COVID-19 is a chance to invest in our essential infrastructure workforce

Infrastructure workers were essential long before COVID-19, but their economic importance has come into greater focus during the crisis and is beginning to shape the response, too. Just as our infrastructure systems require generational investment, so too do our infrastructure workers. Beyond protecting essential workers right now, there are enormous concerns over who will fill these jobs in the months and years to come. Policymakers have traditionally viewed infrastructure jobs in terms of construction projects. Shovel-ready jobs, for instance, were a big part of 2009’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. While constructing roads, bridges, and other facilities can potentially support thousands of direct and indirect jobs in the coming months, the reality is there are millions of jobs that operate our infrastructure. Only 15% of infrastructure jobs are involved in construction—the other 85%, or 14.5 million workers, repair and maintain our existing infrastructure systems.