Linda Nguyen is the co-founder and deputy director of Jobs to Move America, a strategic advocacy center that supports reinvesting taxpayer dollars to create good jobs and a fair and prosperous society. She was the driving force behind the expansion of the organization’s work nationally to Chicago and New York.
Linda led research with the Brookings Institution, the University of Southern California and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, resulting in the development of the U.S. Employment Plan, a policy tool that government agencies have used to create thousands of jobs for workers around the country.
Linda led the approval of the U.S. Employment Plan on a $1.3 billion transit project for the Chicago Transit Authority, in partnership with the City of Chicago and the Chicago Federation of Labor. She negotiated a landmark Community Benefits Agreement in Chicago, marking the first comprehensive jobs program of its kind in the industry, resulting in the creation of hundreds of good jobs and pipelines for low-income communities of color in the city. Linda also led the adoption of the U.S. Employment Plan on a $3.7 billion contract in New York City, the largest railcar purchase in the history of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which will provide jobs for hundreds of New Yorkers.
Prior to joining Jobs to Move America, Linda worked with Vietnamese women workers in Seoul and Hanoi on issues facing rural to urban migrants in the underground economy. She is a NEURUS Fellow and holds a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from the University of California at Irvine.
Linda Nguyen is a member of the Job Quality Fellowship Class of 2018-19. To learn more about the Job Quality Fellows, visit as.pn/jobquality.
The Job Quality Fellowship is part of the Economic Opportunity Fellows Network, a network of leadership and fellowship programs run by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program. Within this Network, EOP connects national and local leaders from across sectors — nonprofit, government, business, philanthropy, academia, and more — to advance policies and practices with the potential to help low- and moderate-income Americans thrive in today’s economy. Learn more at as.pn/eofn.
Bio updated September 2018.