Economic Justice

People know the economy isn’t working, but not how it should work, or what we need to do to get there. Effective framing can turn passive unease into active support for economic justice.

In the 1980s, the conservative case for lower taxes was framed with a memorable metaphor: “trickle-down” economics. Four decades later, this frame is still with us.

The frames that are in play influence not just how people understand the economy, but the kinds of economic policies they support. If the economy is a pie, we have to slice it up. The topic quickly turns to who gets how much and who loses out. If it’s an invisible hand, best to leave it alone. But, FrameWorks research has found, if it’s a software program—we can see why and how we might reprogram it.

Language and ideas matter for major economic sectors, like housing, or contributors to economic wellbeing, like good neighborhoods and healthy, affordable food.

Explore how to frame a range of economic issues.

Featured Work

Where We Thrive

Neighborhood revitalization is essential to ensuring families of all backgrounds and zip codes can thrive. Too often, however, this work is invisible, devalued, or just misunderstood. It’s time...

Report

Navigating Cultural Mindsets of Race and Place in the United States

The places where we live shape our lives. Structural racism has shaped and continues to shape where and how Americans live.

Report

Framing the Economy

These are times of great danger but also of great possibility. For the first time in decades, there is a sense that the economic consensus is fracturing, that a change must and will come. A space...

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Article

The Future of Care

Four years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic shined a light on care work and the many ways that care infrastructure—or the lack thereof—plays an important role in all of our lives. From greater...

Publication

Moving Toward Collective Health and Prosperity Means Putting Hunger and Poverty in the Rearview Mirror

The terrain of public thinking about hunger and poverty is fraught with unhelpful assumptions and associations—including harmful, dehumanizing stereotypes. Fortunately, certain helpful public...

Framing Resource

Talking about homes: what we can learn from homelessness and poverty research

How we talk about homes matters. We all have power as communicators to tell a story about homes that will build understanding and support for solutions to make our housing system better.

Report

Public Thinking About Care Work: Encouraging Trends, Critical Challenges

Has the salience of care and the respect for frontline workers seen during the pandemic stayed high or dwindled? What we find is both encouraging and a call to action.

Report

Where We Thrive: Communicating about Resident-Centered Neighborhood Revitalization

This strategic brief offers guidance—in the form of a comprehensive framing strategy—that community builders can use to share their successes, communicate the challenges they face, and...

Report

Research Methods Supplement – Where We Thrive: Communicating about Resident-Centered Neighborhood Revitalization

A description of research methods and supporting data, offered in supplement to the Where We Thrive Strategic Framing Brief

Toolkit

Where We Thrive: Communicating about Resident-Centered Neighborhood Revitalization

If you want to build support for place-based initiatives and communicate effectively about neighborhood revitalization—and in the process change the public narrative about the root causes of...

Report

Communicating about housing in the UK: obstacles, openings and emerging recommendations

We need a new conversation about housing in the UK, to build greater public support and action to deliver quality homes for all.

Report

How Are Children’s Issues Portrayed in the News? A Media Content Analysis

What is the role of the news media in influencing public thinking about children’s issues? And how can recognizing these media frames help us build engagement and increase support for the...

Report

Public Thinking About Care Work in a Time of Social Upheaval: Findings from Year One of the Culture Change Project

To what extent is this unprecedented pandemic shifting thinking about care work? The FrameWorks Institute is exploring this question as part of our empirical study on culture change during a time...

Report

Talking About Poverty: Narratives, Counter-Narratives, and Telling Effective Stories

This report synthesizes the complex body of research around existing poverty narratives and counter-narratives, with practical advice about how to use narratives to create better stories—and,...

Report

How Are Advocates Talking about Children’s Issues? An Analysis of Field Communications

This is one of a set of three reports that map the landscape of current discourse and thinking.