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Everyone should have the access and opportunity to earn a family-sustaining wage and advance in their career. Better Careers invests in innovative, high-impact organizations serving Californians seeking middle-skill jobs — positions that offer higher wages and career paths for high school graduates who have additional training.

Due in part to structural, racial, and systemic injustices and barriers, middle-skill jobs are inaccessible to millions, including Californians in low-wage jobs seeking more skills, talented youth who are not working or in school, formerly incarcerated individuals, and workers who lost their job due to the pandemic.

Workers across California who earn low incomes play a vital role in driving California’s economy. The essential work of those who grow our nation’s food, provide homecare, and pack or deliver goods, among other jobs, has been more evident since the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet too few workers have a seat at the table on the economic decisions that affect their lives and livelihoods.

The Fair Work initiative seeks to ensure greater fairness and opportunity for workers earning low wages, by supporting leaders, partnerships, and innovations that connect workers to vital information and services, reduce wage theft, ensure access to rights and benefits afforded in current law, and promote civic engagement.

This seven-year, $135 million initiative in Fresno, Salinas, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Stockton aims to create and protect more good jobs that offer family-sustaining wages, benefits, and advancement opportunities for workers in low-wage jobs — and support communities as they create economies that work for all residents.

The initiative builds on and replaces previous grantmaking we called Priority Regions — communities that represent the future of California but do not have the same access to public, private, and philanthropic resources as California’s coastal cities.

To ensure that our economy works for all Californians, we must strengthen the ability of low-income workers and the organizations representing their perspectives to influence the decisions and policies that impact their lives. This is especially true for workers of color, who represent more than three out of every four low-income workers in California — and who face distinct barriers to economic inclusion and advancement rooted in structural racism.

Just Prosperity supports statewide efforts to develop and implement policies that reflect the priorities of low-income Californians by investing in organizations, partnerships, and new ideas that amplify worker voices, advance racial equity, and spark dialogue and action across the state.

California’s high housing costs are a significant barrier to economic advancement for low-income workers and their families. Deeply rooted systemic discrimination and racially biased housing polices have led to the housing affordability crisis disproportionately impacting workers of color, who spend more of their paychecks on rent, have lower rates of homeownership, and are more likely to live in segregated neighborhoods with less economic opportunity and higher rates of poverty.

The Housing Affordability project seeks to address the housing challenges low-wage workers face by investing $40 million over four years to support statewide and community solutions to protect low-income renters, preserve existing affordable units, and produce new and permanently affordable homes.