TCF expands Economic Policy team to drive new research agenda for an economy built around working people. September 03, 2026 The Century Foundation (TCF), a leading progressive think tank, today announced four new hires with expertise in economic policy and research. Tonantzin Carmona joins TCF as director of economic policy and Kyle K. Moore as chief economist; Lorelei Salas moves from visiting senior fellow to senior fellow; and Sameera Fazili joins the organization as a visiting senior fellow. Together, they bring decades of experience from the White House National Economic Council, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Congress, and city government, along with a shared record of translating rigorous research into policies that improve the lives of working people. The appointments build on TCF's moves earlier this year, when the organization welcomed five visiting senior fellows. They reflect a commitment to build an economic agenda that prioritizes investments in programs that grow and sustain the economy while improving people's lives, like healthcare and childcare, while also tackling the concentrated power that has tilted the American economy toward risky and extractive practices that benefit only those at the top. Carmona will lead the development of TCF's economic policy agenda, advancing solutions that expand economic opportunity and strengthen families' economic security. Moore will anchor TCF's quantitative economic research, bringing a stratification lens to the forces shaping household well-being. Salas will take on a full-time role driving TCF's Affordable NYC Now initiative and its work on consumer finance. And Fazili will lead a new project focused on international economics and domestic renewal, examining opportunities to both advance America's economic competitiveness abroad and shared prosperity at home. "Our economy is in the hands of leaders who admit publicly that they don't care about ordinary Americans and who think rising credit card debt is a good thing. They treat public investments in healthcare, childcare, and education as waste while shoveling taxpayer money out the door to their friends. This approach is creating real and lasting damage, and we need to be ready to fix it," said Julie Margetta Morgan, President of The Century Foundation. "Kyle, Tonantzin, Lorelei, and Sameera know how to build an economy that centers on working people, not Wall Street. Adding them to our team will supercharge Century Foundation's ability to deliver real change for families across the country." Tonantzin Carmona joins TCF as director of economic policy, focusing on policies that expand economic opportunity and strengthen economic security. Carmona comes to TCF from the Brookings Institution, where she was a fellow researching wealth and inequality, financial and emerging technologies, and state and local policy implementation. She previously served as special assistant to the president for economic policy at the White House National Economic Council and as senior advisor in the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Inflation Reduction Act Implementation Office. Earlier in her career, Carmona worked in the U.S. Senate as deputy press secretary to Senator Elizabeth Warren and served as Illinois political director for Warren's 2020 presidential campaign. In Chicago, she was director of the Mayor's Office of New Americans and chief of policy to the City Clerk, where she helped lead citywide initiatives on immigrant integration, ID access, fines and fees reform, and effective government. Kyle K. Moore joins TCF as chief economist, where he studies economic inequality through the frameworks of stratification economics, political economy, and public health. Prior to joining TCF, Moore was an economist with the Economic Policy Institute's Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy, where he brought a stratification lens to research on the economic well-being of workers and their families. He previously served as a senior policy analyst with the Democratic staff of the Joint Economic Committee, where he advised members and authored reports on a broad range of economic policy issues centered on race, class, age, and gender disparities. Moore's research focuses on the intersection of racial economic disparities and health inequity across the life course, with particular attention to the "upstream" structural causes of differences in morbidity and mortality across race. Lorelei Salas, who joined TCF as a visiting senior fellow earlier this year, becomes a senior fellow, where she will focus on projects related to TCF and Protect Borrowers' Affordable NYC Now initiative and other New York City and consumer protection issues. An accomplished labor and consumer law advocate with decades of experience in public service, Salas served as Supervision Director at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) until February 2025, leading examinations of banks and other financial institutions. From 2016 to 2021, she was Commissioner of the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, the oldest municipal agency in the country enforcing consumer and worker protection laws. She has held several senior roles in New York State government and the nonprofit sector, including leading legal services teams at Make the Road NY and Catholic Migration Services from 2012 to 2016. Salas is also a senior fellow with Protect Borrowers and an adjunct professor and leader in residence in the Economics and Business Department at City College of New York's Colin Powell School for Civic & Global Leadership. Sameera Fazili joins TCF as a visiting senior fellow, where she will lead a project focused on international economics and shared prosperity. An economic policy expert with more than 20 years of experience across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, Fazili has held senior roles in domestic and international economics at the White House, the Treasury Department, and the Federal Reserve, with expertise spanning financial services, manufacturing, clean energy, housing, small business, transportation, and logistics. In the Biden-Harris administration, she served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the White House National Economic Council, where she led the administration's work on industrial policy, supply chains, and regional economic development. She played a leading role in the passage and implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. In the Obama administration, Fazili served in domestic and international economic policymaking roles at the White House and the Treasury Department. She has held research roles at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the Urban Institute and taught at Yale Law School, where she helped launch Connecticut's first community development bank.

