Open Door America

In 2022, Open Door America (ODA) maintained anti-poverty, workforce development projects to connect previously left-behind, disadvantaged workers with compatible employers that embrace fair wages, employee benefits, job training, and upward trajectory career employment. Thanks to post-COVID national economic circumstances and a pro-labor Administration in Washington D.C. that mutually fostered a much-improved employment climate for entry-level workers, ODA spent 2022 helping approximately 100 entry-level workers, particularly apprentices, secure meaningful employment and pay raises of up to 25 percent. These increases lifted many ODA workers and their families out of poverty while also demonstrating to employers the improved-retention benefits of paying workers fair, "living" wages. As always, in 2022, ODA remained a strong national advocate for major reform in mass incarceration, public welfare, and social justice policies.