Janelle Jones is the Chief Economist for the Department of Labor. She was most recently the Managing Director for Policy and Research at Groundwork Collaborative. As part of the executive leadership team, she helped launch and build Groundwork, an economic policy nonprofit that works to advance an economic vision that delivers meaningful opportunity and prosperity for all. Before joining Groundwork in 2018, Janelle was an economic analyst at Economic Policy Institute working on a variety of labor market topics within EPI’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy. Prior to that, Janelle worked as a research associate at the Center for Economic Policy Research, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Her work has focused on labor markets, racial inequality, unemployment, unions and job quality. Her research has been cited in The New Yorker, The Economist, Harper’s, The Washington Post, The Review of Black Political Economy, and other publications.
Janelle served as an AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteer in Sacramento, California, where she worked for a grassroots nonprofit on community health issues. She also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru in the Small Business Development Program focusing on local economic development.
Janelle is from Northeast Ohio and a very proud graduate of Spelman College.