Women 'dominate' jobs at risk of AI impacts. What NY is doing about it. New York State Team Aug. 20, 2026, 4:00 a.m. ET New York state is taking a closer look at how artificial intelligence will affect the state's workforce through a series of listening sessions. On Wednesday, Aug. 19, Gov. Kathy Hochul held the second of these roundtables in New York City, which included women in jobs with the potential to be or already are being reshaped by AI. The first took place "a few months ago," Hochul said, with New Yorkers whose tech jobs were replaced by AI. According to the governor's office, women make up 84% of employment in administrative back office roles and Molly Kinder, founder of the Breakwater Initiative and a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said on Wednesday that women are generally more exposed to AI technology and "dominate" the at-risk jobs. The information gathered through these listening sessions will be collected and help inform a set of recommendations to be released by the end of this year by the FutureWorks Commission, or a group of experts selected by the state to "identify real-time data strategies for monitoring AIs impact" on New York's workers. "I want to make sure that we, in New York, are prepared to manage this, especially for women in the workforce," Hochul said. How will the FutureWorks Commission help assess AI's impact on NY? The commission, whose formation was announced in May, will deliver its recommendations by the end of the year "to ensure New York is prepared to pursue new measures in the coming year to support workers and help more New Yorkers benefit from AI," according to Hochul's office. It's comprised of 20 members with varying expertise on issues relating to technology, workforce development, education and the economy and chaired by Kinder, former U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez and president and CEO of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America Thasunda Brown Duckett. "As New York continues to lead the nation on AI and tech innovation, I'm fighting to ensure that progress doesn't come at the expense of working New Yorkers," Hochul said. "I launched the FutureWorks Commission to make sure New Yorkers' voices are heard and our workers are protected as AI continues to impact New Yorkers' jobs and the future of our economy." Emily Barnes covers state government for the USA TODAY Network-New York with a focus on how policy and laws impact New Yorkers' taxes, communities and jobs. Follow her on Instagram or X @byemilybarnes. Get in touch at [email protected].

Companies may need AI and robot relations departments, Brookings says. The think tank predicts businesses may soon create AI and robot relations departments to handle employee-AI conflicts. Reading Time: 2 mins read As artificial intelligence and robotics become part of everyday business operations, companies may need entirely new departments dedicated to managing how employees work alongside intelligent systems, according to experts speaking at the Brookings Institution's 15th annual John Hazen White Forum on Public Policy. The discussion highlighted how AI assistants, collaborative robots, automated software, and physical robotics are becoming more common across manufacturing, finance, transportation, retail, defense, education, and healthcare, creating new workforce challenges beyond technology adoption. Advertisements AI could create new workplace roles. Brookings researchers say AI is expected to create new types of jobs while changing many existing ones. Organizations are likely to need AI agent managers to oversee digital assistants and chatbots, robot specialists to supervise increasingly capable machines, and professionals who can help employees use AI tools effectively. Demand is also expected to grow for workers who can design easy-to-use AI systems and bridge the gap between technical teams and business operations. Advertisements "Robot relations" Could join human resources. One of the report's biggest predictions is that businesses may eventually establish AI or robot relations departments alongside traditional human resources teams. These functions would focus on employee interactions with AI systems, robots, and chatbots, helping workers adapt to new technologies, handling concerns about algorithmic bias, determining which tasks should be automated, and supporting collaboration between people and AI. Brookings also suggests HR and IT departments may need to work more closely as AI becomes embedded throughout organizations. Workforce policies may need to change. The report also argues that governments and employers will need to revisit workforce policies if automation significantly changes employment. Potential ideas include expanding lifelong learning programs, recognizing caregiving and other unpaid activities as work, exploring shorter workweeks and basic income models, and updating labor policies to better support workers as AI adoption accelerates. Advertisements The Allwork.Space News Team is a collective of experienced journalists, editors, and industry analysts dedicated to covering the ever-evolving world of work. We're committed to delivering trusted, independent reporting on the topics that matter most to professionals navigating today's changing workplace - including remote work, flexible offices, coworking, workplace wellness, sustainability, commercial real estate, technology, and more. This article is based on the Allwork.Space Future of Work Podcast episode "Why AI's Biggest Opportunity For Businesses Goes Beyond