Our Vision in Action
We are building a future that works—for everyone. We transform U.S. education and workforce systems to drive economic success for people, businesses, and communities. Our vision and North Star: By 2033, 75 million Americans facing barriers to economic advancement will have quality jobs.
2019 Starting Point
2025
North Star
North Star Progress
Our North Star is a bold, field-wide goal for all our partners across the learn-and-work ecosystem. Together, we’ve made powerful progress, but there’s more work to do.
At our starting point, 38 million Americans from our focus populations had quality jobs. By 2025, the total grew to 51 million—an increase of more than 10 million workers. These include people without a 4-year degree, women, people of color, and people with a record of arrest, conviction, or incarceration.
At least 63% of workers from our focus populations still do not have a quality job. Achieving this goal will require bold action, deeper collaboration, and greater investment.
People From Our Focus Populations in Quality Jobs in 2025 *
People without a 4 year degree
People of color
Women
People with a record
* Note: Some people are included in more than one category, such as women without a 4-year degree.
Total # of People From Our Focus Populations in Quality Jobs in 2025
Ecosystem Drivers
Everyone in the learn-and-work ecosystem contributes toward our North Star goal. We measure our progress through four Impact Drivers.
Drive the creation of more quality jobs.
Ensure people are prepared for quality jobs.
Ensure people can obtain quality jobs.
Mobilize America to our vision and catalyze action.
CREATE
Source: Calculated with data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS); Gallup, “Not Just a Job: New Evidence on the Quality of Work in the United States,” 2019; and the “American Job Quality Study: 2025 State of the U.S. Labor Force."
How many quality jobs currently exist?
We estimate there were about 68 million quality job opportunities in the United States in 2025.* This includes 65 million workers already in quality jobs, combined with roughly 2.9 million unfilled quality jobs.
With overall job growth projected at about 2% over the next eight years, reaching our North Star goal will require improving the quality of a substantial share of existing jobs rather than relying solely on creating new jobs that meet quality criteria.
*Note: For this estimate, we used wages and benefits as indicators of job quality.
JFF's Impact
All of our work centers on collaborating across the United States to achieve our shared North Star goal. We measure our direct impact through four Impact Drivers.*
*Note: The following data comes from JFF initiatives that were active in Fiscal Year 2025, which ended October 1, 2025. The total in each category includes results from earlier work on these initiatives.
Create
We worked with leading employers, providing expertise that helped them implement new or improved business practices to advance job quality.
Apprenticeship Expansion Helps Workers and Businesses Thrive
Prepare
We supported partners who worked with learners and workers who built skills or completed postsecondary credentials to prepare them for a quality job. They participated in a range of programs, including competency-based education, apprenticeship, work-based learning, and dual enrollment.
Obtain
We supported partners who worked with people who were hired into a quality job or a job that has more than one element of quality.
Employers Meet Talent Needs by Focusing on Skills First
Mobilize
We worked with partners to support their adoption of policies or practices that advance job quality.
