City officials hold significant influence in shaping economic opportunities for their residents. As economic conditions evolve, local leaders are adopting proactive, results-driven strategies to enhance upward mobility. To address the complex realities people face, municipalities are shifting toward outcome-focused frameworks that connect various programs for greater impact. The Economic Mobility Catalog by Results for America offers a valuable resource for local decision-makers aiming to strengthen economic advancement efforts. The catalog organizes effective strategies around key outcomes, enabling cities to identify proven interventions. This article highlights three such approaches under the “High Quality Employment” category, showcasing real-world municipal initiatives and the diverse landscape of mobility-focused work across the U.S.
Supporting the Early Childhood Workforce
Local governments can strengthen early childhood education systems by investing in recruitment, training, and retention of qualified educators. Innovative models—such as apprenticeships and partnerships between schools, colleges, community organizations, and transit agencies—help bring in new talent through low-cost or free training, hands-on mentoring, and academic coursework. Municipalities can further support this workforce by funding credentialing programs tailored to specialized needs, such as working with children who have disabilities or are learning English.
Summer Youth Employment Initiatives
These programs go beyond job placement by offering young people paid work experience, exposure to professional environments, and mentorship. Participants should receive fair wages comparable to adult workers, reinforcing the value of their labor. Cities can enhance these initiatives by linking youth to complementary services like financial literacy training, career readiness workshops, or assistance accessing public benefits.
Community-Led Violence Prevention
While not detailed in this summary, community-driven violence prevention is another strategy recognized for its role in fostering safer environments where economic mobility can thrive. Safe neighborhoods enable residents to pursue education, employment, and entrepreneurship without fear, forming a foundation for long-term prosperity.
— news from National League of Cities
— News Original —
3 Outcome-Based Strategies to Accelerate Key Economic Mobility Outcomes
Municipal leaders play a pivotal role in shaping the economic futures of their communities. Given the changing economic landscape, local leaders need to take a proactive approach to improving economic mobility for their residents. To address the multi-faceted lives of residents, local economic mobility leaders are taking a broader outcome-based approach to identify connections within programs and strategies to increase impact. Results for America’s Economic Mobility Catalog offers a powerful tool for local leaders focused on economic mobility work. Within the Catalog, users can browse strategies that are consolidated within a series of specific economic mobility outcomes. In this blog, NLC will be highlighting three specific strategies and associated municipal examples within the “High Quality Employment” outcome category. Each of the strategies and municipal highlights not only showcase a great and tangible example of municipal leadership, but also the breadth of economic mobility work nationwide. n nEarly Childhood Workforce Supports n nFor this strategy, municipalities can focus on recruiting, training and retaining a qualified early childhood workforce. Some emerging recruitment models — like apprenticeship and pipeline partnerships between school districts, colleges, community organizations and transit data analysis on key community partners — draw in a multitude of potential early childhood educators with low- or no-cost training, hands-on mentorship and formal coursework. Additionally, municipalities can support their early childhood workforce through training new employees to receive their specialized credentials to work with specific subgroups like children with disabilities or English language learners. n nSummer Youth Employment Programs n nThe Summer Youth Employment Program strategy outlines how summer youth employment programs not only connect youth and young adults to paid jobs, but also provide exposure to professional work environments and valuable mentorship opportunities. Beyond employment, youth engaged in these programs should receive a standard paycheck with market-appropriate wages that match the adult employment experience. Municipalities can also build programming that connects the participating youth to other programs and services such as financial literacy courses (PDF), workforce readiness courses or public benefits. n nCommunity-Led Violence Prevention