Digital Skills for the Digital Age

President-Elect Joe Biden recognized the nation’s urgent need for investment in digital skills with his campaign pledge to pass the Digital Literacy Act. As legislative action begins to get underway, the Biden Administration can and should take decisive administrative action to fill the vacuum in national leadership on digital literacy. In particular, the White House should convene a new Digital Skills for a Digital Age interagency task force that includes among other agencies the Departments of Commerce (DOC), Labor (DOL), and Education (ED).

This initiative should: 1) develop a formal definition of occupational digital literacy, which can be embedded in workforce and education policy; 2) identify ways to better support digital inclusion and skill-building through existing federal policy, and issue any necessary guidance to encourage or incentivize such action at the state and local level; 3) identify and standardize digital literacy variables as part of data collection and reporting for federally funded programs, and; 4) make recommendations to the White House for new budget investments in digital inclusion and upskilling.