March job gains make up for February losses – trend remains notably weak
Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her insights on the jobs report released this morning. Read the full thread here.
Unemployment has increased for U.S.-born workers in the face of mass deportations: Trump’s draconian immigration enforcement is harming all workers
During the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance promised that mass deportations and a crackdown on immigration would open up jobs for unemployed U.S. citizens. The theory was simple: remove immigrant workers, and native-born U.S. citizens would fill those open positions. Well, the results are in, and the opposite is happening.
The unemployment rate for U.S.-born workers was 4.0% in 2024 under Biden’s administration, and it has risen under Trump. With today’s jobs report, the three-month average for 2026 shows the U.S.-born unemployment rate is at 4.3% (the non-seasonally adjusted average for 2026 is 4.6%).
Claims that mass deportations have helped U.S.-born workers are simply inconsistent with the data. This is no surprise, given that economic research has repeatedly shown that increased immigration enforcement harms everyone in the labor market, including U.S.-born workers. Part of the explanation for this is that immigrants are not only workers, but also consumers, which generates demand and helps the economy grow. Another part is that immigrants and U.S.-born workers complement each other in the labor market. For example, when immigrant roofers and framers disappear, there is less work available for the native-born electricians and plumbers. And when child care workers and cleaners are detained, deported, or terrorized by the Trump administration’s reckless and indiscriminate immigration enforcement, U.S.-born mothers work fewer hours to cover increased care responsibilities at home.
U.S.-born workers are faring worse under Trump’s assault on immigrants–which has included going after not just undocumented immigrants, but also those with green cards, temporary statuses like parole and DACA, and refugees and asylum-seekers. Mass deportations, arrests, detentions, and the stripping of work permits from millions have devastated communities and failed to deliver the promised jobs boom.
Voluntary paid leave insurance is no substitute for comprehensive paid family and medical leave: Workers lose when lawmakers pass the buck to private insurers
Key takeaways:
- The U.S. is the only OECD country that does not provide a national paid family and medical leave program, leaving it to states to ensure workers are protected when they need to take time off from work to care for themselves or a family member.
- Some states—including eight across the South—have adopted voluntary private insurance models of paid leave that allow private insurance companies to sell insurance policies directly to employers and/or workers themselves.
- But this approach provides less coverage, covers fewer workers, widens already large disparities in access, and is likely to be more expensive than comprehensive state paid family and medical leave (PFML) plans.
- Other states should follow the model of proven success from 13 states and Washington, D.C. that have implemented comprehensive PFML programs.
Comprehensive, universal Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) programs are powerful tools to safeguard and improve the economic well-being and overall health of workers and their families. Research shows that PFML improves health for both mothers and infants, reduces poverty and economic insecurity for low-income families, and increases labor force participation rates for mothers for up to five years after the birth of their child. In states that do not have a PFML program, workers lose an estimated $34.3 billion annually in wages due to leave-related absences from work, including $18.8 billion lost by women.
PFML programs also benefit employers and the broader economy, in part by improving recruitment of talented workers, especially among small businesses, reducing turnover, and increasing worker productivity. The National Partnership for Women and Families estimates that U.S. women’s lower labor force participation—due in part to a lack of paid leave—has cost the broader U.S. economy more than $6.7 trillion in economic activity over the last decade. This is economic activity the U.S. economy would have experienced if American women’s labor force participation rates were the same as those of women in Canada. Read more
More than 350,000 Oklahoma workers will get a raise if voters approve a $15 minimum wage this summer
This June, Oklahoma voters will have the opportunity to pass a historic minimum wage ballot initiative that would boost workers’ wages at a time when many are struggling with growing affordability challenges. State Question (SQ) 832 proposes gradually increasing the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15.00 an hour by 2029 (Table 1). Our analysis finds that this policy would raise wages for 357,700 Oklahoma workers—or roughly one-fifth (20.3%) of the state’s wage-earning workforce—by more than $783 million overall. This total includes both workers who would directly and indirectly see wage increases from the policy. On average, affected workers would gain $2,322 in annual pay if they worked full time and year-round.
The benefits of raising the minimum wage
Raising the minimum wage is a research-backed policy that increases earnings for low-wage workers without causing increases in unemployment or other negative economic side effects. A strong wage floor is also a powerful tool for making a more equitable economy. Almost two-thirds of the workers who would be affected by SQ 832 are women (63.3%). The policy would also disproportionately benefit workers of color. Hispanic workers make up 18.2% of the affected workers, compared with 11.0% of the total Oklahoma workforce. Black workers would be 10.6% of affected workers, while only making up 7.1% of the workforce (see Table 3).
