Care Economy Advisor

About the role

The Agency You'll Join

The New York City Mayor's Office is responsible for overseeing city services throughout the five boroughs, coordinating public agencies and departments, and managing public property. The administration is leading the fight in making the city more affordable, reducing inequality, improving public safety, ensuring delivery of efficient and effective services, and working to make New York City's economy stronger. We value leadership, transparency, fairness, and efficiency as we actively seek diverse talents from various sectors to join our team. For current job opportunities, visit our careers page.

The Team You'll Work With

The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice advances policies that promote a more equitable and vibrant New York City. The portfolio includes the City's economic, cultural, and workforce agencies and offices.

The Problems You'll Solve

Under the leadership of Deputy Mayor Julie Su, the Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice team seeks an experienced policy advisor to support the development of a citywide policy framework for growth of and job quality in the Care sector. This shall include elder care, childcare, care for people with disabilities, and more.

Housed within the Inclusion and Full Participation portfolio in the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice, the advisor will work collaboratively across the administration to assess the City's existing policy and program landscape, to identify promising policy opportunities, and develop recommendations that the City can advance to support growth in the care sector in ways that center worker voice and improved compensation, benefits, and working conditions.

It is expected that the advisor will work collaboratively with agencies inside and outside the DMEJ portfolio; these include but are not limited to: Office of Childcare and Early Education, Office of Worker Power, Office of Talent and Workforce Development, Economic Development Corporation, Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs, Mayor's Office of Equity and Racial Justice, and NYC Economic Opportunity, and more. The advisor will report to the Senior Advisor for Inclusion and Full Participation.

Develop policy recommendations and strategies

• Profile the City's care economy, including elder care, childcare, and care for persons with disabilities: occupations, sectors, unions and labor organizations, employers, workforce, demand and capacity, administrative, regulatory, and enforcement structures, and public funding streams.
• Analyze data on sector growth (supply, access, affordability, provider sustainability) alongside job quality (wages, benefits, turnover, vacancies, scheduling, staffing, conditions, advancement), including disparities by race, gender, geography, immigration status, and employment arrangement.
• Engage stakeholders, prioritizing care workers most affected by poor job quality, plus unions, worker cooperatives and small business incubators, providers, mission-aligned lenders and funders, and others that center worker voice alongside growth.
• Map City, state, and federal policies affecting growth and job quality, and review City contracting, procurement, licensing, workforce, and economic development policies, including existing tools for enforcing worker standards.
• Identify gaps and opportunities for municipal action, including through a review of comparable policies in other cities and states.

Develop a growth and job quality framework

• Define how the City will expand the care sector in ways that improve job quality and worker voice.
• Define and measure job quality across: compensation, benefits and stability, worker voice, equity, professionalization, and care-sector sustainability.
• Identify the role of unions, cooperatives, and worker ownership in expanding the sector.

Develop policy recommendations and strategies

• Build a menu of municipal options to grow the sector and improve job quality, such as procurement standards, living or prevailing wage, partnerships with unions for training, placements and supports, incubation and support of worker cooperatives and transitions of existing businesses to worker ownership, worker-owned care provider incentives and technical assistance, training and career pathways with quality placement, targeted investments in partnership with mission-aligned funders when possible, and funding leverage.
• Assess each major option for impact on job quality and worker voice; impact on care availability, affordability, and quality; fiscal, administrative, and legal feasibility; effects on small and community-based providers; equity; stakeholder views; and funding sources.
• Distinguish near-term actions within City authority from longer-term strategies requiring legislative, state, or federal action.
• Deliver a prioritized set of recommendations as policy-ready materials: briefs and memos, research summaries, briefings for senior officials, and presentations.

About You

• You have extensive knowledge of the care economy, including childcare, early childhood education, and long-term care, including but not limited to the workforce, working conditions, administrative, regulatory, and enforcement structures, and funding streams, preferably at city, state, and federal levels and comparative knowledge of policies across states and municipalities.
• You can demonstrate a track record of policy proposals, translating research into actionable policy recommendations, and experience working with city, state, or federal government to advance such policies.
• You can demonstrate a track record of centering worker voice in growth and job quality strategies, including creative thinking about the role of unions, cooperatives, and worker ownership to expand the care sector.
• You have experience using city-level and state-level tools to ensure compliance with municipal and state standards protecting workers.
• You have experience conducting stakeholder engagement with workers, labor organizations, community organizations, philanthropy, and public-sector partners.
• You have strong quantitative and qualitative research capabilities.
• You have excellent written and oral communication skills.
• You can work collaboratively with senior government officials across a diverse set of teams.
• You can assess policy options from fiscal, administrative, legal, equity, enforcement, and implementation perspectives.

Minimum Required Qualifications

• At least 10-15 years of relevant experience in public policy, economic policy, labor policy, care-economy policy, workforce development, workplace standards enforcement, or a related field.
• Attorney preferred with an understanding of complex legal issues including but not limited to legislation, contracts, and governmental program funding.

Additional Information

• In addition to the resume, a cover letter is required to apply.

Qualifications & Requirements

Admission to the New York State Bar; and four years of recent full-time responsible, relevant, satisfactory legal experience subsequent to admission to any bar, eighteen months of which must have been in the supervision of other attorneys, in an administrative, managerial or executive capacity, or performing highly complex and significant legal work.

Incumbents must remain Members of the New York State Bar in good standing for the duration of this employment.