we're hiring
Jobs at New Consensus. We're building the plan to save the economy. Could use some help.
The rise of MAGA and fascism in America can only be stopped when an opposing political movement proves it can deliver real economic progress for the majority of Americans who have been left behind for most of the postwar era. Deindustrialization, the destruction of state capacity, the erosion of public services, and the skyrocketing costs of housing, health care, and every other essential have broken the foundational American promise that every generation will be better off than the last. That is the root of the American crisis, and no amount of political messaging will fix it without a plan to actually start making people's lives better again.
In January 2029, a new president will take office with a chance to do exactly that - and possibly facing something with no precedent in American economic history: AI-driven layoffs of a significant share of the professional and managerial class, with cascading effects that drive collateral job losses across the entire economy. They will need a plan. Not a collection of policy papers. A plan - comprehensive, actionable, and ready to execute on day one.
The Mission for America is that plan. Think of it as the progressive answer to Project 2025: a governing blueprint for a sweeping national mobilization to build a new, clean economy that actually provides prosperity for all Americans - not just the handful of prosperous metro areas where the modern economy happens to work, but the vast majority of the country that has been left behind.
We are looking for a Director to lead this project to completion, and to make it their own.
Most progressive think tanks produce policy proposals designed to be politically realistic - incremental steps that might survive a hostile Congress. That work matters, but it isn't what we do.
The Mission for America is a plan to go all the way: to do what is actually needed to get wages rising again, to create millions of well-paying jobs, to rebuild the homes, buildings, and infrastructure of the America that has been left behind. And it must do so on a timeline that matters politically - making the majority of Americans' lives noticeably and permanently better within the first term, with visible results before the midterms. This is a plan for a national mobilization on the scale of what the United States achieved in World War II - when the country proved that a democratic government can transform an entire economy in years, not decades.
This is not traditional policy work. It is closer to economic architecture - designing interlocking systems across 20+ sectors of the economy that together add up to a fundamentally different country. If you have spent your career in policy and have been frustrated by the smallness of what's considered possible, this is the job where you get to think at a completely different scale.
The Director leads a research team to complete the Mission for America. You will manage teams developing detailed plans across 20+ national missions covering different industries and sectors - energy, housing, transportation, manufacturing, care, agriculture, and more. Solutions must be fast, technically feasible, and capable of driving rapid transformation.
You will have significant latitude to shape the project's approach, methodology, and priorities. The mandate is clear: a plan for sweeping mobilization that goes far beyond what is currently being imagined in mainstream policy circles. How you get there is something you will determine in collaboration with the Executive Director and our advisors.
This role is designed to position you for senior policy leadership in the next administration. We are building the plan that the next president will need - and we expect the people who build it to be the ones called on to help implement it.
Research & Economic Architecture
You will help build the core research and analysis behind the Mission for America across sectors including housing, energy, manufacturing, care, transportation, and more. This role is ideal for researchers who care about execution and want to produce work that can actually be used in government.
You'll work closely with the Director and cross-functional teams to identify bottlenecks, evaluate policy options, and develop practical recommendations designed for rapid deployment in a future administration.
Strong candidates are curious, rigorous, collaborative, and comfortable moving between detailed analysis and big-picture strategy.
If this sounds like your kind of emergency, send a note with your background and why you want to help build the Mission for America.