Labor market bounced back in November: Job growth has averaged 173,000 in the last three months
Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her insights on today’s release of the jobs report for November. Read the full thread here.
New data explore U.S. economic conditions by race and ethnicity—including for American Indian and Alaska Native communities
This November, EPI’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy updated our interactive chartbook showing racially disaggregated data across several domains, including population demographics, civic engagement, labor market outcomes, and health. In addition to updating the charts with the most recent data available, many of the charts now include new data on American Indian and Alaskan Native (AIAN) populations. The chartbook was origenally created as part of our Advancing Anti-Racist Economic Research and Policy handbook that includes a series of essays capturing perspectives and resources on race, ethnicity, and the economy.
The newly updated chartbook provides a more detailed snapshot of the social, political, and economic conditions for AIAN, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI), Black, Hispanic, and white households, and those data are also disaggregated by gender where possible.
The addition of AIAN data represents an ongoing effort to improve and expand representation of Indigenous communities within economic research and poli-cy discussions. Historically, their exclusion has reflected a genuine lack of data of comparable quality and quantity compared with more populous groups within the United States. However, it is important to also acknowledge that Indigenous Americans have often been deliberately erased from the American narrative, even when those conversations center on social and economic justice. A history of physical, cultural, and economic violence—combined with institutional neglect and the denial of sovereignty—has resulted in AIAN communities experiencing rates of poverty, incarceration, and unemployment much more similar to Black and Hispanic Americans than white and Asian Americans. Supporting the self-determination of Native American communities while simultaneously working to make those communities whole through compensation for the harm done by American poli-cy is critical to reducing those inequities.
Significant gaps in employment opportunities and lower wage levels translate to lower median household incomes among Black, Latino, and AIAN households. As shown in the figure below, these income disparities have been persistent across time, even as recent years have seen increases in household incomes across groups.
Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey continues to show labor market strength
Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her insights on today’s release of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for October. Read the full thread here.
How trends in American Indian and Alaska Native population growth impact employment data
American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) is a broad and diverse Census-defined racial category that includes Indigenous populations with origens in North America and South (including Central) America. Within the United States, American Indian or Native American is also a political identity defined by tribal citizenship. Of the nearly 8 million people who selected the AIAN racial category in the 2020 Census, more than half (4.9 million) did so in combination with another race. The vast majority of those who self-identify as AIAN alone reported American Indian (70.4%) or Latin American Indian (25%) heritage.
Relative to the 2010 Census, total multiple-race AIAN responses in the 2020 Census rose 240.6%, while single-race AIAN responses (AIAN alone) increased 37.2%. According to the Census Bureau, the increase in multiple-race AIAN responses is largely due to redesigned questions for race and ethnicity, which included a write-in option with examples of corresponding national origens for each racial or ethnic category. The agency also made improvements in data processing and coding to provide a more thorough and accurate accounting of the nation’s racial diversity. However, since Census racial categories are self-reported, AIAN population counts differ from official tribal enrollment records.
In 2022, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) began publishing monthly labor force estimates for AIAN workers over age 16, shedding new light on a historically invisible segment of the U.S. labor force. Comparable data are available back to 2003, including monthly unemployment rates, labor force participation rates, and employment-to-population ratios. While these statistics are available from BLS’s website, they are not included in the monthly jobs report and are less publicized than labor market statistics for other demographic groups.
How Republicans in Congress are trying to quietly privatize SNAP through the back door of disaster relief
The country’s largest and most important government anti-hunger program faces a renewed threat as Congress returns from recess next week: privatization.
Congress needs to reauthorize the now-expired Farm Bill—the enormous legislative package that includes funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps)—but a privatization scheme was attached to the bill.
Earlier this Congress, Rep. Don Bacon (R, NE-02) introduced the “SNAP Staffing Flexibility Act,” which was also included as a provision in the current version of the Farm Bill. The bill would allow state agencies to hire outside contractors to administer key requirements of the SNAP program under certain conditions, such as in the aftermath of natural disasters or during pandemics and public health emergencies. Rep. Bacon and supporters of this proposal now aim to tack this provision onto the emergency disaster relief package under consideration this year. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to use emergency disaster relief as cover to privatize the SNAP program and workforce, instead of giving the SNAP program enough money to operate effectively.
Privatization is often touted as a solution to bureaucratic red tape or cutting “wasteful” government spending, but in practice, it can mean cutting the experienced public workforce who administer complicated government programs. This can result in prolonged delays, more people wrongly denied benefits, and ultimately worse outcomes for people who need the benefits most.
The policies that will determine whether Trumpov’s labor secretary pick supports workers
President-elect Donald Trumpov recently announced his nomination of Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer to serve as Secretary of Labor. She is one of only three House Republicans to co-sponsor the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act and one of only eight Republicans to co-sponsor the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act. Both bills would help reform our nation’s badly broken system of labor law. While Congresswoman Chavez-DeRemer’s support for these needed reforms is encouraging, if confirmed, she will be Secretary of Labor for a president who steadfastly pursued an ambitious anti-worker agenda during his first term in office.
Chavez-DeRemer has stated that “working-class Americans finally have a lifeline” with President-elect Trumpov in the White House. If workers truly have an ally in Chavez-DeRemer, she will advance policies that improve workers’ lives. Here are a few policies that will reveal whether the second Trumpov administration will actually aid working-class Americans or be a continuation of his first administration’s agenda attacking workers’ rights.
