At a national park in Virginia on Monday, President Joe Biden announced that people can start applying to the American Climate Corps, a program that is expected to connect workers with more than 20,000 green jobs. 

“You’ll get paid to fight climate change, learning how to install those solar panels, fight wildfires, rebuild wetlands, weatherize homes, and so much more that’s going to protect the environment and build a clean energy economy,” Biden said at the Earth Day event. 

The American Climate Corps (ACC) is modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which was created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 to employ men in environmental projects on the country’s public lands — projects like trail building, planting trees and soil erosion control. Nearly 3 million people were put to work in an effort to address both Depression-era unemployment and to shore up national infrastructure.

But it wasn’t very diverse. Although Black and Native American men were allowed to enroll, the work was segregated. And women could not apply. For a brief time, a sister program created by Eleanor Roosevelt — mockingly called the “She-She-She camps” by its detractors — trained 8,500 women in skills like typing and filing.  

The Biden administration is adamant that this iteration of the program will attract a more diverse conservation and climate workforce, promising that the program will “look like America” and expand pathways into the workforce for people from marginalized backgrounds.

On Monday, Biden announced the launch of a long-awaited job board where applicants can look for opportunities. Some positions were created through the American Climate Corps partner agencies like the Forest Service, which announced the Forest Corps — 80 jobs in reforestation and wildfire mitigation — or the USDA’s Working Lands Climate Corps, with 100 positions. At the same time, the Department of Interior and the Department of Energy announced a new project that will place corps members in priority energy communities — places that have historically been the site of coal mining and power plants — for work in community-led projects like environmental remediation. All of these positions have a term limit, although they vary; some listed on the website are seven-months for example, others are over a year long. 

Other jobs listed on the site are compiled from existing conservation corps programs; either state-run programs like the California Conservation Corps or those run by nonprofits like Conservation Legacy. These provide opportunities for young people in local communities to do everything from prescribed burning on public lands to solar panel installations on schools. 

So far, there are 273 listings on the website, ranging from working on trail crews to invasive plant management to wildland firefighting positions. There is also an “ag literacy” position to teach kids about where their food comes from, and a posting for a climate impact coordinator who will help a Minnesota nonprofit develop climate resilience projects. That’s a far cry from the administration’s goal of 20,000 jobs.

But supporters of the program say opportunities to expand ACC are endless — from home weatherization positions to planting tree canopies in urban areas. The question is whether these mostly taxpayer-funded jobs will attract and retain a diverse workforce and benefits women and LGBTQ+ workers, as well as people of color. 

“We know that it is going to take everybody to solve the climate process and we need to field the whole team. That’s exactly the way we’ve thought about building this program,” said Maggie Thomas, special assistant for climate to Biden.

Because the program is working with The Corps Network, a national association of about 140 conservation groups, there is already some data on how modern-day organizations operate, said Mary Ellen Sprenkel, president and CEO of the network. “They collectively engage almost 25,000 young people a year and are very diverse — young people from urban areas to rural areas. There is a diversity of race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status and education level.”

According to the organization’s data from 2023, the most recent year available, 44 percent of their members were women and 3 percent were gender non-conforming or gender expansive.

Fifty-nine percent identified as White, while 14 percent were Black, 23 percent were Latino, 4 percent were American Indian, 3 percent were Asian and 2 percent were Pacific Islander. 

Sprenkel sees those numbers as progress. “What has evolved out of the original CCC has naturally become much more diverse in terms of member opportunities. And so building on that for the ACC, I think it will naturally happen,” said Sprenkel. 

In addition, any of the jobs created through federal agencies in collaboration with the ACC must adhere to the administration’s Justice 40 initiative, which means 40 percent of the benefits must go to marginalized communities, in this case either through job creation, or through the projects being funded through monies like the Inflation Reduction Act. 

One aspect of parity will be how well these jobs pay. Many of the positions listed on the ACC site are funded through AmeriCorps, which pays modest living stipends that have been criticized as “poverty wages.” AmeriCorps “was designed for middle class White people who could get support from their parents to have this opportunity,” Sprenkel said. But the Biden administration wants to ensure that all young people can serve, she continued, not just those who can afford to take lower-paying positions.

Sprenkel said the administration is aiming for positions to pay a living wage — with some wiggle room that allows for lower wages as long as housing and other benefits are provided. “[They’ve] said we would like for programs to strive to pay their members $15 an hour, but if that is the result of a package where you’re providing housing and transportation, that’s OK.”

