Nearly one in three Americans with an arrest record or conviction are struggling to find a job, according to JPMorgan Chase data. JPMorgan is working in conjunction with organizations like the Second Chance Business Coalition — which is co-founded by JPMorgan and the Eaton Corporation — and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School to co-host the Second Chance Conference to examine employment trends and discuss sustainable solutions for formerly incarcerated workers.

JPMorgan Chase Head of Research, Policy & Insights for Corporate Responsibility Heather Higginbottom joins Yahoo Finance to outline the objective of breaking down barriers that keep ex-offenders from effectively rejoining the US workforce, from state legislation to re-examining companies' hiring practices.

"One of the biggest priorities we have is increasing the number of states who have enacted or have passed what we call 'clean slate legislation,' and what that means is that states pass laws, and they say after a certain period of time, for certain sets of crimes, your record can be expunged," Higginbottom says. "Unfortunately, the process to do so is incredibly lengthy, bureaucratic, time-consuming, and expensive. And even in those states where there have been efforts to enact these expungement opportunities, it isn't taken up."

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Editor's note: This article was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video Transcript

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- Jobs in focus this week as fresh ADP data showing that the labor market remained resilient. Private payrolls for March coming in higher than expected. And now, investors are turning to Friday's big jobs report. Well today, we are taking a look at a portion of the population that's still struggling to get jobs. 1 in 3 Americans with a criminal record are having trouble re-entering the workforce. And according to JPMorgan Chase, sidelining this population is costing the US economy as much as $87 billion each year.

JPMorgan in conjunction with the Second Chance Business-- Second Chance Business Coalition, Business Roundtable, Eaton Corporation, and the Wharton School are cohosting the second annual Second Chance A Month a conference. And today where business leaders among others are examining the state of second chance employment and offering strategies for continued growth, here with more from the conference in Philadelphia we want to bring in Heather Higginbottom, JPMorgan Chase's Head of Research Policy and Insights for corporate responsibility.

It's great to see you here. Obviously, a very important initiative, a conference that you are holding right now in conjunction with others taking place in Philadelphia. But Heather, just taking a step back, talk to us just about the importance of this initiative and the economic impact it's having keeping so many of these people sidelined and without a job opportunity.

HEATHER HIGGINBOTTOM: Well, good morning and thanks so much for having me. It is astonishing to think that 1 in 3 American adults, people who are employable have a criminal record and the very existence of that criminal record serves as a barrier to employment. It keeps people out of the workforce. It costs our economy lots of money. We have a low unemployment rate. Now we need these people to be in the job market and working. And it's been a big priority for us and we're really excited to be here in Philadelphia today convening business leaders, academics, nonprofits, community organizations to address this challenge.

- I'm curious then, Heather, how you're working on measuring the success of these initiatives? Because we do often see efforts to reskill and upskill folks. But until we change kind of hiring practices on the other end of things, it's difficult to get those folks placed in corporations. So what is your measurement for the success of this effort looking like?

HEATHER HIGGINBOTTOM: Well, that's right. We really do need employers to come together. We need community organizations to support the efforts to educate and support employers who are trying to do this work. So for example, at JPMorgan Chase, 10% of our new hires annually every year since 2019 have been people with criminal records and that's because we changed our hiring practices. That's because we established partnerships with key organizations in markets where we do a lot of hiring to help educate people on what jobs they're qualified for, how to apply for a role in our firm, and to really raise the awareness of the issue internally for our hiring managers.

But we're just one corporation. What we do is important but what we really need to do is scale those efforts with other employers and other businesses. And that's why we co-founded it the second chance business coalition. It was about bringing those C-suite leaders together and talking about not just a commitment, but how do you fulfill that commitment.

So we've now grown the coalition to 50 large businesses. We're thrilled that the National Basketball Association has now joined our efforts. And the convening that we're having today is really about how do you do this work, how do you confront challenges, what partners need to do to really make the change.

- Heather, talk to us just about the strategy here going forward, raising awareness. Obviously, getting more businesses on board is making a real difference in the long term. Talk to me, though, about the impact that this has in the short term and how quickly you are able to get more of these people who have been struggling to find jobs, help them get placed in their jobs.

HEATHER HIGGINBOTTOM: Well, it really is about intention and changing policies as employers to make that happen. And once you do that, you can see results very quickly. One of the-- one of the things that we observed during the pandemic is that we needed quite a lot-- after the pandemic, quite a lot of people to re-enter the workforce. And a lot of employers said, we need to expand our pool. And they said, how do we do that. How do we reach these people who have been barred from opportunities.

And so we're really focused on the best practices and how we can scale that. And we're also focused on changing public policy and reducing some of those barriers that make it so hard for people to navigate this process.

- Well, Heather, talk to me about the difficulty of navigating the process. Because I know that you've mentioned that accessibility to resources that particularly for those who've been wrongfully convicted to get that conviction cleared, that's a very difficult and hard to understand, opaque process. So what would you hope to be changed to make that process of clearing convictions a little bit more accessible?

HEATHER HIGGINBOTTOM: One of the biggest priorities we have is increasing the number of states who have enacted or have passed what we call clean slate legislation. And what that means is that states have passed laws and they say after a certain period of time for certain sets of crimes, your record can be expunged.

Unfortunately, the process to do so is in incredibly lengthy, bureaucratic, time consuming, and expensive. And even in those states where there has been efforts to enact these expungement opportunities, it isn't taken up. There's a very, very low take up rate.

What the clean slate legislation does is automate that process so that you don't have to go through an expensive, burdensome, bureaucratic process to do that. And that enables people to overcome a huge barrier to employment. And Philadelphia, we're here today. And Pennsylvania was the first state in the country to enact that legislation. We've seen other states do the same and we're going to continue to support those efforts across the country.

- Heather Higginbottom, we really appreciate you taking the time on a very busy day that you have right now. JPMorgan Chase's Head of Research Policy and Insights for Corporate Responsibility. Thanks, Heather.

HEATHER HIGGINBOTTOM: Thank you.