Many changemakers working to advance economic mobility in the US have voiced the need for greater collaboration and alignment around a shared vision.

In response, a diverse and dynamic group of field leaders met to explore ideas for supporting the coordination needed to effectively drive change and improve outcomes at scale. Over 18 months, a steering committee developed the blueprint for an initiative that could connect organizations and leaders committed to collaborative solutions for economic mobility.

Defining a shared vision for economic mobility

The steering committee began by defining a unifying vision for the future:

“We envision an America that uplifts the economic well-being, power, and dignity of all its people, especially those historically excluded from prosperity. This vision demands that the nation’s economic and political systems enable all people to build intergenerational wealth and security, to feel safe and enjoy good health, and to live in welcoming communities that provide quality schools and a healthy environment.”

But they wanted to go further, grounding their vision in people’s lived realities and defining more concretely what it requires of the nation’s political and economic systems.

They recognized that people striving for upward mobility face a web of barriers that too often block their best efforts. No single factor ensures people’s mobility over the long term because progress achieved in one area of life—like education or skill-building— can be undermined by setbacks in another—like a layoff, an unexpected rent increase, or a medical emergency. And although many programs and initiatives work to improve people’s financial security, job quality, health, housing security, and safety, few integrated solutions exist.

Creating an economic rights framework

Other efforts to advance similarly ambitious long-term visions sometimes set goals that align the efforts of multiple actors or assess progress over time. But the steering committee saw greater value in defining the economic rights essential to realizing their vision. They wanted to articulate, without compromise, the fundamental outcomes they sought, while leaving space for different strategies to achieve them.

The committee argued that organizations working in the field already set ambitious goals and don’t need or want a self-appointed group establishing more. Moreover, their experience convinced them that, without accountability mechanisms, goals can be ineffective and even demoralizing. And some saw “goals” as implying that field actors are falling short, when in reality, governmental and market systems are failing to support people’s economic success, power, and dignity.

Rather than inventing a new list of economic rights, the steering committee built on the work of thinkers and movements that have long fought for economic justice. They sought common principles that have endured and resonated across decades of struggle. The committee reviewed six foundational and influential rights frameworks (one global and five based in the US) that share core commitments, despite differences in language, scope, and ambition:

• The United Nations' Declaration of Universal Human Rights
• The United States Constitution
• Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Second Bill of Rights
• The Black Panther Party's 10-Point Platform and Program
• Darrick Hamilton’s "An Economic Rights for the 21st Century"
• Poor People’s Campaign's "Our Demands"

The steering committee also drew from these frameworks for their list of nine economic rights, which span the pillars of Urban’s evidence-based Upward Mobility Framework:

1. Everyone who wants to work has a quality job that pays a living wage and provides dignified working conditions, free from harassment.
2. Everyone has sufficient income for a decent standard of living.
3. Everyone has adequate wealth to invest in their future and access to sound banking and financial services.
4. Everyone has a complete education that prepares them for work and life.
5. Everyone lives in a decent and affordable home, secure from displacement.
6. Everyone enjoys a safe, healthy, and sustainable environment.
7. Everyone enjoys good health and well-being and has access to nutritious food and quality health care, including reproductive health.
8. Everyone has a voice in governance and power to determine the future of their community.
9. Everyone is served fairly and protected with justice by public institutions.

How economic mobility leaders can use the economic rights framework

Changemakers working to advance economic well-being, power, and dignity can use the economic rights framework in at least three ways:

1. Use economic rights to frame local advocacy efforts. Whether advancing affordable housing, job quality, environmental justice, or education equity, advocates can ground their campaigns in the fundamental economic rights all people deserve. Framing local efforts in terms of economic rights helps connect today’s policy wins to a larger, long-term push for structural change—reinforcing that local challenges are not one-time issues, but part of a shared struggle for dignity and justice. For example, in Tennessee, Seeding Success is helping coordinate statewide advocacy to shape the allocation of unspent federal COVID-19 pandemic recovery funds so public investments uphold rights to education, housing, and economic opportunity.
2. Anchor community-driven platforms on economic rights. Local coalitions can adapt this framework and create their own community economic rights statements, tailored to local priorities and history. These can then serve as living documents, helping communities articulate specific aspirations for the future, motivate advocacy campaigns, and hold public institutions accountable to the people they serve. For example, rural and tribal youth from across the country gathered to shape a collective vision for economic mobility and want to adapt the economic rights framework based on their lived experience to guide advocacy and hold decisionmakers accountable.
3. Build alignment around economic rights. The framework offers unifying language that can help housing, health, labor, education, and other advocates align their work and identify opportunities for collaboration. For example, the Tenant Union Federation builds the power of tenants across the US to advance the right for everyone to live in a decent and affordable home, secure from displacement. By grounding its organizing and advocacy efforts in economic rights, the federation seeks to inspire transformational change over the long term.

Realizing these rights for all people will take long-term, coordinated action, but the economic rights framework offers a starting point for aligning local efforts with a larger, national vision for economic justice.