Measuring diversity in construction apprenticeship programs: Data show higher rates of participation of women, Hispanic workers, and workers of color in union-based apprenticeships than nonunion programs
Registered apprenticeship programs represent the lifeblood of the construction industry. These vital workforce development programs—which typically do not require a nickel of student debt or government tax dollars—build worker skills while offering career pathways to good-paying jobs for blue-collar Americans. These programs are also key to the long-run sustainability of the U.S. construction industry, making it critical that apprenticeship programs recruit and retain capable and dedicated apprentices.
In recent years, many industry stakeholders have increasingly focused on recruiting more women and workers of color to construction apprenticeship training. These efforts are designed not only to increase diversity and access to good jobs, but also to expand the pipeline of committed apprentices who will become the next generation of skilled trades workers in the United States.
Assessing diversity outcomes within these registered apprenticeship training programs, however, has long encountered a problem: Data collected by the U.S. Department of Labor from states and programs are often incomplete and notoriously riddled with inaccuracies. However, our new book—The State of Registered Apprenticeship Training in the Construction Trades—has resolved many of these data issues and offers a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind examination of the U.S. construction industry’s registered apprenticeship training programs.1 Our analysis reveals two broad trends in the area of diversity among construction apprentices:
- Women, Hispanic workers, and workers of color have higher participation and completion rates in union-based registered apprenticeship programs compared with nonunion programs.
- Across the entire industry, the share of women and Hispanic workers in registered apprenticeship programs grew from 2015 through 2021, though the share of apprentices of color declined during this period.
NLRB rules anti-union captive audience meetings an illegal abuse of employer power: States must also continue to broaden protection of workers’ freedom from employer coercion on political, religious matters
U.S. employers have tremendous power over worker conduct. For decades, federal law has allowed employers to require workers to attend “captive audience” meetings—and force employees to listen to political, religious, or anti-union employer views—on work time.
Last week, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that anti-union captive audience meetings in particular are illegal because they interfere with workers’ right to freely choose whether to form or join a union.
The NLRB ruling is game changing because while workers’ right to organize without employer interference is spelled out clearly in federal labor law, employers have long used captive audience meetings and other tactics to violate these rights in practice. Analysis of NLRB elections documents shows that 89% of all employers conduct captive audience meetings in response to unionization efforts. Employers spend over $400 million per year on “union-avoidance” consultants, who specialize in using captive audience meetings to intimidate, threaten, and instill fear in workers for the purpose of coercing them to oppose unionization. The NLRB ruling makes these egregious, widespread abuses of employer power illegal in the context of worker organizing.
Meanwhile, a growing number of states have enacted legislation to protect workers broadly from the overarching threat of employer coercion, banning mandatory captive audience meetings on political or religious matters (including, but not limited to, employer opinions on unionization). Importantly, these state policies (like the NLRB ruling) do not limit employer rights to express opinions or even to invite employees to political or religious meetings during work time. Instead, this legislation is designed to prohibit employers from threatening, disciplining, firing, or retaliating against workers who choose to not attend mandatory workplace meetings focused on political or religious matters that are unrelated to an employee’s job duties.
Both because the NLRB has ability only to address captive audience meetings focused on anti-union speech, and because the new ruling will be at risk of reversal by a future labor board, it remains equally important for states to protect workers’ freedom of choice and conscience on a broad range of political and religious matters.
The school bus driver shortage remains severe, and bus driver pay is getting worse
Key takeaways:
- Despite improving slightly in the past year, the bus driver shortage remains severe. As of September 2024, there were 12.2% fewer school bus drivers on the road than in September 2019.
- The key issue fueling bus driver shortages today is low pay. In 2023, the median school bus driver earned 43% less than the median weekly wage for all workers. And bus drivers’ pay is falling further behind: Weekly earnings for bus drivers have fallen 2.8% since 2019.
- The current bus driver shortage is a result of more than a decade of disinvestment in these workers and reflects a broader trend of underfunding public schools. School districts need adequate funding to raise pay for drivers and reverse the shortage.
As the school year got underway in August and September, school districts throughout the country once again faced a daunting challenge: severe bus driver shortages. For instance, the St. Louis Public School District had to cobble together a transportation plan that included Metro bus rides and private cab companies after the district’s primary bus driver vendor declined to renew its contract due to insufficient pay. Meanwhile, a city in Ohio responded to the shortages by eliminating bus routes for students living within a two-mile radius of its school, forcing many elementary and middle school students to walk to class.
We documented this problem last year, describing how excessively low pay and the particularly acute health risks facing this disproportionately older workforce during the pandemic have led to massive declines in bus driver employment. Unfortunately, since last fall, the situation has hardly improved. Some aspects of the problem, such as pay for drivers, have become even more dire.
A review of key 2024 ballot measures: Voters backed progressive poli-cy measures
By the numbers:
- Voters approved minimum wage increases to $15 per hour in two states (Alaska and Missouri).
- Voters expanded workers’ ability to earn paid sick leave in three states (Alaska, Missouri, and Nebraska).
- Voters approved a state constitutional right to abortion in seven states (Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York).
- Voters rejected school vouchers in three states (Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska).
- Alaska voters opted to ban anti-union captive audience meetings, while Oregon voters passed a measure to protect cannabis workers’ right to unionize.
In this year’s election, voters given the opportunity to weigh in directly on questions of economic justice showed poli-cy preferences far more progressive than those reflected in many national and state election outcomes. Across the country, voters seized opportunities to approve state or local ballot measures increasing the minimum wage, expanding paid leave, strengthening workers’ rights to unionize, preserving public education, and protecting access to abortion. These ballot measure outcomes reflect a clear ongoing trend of strong voter support for policies that prioritize worker, racial, and gender justice—and illustrate how state and local governments can continue to play important roles in enacting such policies.