pressed to explain how their policies or votes will actually create opportunity for all Americans.
Read more »10.09.2012 news
Utahns able to improve their lives better than most of nation, data shows
When Utahns hit hard times, they are better positioned than much of the nation to find a road up and out, newly released data shows. Utah rates 16th on the 2012 Opportunity Index, a conglomerate of factors that portray how upwardly mobile residents in 2900 counties around the nation are likely to be.
Read more »10.09.2012 news
What Does the Opportunity Index Tell Us?
The Opportunity Index, which we at Measure of America created in partnership with Opportunity Nation, uses more than a dozen data points to rank every state and assign almost every county in America an opportunity grade ranging from "A" for excellent to "F" for failing.
Read more »10.08.2012 news
Improving Opportunity for Youth Through Mentoring
On Monday, Opportunity Nation -- a bipartisan national coalition of more than 250 organizations, businesses, schools, and others that are dedicated to restoring social mobility in America -- launches its Week of Action across the country with a National Day of Mentoring.
Read more »09.30.2012 news
Op-ed: ZIP code shouldn’t determine your opportunity
The partisanship divide in Washington subsided earlier this month, though for only a day. The Sept. 12 "Business Week" headline "What do Marco Rubio and Deval Patrick agree on?" foreshadowed the truce at the Opportunity Nation Summit, held at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. on September 19, 2012.
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