For decades, workers across the country have seen their paychecks stagnate, even as corporate profits grow. Yes, the unemployment rate is at a 17-year low, but wages that aren’t rising, unpredictable schedules, low or no benefits and seemingly dead-end jobs are taking their toll. Income and wealth inequality are at their highest levels ever. Workers don’t earn enough to make ends meet, and their families and communities suffer. It doesn’t have to be this way.
In early 2018 PCV was awarded a $3.2 million impact investment from New World Foundation’s Quality Jobs Fund, and a $500,000 grant as part of the 2018 Citi Community Progress Makers Fund. The $100 million Quality Jobs Fund and the $20 million Community Progress Makers Fund are both designed to support high-impact organizations that are driving economic opportunities which strengthen local communities.
With this funding, PCV will deploy more than $5 million in loans to diverse Bay Area small business owners, supporting hundreds of jobs and improving the quality of these jobs. In the coming weeks we will launch Good Jobs, Good Business: A Small Business Toolkit to Create Jobs that Boost the Bottom Line and begin offering financial rewards and incentives to our borrowers who work towards offering living wages, benefits, wealth—and career—building opportunities, or other attributes that make for a good job. Through our national mentoring platform, BusinessAdvising.org, we will make Good Jobs, Good Business available to entrepreneurs across the country.