Economic security shouldn’t be a lottery. Yet for millions of working families, stagnant wages and precarious jobs collide with the daily grind of managing money on shaky ground — leaving stability feeling less like a plan and more like a gamble. Fixing that takes more than one lever. It takes structural reform and the tools people need to take control of their financial lives, working together.
In “The Wage Standard: What’s Wrong in the Labor Market and How to Fix It,” Professor Arindrajit Dube maps out how to rebuild a labor market that actually works for workers. In “The Joy of Money: How to Do More With and Feel Better About Your Money—No Matter How Much You Have,” Carrie Joy Grimes flips the script on personal finance, showing that financial agency isn’t reserved for the wealthy. Together, their ideas offer something rare: a real blueprint for security that starts at the policy level and ends in people’s pockets.
This conversation — hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program on October 7, 2026 — connected these dots and explored the big questions: What will it actually take to fix a broken labor market? How do practical financial tools build real agency, no matter your income? And what does an economy look like when systemic fairness and individual security aren’t trade-offs — but a package deal?
Our speakers include Dube, Grimes, and moderator Natalie Foster, senior fellow at the Economic Opportunities Program, co-founder of Economic Security Project, and author of “The Guarantee: Inside the Fight for America’s Next Economy.”
For more information about this event, including a transcript, speaker bios, and additional resources, visit our website:https://www.aspeninstitute.org/events/building-economic-security-a-book-talk-with-arindrajit-dube-and-carrie-joy-grimes/
This event is part of our Opportunity in America series:https://www.aspeninstitute.org/series/opportunity-in-america/
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