Conference Videos

Groundwork Collaborative Executive Director Lindsay Owens opens EconCon 2023 and introduces Congresswoman Delia Ramirez, the first keynote speaker of the conference, highlighting opportunities progressives have to shape our economic future.

This panel didn’t feature the same old dusty polling memos on the economy. We spotlighted the young leaders and experts who can help us to understand how the most diverse generations our country have ever seen are driving new economic narratives and how we can align with those efforts to catalyze even greater impact.

Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan delivers a keynote address to EconCon 2023, detailing the progressive wins in Minnesota and how we can export those wins across the country.

Introduction by Ameya Pawar, senior advisor at the Economic Security Project.

From public banking to city-wide solar to social housing and a public option for insulin, this panel covered some of the most promising new examples of using public power to deliver the healthy economy that markets won’t. Panelists also shared lessons practitioners can take into their own fights for a more inclusive economy.

White House OMB Director Shalanda Young delivers a keynote address to EconCon 2023, highlighting the importance of these victories and seeing them through to transformative economic change.

Introduction by Felicia Wong, president and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute.

This panel featured current and former Biden Administration officials who have had a hand in crafting and implementing these very policies. They gave us an inside view into how we can secure the benefits of these policies for decades to come to ensure they transform our economy so that it truly works for everyone.

Introduction by Shayna Strom, president and CEO of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

In this panel, experts examined the disparate policy responses to the Great Recession and COVID Recession and the divergent outcomes those responses produced. They also discussed how to ensure we apply the right lessons going forward to prevent a repeat of the mistakes of the Great Recession all over again.

This panel featured experts fighting to advance a progressive economic vision and overcome a legacy of underinvestment, corporate concentration, and marginalization of everyday people, especially workers and families of color. Panelists shared how they’ve advanced progressive economic victories by applying three core priorities in their work: reining in private power, building public power, and centering the workers and families that have been locked out of abundance for far too long.

This panel of experts walked us through these timely examples of how deregulation has gutted protections for workers and consumers and left people and our economy vulnerable to crisis and instability. They also shared which lessons progressives must take from recent failures and offered a roadmap for fighting back against further deregulation and a path forward to reversing decades of damaging policy.

In this panel, experts discussed how the Fed’s approach to price stability could jeopardize the incredible gains workers have made in the labor market over the course of this recovery and offered reforms to ensure that our monetary policy works for workers, especially those who have been left behind time and time again.

It’s no surprise then that narrative change on the economy has become a core priority across the progressive ecosystem. Experts who have successfully changed narratives about different facets of our economy shared case studies from their successes and lessons we can apply across the progressive movement to catalyze change.

This session made visible some of the people and places who have been left behind and detailed some of the investments needed to ensure all communities share in our country’s prosperity. Experts discussed specific interventions, like infrastructure and climate investments, restarting the Civilian Conservation Corps, and subsidized employment, which can shape a more inclusive economy for communities too often left out of prosperity.

Dorothy Brown delivers a keynote address to EconCon 2023, highlighting the importance of these victories and seeing them through to transformative economic change.

Introduction by Brandon McKoy, vice president at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

This panel of experts showed that the upcoming fights are politically beneficial: the overwhelming majority of people agree that we must make the ultra-wealthy and megacorporations pay their fair share. They demonstrated how winning the upcoming tax fights is critical to defeating the outdated trickle-down model of taxes that has too often favored wealthy interests over the investments we need for a healthy economy and society.