One way the administration has aimed to increase pay transparency is to list an hourly wage equivalent for the jobs posted on the ACC website, said Thomas. This number could factor in stipends for transportation, living expenses and educational awards. Many jobs currently listed go above the $15 minimum — though some require more than entry-level experience. 

There are also efforts in the works to increase the low stipends of current AmeriCorps members. “The president has called on Congress to raise the minimum living allowance for all of our crew members to at least $15 an hour as a starting point,” said Yasmeen Shaheen-McConnell, senior advisor for AmeriCorps. In the interim, she said, many corps positions have been able to offer packages equivalent to $15 an hour through public and private partnerships with states and outside organizations.

Madeleine Sirois, a research analyst with the left-leaning think tank Urban Institute, has been researching workforce development pathways in the clean energy transition. She said offering paid opportunities to enter a new career is a good starting point. “So many people want to upskill, they want to get new credentials, and maybe change career paths. But then they can’t leave their current job that maybe only pays 10 bucks an hour,” she said. 

But other benefits are important, too, if the program is going to be equitable in its rollout, said Sirois. “It’s been mentioned on the portal that there are health care, child care, transportation and housing available, but it does say only some opportunities will offer that,” she said. “So it leaves me with the question of: Who has access to that and who doesn’t?” 

Among the initial 273 listings posted on the ACC site, The 19th found only four that listed child care as a benefit, though Shaheen-McConnell said that eventually more of the positions will offer it. 

Sirois said another important aspect of the ACC will be whether it will lead to actual jobs in clean energy and climate work after corps service ends. She was heartened by Monday’s announcement that the ACC had partnered with the North America’s Building Trades Alliance TradeFutures program, which will provide every ACC member access to a free pre-apprenticeship trades readiness program. Trades jobs make up the foundation of the clean energy transition, but have historically gone to men. Just 4 percent of women are trades workers in the United States. 

“These are all really important, especially for getting women and people of color into these jobs, and apprenticeships that will lead into quality careers that are unionized in many cases. So I think that’s fantastic,” said Sirois. However, while the administration has also touted that ACC positions will offer workforce certifications and skill-based training, Sirois said those are only offered for some corps members. Getting clarity on how many of these jobs will lead to improved employment opportunities will be key. 

It’s going to take time to see how the program plays out, she said, and learn if it will be successful in placing women and people of color in trades jobs, despite historic discrimination.

“When we talk about moving people into jobs, it’s making sure we’re very specific about what kinds of jobs in terms of the quality,” she said. “It’s about opportunities for advancement, having meaningful work, a workplace free from discrimination and harassment, and feeling that you have a voice on the job.” Sirois hopes the administration will collect data on corps members that tracks completion rates and job placements after service, and that the data can be disaggregated by gender and race.

Thomas said American Climate Corps jobs should be considered the earliest stage of the workforce development pipeline — leading to better paying jobs down the line. “This is an opportunity for young people to take action right now in communities across the country, on climate projects that we know have a tangible impact today.”

This story was originally published by The 19^th and reprinted with permission.

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In 2023, Diamond Harriel was looking to make a career switch. She had a 10-month-old daughter and had recently gone back to school for a business administration degree, hoping it could help her earn higher pay than the temporary administrative jobs she had been working. 

One day, through a program that helps single moms, she saw a flier about a new city initiative in Rochester, Minnesota, that aimed to bring women of color into the construction workforce.  

After learning more, Harriel enrolled into a trades readiness training program that taught the ins and outs of construction, from how to read a blueprint, to operating different tools and basic safety. The program exposed her to the possibilities within the construction world: building inspections, project management, apprenticeships in skilled trades like plumbing and electricity.

The city initiative that guided Harriel through the training and helped set up the interview is called the Equity in the Built Environment program. It started in 2023 after Rochester Mayor Kim Norton won a $1 million grant from the Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Mayors Challenge. 

When the 2020 recession hit, one thing had become apparent to Norton: Women of color were bearing the brunt of it. In Rochester, they already held some of the lowest paid jobs, and as the pandemic took hold, those positions disappeared in sectors like the service industry, which disproportionately employs women of color. 

Related: The jobs where sexual harassment and discrimination never stopped

“Probably they struggled the most anyway,” Norton said. “But it was held up and in the sunlight during the pandemic in a way that it was so obvious you couldn’t ignore it.” 

What her office realized is that there wasn’t a shortage of employment opportunities.

