I started writing this simple “Looking Ahead to 2026” piece at the beginning of this month. I was with my family in Minneapolis for New Year’s and in my head it was a pretty exciting, enthusiastic and optimistic piece. Afterall there is a lot for CWFA in 2026 that I am genuinely excited about.
We will be working with so many inspiring and impactful partners: - DCEO and DHS minimizing the impact of SNAP Work Requirements - City Colleges, P33 and the Illinois Economic Development Corporation building apprenticeship into the fabric of pivotal economic developments like the IQMP - The UIC Collaborative for Young Children and Families and our Early Childhood employer partners, standardizing and raising workplace standards for early childhood workers - All our partners through Chicagoland Career Pathways working to make career navigation our region’s go-to strategy for preventing young adult disconnection; - And the entire IL RESET Coalition, bringing the recognition and resources Employment Social Enterprises deserve within our workforce development ecosystem.
But then agents of my government started murdering my family’s neighbors, my niece and nephew couldn’t go to school, and our 3rd favorite donut shop would never be the same. We go to Minneapolis multiple times a year, the people there are among the friendliest and genuinely welcoming that I have ever met. My sister literally maintains a “Kindness Garden” in her front yard. It is heartbreaking to see their South Minneapolis neighborhood re-traumatized by violence, not four months after we helped them tie blue and green ribbons around their trees. And it is infuriating that it is our own government perpetrating the violence and telling blatant lies as justification.
So looking ahead to 2026 I find it hard to be solely excited, enthusiastic and optimistic. My excitement to work on SNAP work requirements is tempered by the knowledge that they are a cruel and disproven policy. My enthusiasm to work on early childhood workplace standards is tempered by the reality of the entire sector having its federal funding targeted for political reasons. And even my optimism about the power of program models like apprenticeship and employment social enterprises is tempered by the fact that our government continues to fail to implement a tax structure capable of investing in them adequately.
The Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is famous for saying that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” I believe that is true, just as it was when an abolitionist minister said it similarly a hundred years prior. But when one is on the arc, it is so long that it can be hard to see justice on the horizon.
Here’s hoping in 2026, we start to see some bending again. And let’s remember that it is the good work of places like workforce development agencies that help make that progress possible. |
