The Guarantee – Author Talk with Natalie Foster | New Labor Book Series #17

Join Siena Chiang and movement leader Natalie Foster to discuss her new book, The Guarantee, which asks us to imagine an America where housing, health care, a college education, dignified work, family care, an inheritance, and an income floor are not only attainable by all but guaranteed, by our government, for everyone.

As it stands, our current economic system is chock full of government-backed guarantees, from bailouts to bankruptcy protection, keep the private sector in business. So why can’t the same be true for the rest of us?

Natalie Foster is the co-founder of the Economic Security Project and has had a front-row seat to the dramatic leaps forward in government guarantees over the past decade, from student debt relief to the child tax credit expansion. Her brilliantly sketched vision for a new American Guarantee is rooted in real life experience, collaborations with some of today’s most important activists and visionaries, and a concrete sense of the policies that are possible—and ready to implement—in twenty-first-century America.

Natalie Foster is a leading architect of the movement to build an inclusive and resilient economy that works for all. President and co-founder of Economic Security Project and Aspen Institute Fellow, her work and writing has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, TIME, Business Insider, CNN, and The Guardian. Natalie speaks regularly on economic security, the future of work and the new political economy. An unstoppable builder, Natalie previously founded the sharing economy community Peers and co-founded Rebuild the Dream with Van Jones, and served as Digital Director for President Obama’s Organizing for America – a leading partner in winning transformative healthcare reform. A daughter of a preacher from Kansas, Natalie draws on the values of community, dignity, and optimism to build a better America. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband and two kids. The Guarantee is her first book. 

The Guarantee is an important work – not only for how it advances care as an economic right, but for how clearly it articulates the solutions in our midst.

-Ai-jen Poo, president of National Domestic Workers Alliance and author of The Age of Dignity

The Guarantee shows us the way forward for America. With a birds-eye-view, and the unique ability to see into the future, Natalie Foster brings to the fore the ideas we need most right now. 

– Dorian Warren, co-President of Community Change

Like all good ideas, the guarantees need a good hypewoman and you will find none better than Natalie Foster. Her enthusiasm is contagious in the best possible way. Read this book and you’ll find yourself believing whole new ways of being and doing are possible for American people and politics.

– Michael Tubbs, author of The Deeper the Roots and former mayor of Stockton, CA

Recommended Reading

• The New Republic: Guaranteed Income Programs Are Martin Luther King Jr.’s Legacy
• The Hill: Even amidst uncertainty, parents receive some financial security
• TIME: Americans Need Recurring Stimulus Checks Until the Pandemic Is Over

Part of the New Labor Book Series. This event is recorded but not publicly posted.