Rochester, with a population around 220,000, was halfway into a $585 million, 20-year funding initiative to build new infrastructure downtown. It was also home to the prestigious Mayo Clinic, which had just announced a $5 billion economic growth project.  

All of that growth meant a lot of available construction jobs, which was facing a worker shortage. Could that problem be solved by diversifying the workforce? 

“Our research showed that very few women are in construction and almost no women of color. We said, ‘Well, here’s an opportunity,’” Norton said.  According to the city, women of color make up 13 percent of the city’s population but less than 1 percent work in the construction industry.

Over the past year the city has piloted Equity in the Built Environment to create a solution that could work for everyone — both the construction industry facing an employee shortage and the women they sought to help. If they are successful, they could be a model for other cities as construction projects boom across the country. 

The pilot project consists of tackling the workforce challenge in three ways, said project manager Julie Brock: educating women and girls about the employment possibilities; training and recruitment for women of color; and addressing long-standing issues with discrimination and harassment in the industry. 

First, program participants are set up with a career counselor with a local workforce development nonprofit, and then they enter either a trades readiness track, or an entrepreneurial track that helps women start their own construction businesses. Throughout that time they have access to wraparound services like child care and transportation to remove barriers to attending classes. For those looking for a job, the program works to place them at three different companies that are partners in the work. So far eight women have completed the program. 

Related: Women in construction have been marginalized. This bill would change that

Explaining to women that there could be a job in the field that fits their interests and skills has been a challenge, Brock said. At first, women assumed that the only jobs available would be more around tradework. Now, the pilot program has framed conversations around the built environment, more broadly, with other career opportunities in health and safety inspections, interior design and project management among others.

“The mindset shift is you are not asking people to go on a construction crew to swing hammers,” Brock said. “If somebody wants to do that, that’s great. But there is amazing wealth to be made in the built environment.”

Aaron Benike, vice president of operations at Benike Construction, one of the pilot’s partner companies, said that his company is doing whatever it can to attract a more diverse workforce. It’s what drew him to participating in this pilot. 

With the industry currently going through a wave of retirements of its primarily White male workforce — nationwide 1 in 5 construction workers is 55 or older — he realized they need to be more intentional about outreach. 

Out of over 200 employees, they have few women, and just one woman of color who currently works for the company. 

“It’s just a segment of the population that for one reason or another isn’t part of the team,” Benike said. “For one reason or another they haven’t felt welcome or we haven’t reached out, it’s probably both.”

The construction industry as a whole does have a reputation for discrimination and harassment. A report released by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last year found that women were often denied jobs or harassed and discriminated against on job sites in the construction industry. 

Benike, who had the opportunity to talk with women interested in construction when the program was being designed, said it opened his eyes to things he’d never really thought about. For the women, he said, “safety meant safety from harassment … and that was a blind spot to me,” he said. “I’ve been on job sites my whole life and never experienced anything like that, but why would I, right?” 

His company is currently undergoing training to obtain an Inclusive Workforce Employer Designation, a series of trainings focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, and a requirement to participate in the pilot. He hopes that job seekers will see that as a sign that his company is a safe space to work. The city’s pilot also has trained mentors at each company to work with women when they are hired to ensure a smooth transition into a new field. 

Benike wants to convince more women to consider getting into the field. “The pay is good. The training is good. It’s safe and the pension is good,” he said. 

In recent weeks the city has also launched public service announcements to bring more women into the pilot; now that it’s been running for over a year, organizers feel ready to scale up. 

For Sara Tekle, a participant who did the entrepreneurial track, the pilot has helped her start a business in craft labor, doing the demoing and cleaning up for construction projects.

Tekle, who is originally from Eritrea, was working in nursing at the Mayo Clinic for years. She had already been doing side jobs with construction after taking on some remodeling at her own house. 

But the program helped her build her website, start the process of getting her contractor license and register her business. She is now in a training that will help her place bids for construction work. She’s also been able to network with companies from the city’s pilot who could potentially contract with her company.

The Rochester City Council has adopted requirements that a certain number of women- and minority-owned businesses be involved in construction on city projects, which could help women like Tekle. 

The program made Tekle feel more comfortable working in construction and supported in making a transition to running a company full-time, which she hopes to do in May when bidding season starts for construction work. 

Tekle, who also works as a women’s advocate, said she’d like to encourage other women she knows to consider working in the built trades — eventually she hopes to be an employer. 

“The construction industry is not engaging or welcoming to women,” she said. “When I start my own company, the biggest vision is to hire a woman.” 

This story was produced by The 19th and reprinted with permission.

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