The policy would also provide critical support to workers experiencing significant economic insecurity. Nearly three-fifths (59.3%) of the affected workers have incomes below 200% of the poverty line. Research shows that raising the minimum wage significantly reduces poverty, even as higher wages simultaneously reduce some workers’ and families’ eligibility for, and reliance on, public assistance programs.
The gender pay gap widened slightly in 2025: How Trump’s first year in office hurt women and what states can do to fix it
Key takeaways:
- The persistent gender wage gap widened slightly in 2025; women were paid 18.6% less than men on average after controlling for race and ethnicity, education, age, marital status, and state.
- Women are paid less than men across all education levels. Women with a graduate degree earn less, on average, than men with only a college degree.
- The gender pay gap worsened following a year of Trump administration attacks on workers, including cuts to the federal workforce; attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts; ordering mass deportations; and undermining child care and home care providers.
- States can narrow the gender pay gap with policies that guarantee access to paid family and medical leave, mandate pay transparency, raise the minimum wage, and make it easier for workers to form unions.
March 26 is Equal Pay Day, a reminder that there is still a significant pay gap between men and women in our country. The date represents how far into 2026 women would have to work on top of the hours they worked in 2025 simply to match what men were paid in 2025.
On an hourly basis, women were paid 18.6% less on average than men in 2025, after controlling for race and ethnicity, education, age, marital status, and state. After narrowing to a series low of 18.0% in 2024—likely driven by a strong labor market recovery from the COVID-19 recession that lifted wages more at the lower end of the overall wage distribution—the gender wage gap widened slightly in 2025. Though far from a total reversal of the last few years’ progress, the slight worsening in 2025 reflects the slowing of low-end wage growth and the economic consequences of Trump’s first year back in office.Read more
The battle for the ballot: How Southern legislatures are trying to block economic progress by restricting access to ballot initiatives
Key takeaways:
- Ballot initiatives have enabled voters to advance worker-centered policies—like higher minimum wages—in states with hostile legislatures, particularly in the South.
- A coordinated, right-wing legislative attack on ballot initiative processes is attempting to reverse ballot initiative wins, scare advocates out of using the ballot process, and make it harder to get future measures on the ballot that improve standards for workers.
- Despite these barriers, advocates and voters are fighting back to protect pro-worker ballot access and advance new progressive ballot measures.
In recent years, state ballot initiatives have served as powerful tools to advance economic opportunity for working families. Voters directly have raised the minimum wage, secured paid sick leave, protected abortion access, enacted bail reform, expanded Medicaid, and increased funding for public education—all popular progressive economic policies that some state legislatures have failed to enact. However, some conservative state legislatures have responded by overturning or limiting recent wins. And in the few Southern states where voters can access ballot measures—Arkansas, Florida, and Oklahoma—conservative legislators are waging war against the ballot initiative process itself, attempting to obstruct the will of voters and make it permanently more difficult for the public to directly decide on policy choices.
How AI spending is impacting the U.S. economy
Earlier this year, I gave an informal briefing on the macroeconomic effect of AI-related spending. It focused largely on claims that AI spending was the only thing standing between the U.S. economy and a recession, as well as concerns that AI spending was supported by fragile financing structures that could collapse and threaten near-term growth.
AI-related spending is providing much of the growth in the U.S. economy today. Business investments in structures and equipment (capex) that are driven by AI firms have accelerated noticeably in the past year. How much of this investment consists of imports rather than U.S.-based production is an open and important question. Even more important is the wealth effect on consumption from the AI stock boom, which seems to have firmly entered bubble territory. Combined, the capex spending and the consumption spending spurred by the stock market bubble are adding over a percentage point to GDP growth.
Worse, both types of spending seem fragile as medium-term sources of growth. The stock market bubble could deflate at any time, and when it does, it will almost certainly pull down much of the capex spending as well. After all, the entire reason for the frenzied capex build-out is the expectation of future profits. If these expectations radically change, the capex spending will evaporate.
If AI spending growth slows and the economy falls into a recession, policymakers should follow the typical recession-fighting playbook and use monetary and fiscal policy to boost the demand that was erased. The Federal Reserve should cut interest rates, and Congress and the president should direct fiscal aid to struggling families.
I then point to a couple of long-run observations about AI and its effect on labor markets, mostly echoing our arguments made in this report. One key finding: Despite widespread concern that AI will be strongly capital-biased, the profit share in the non-financial corporate sector has actually declined markedly since 2022.
For those interested, the PowerPoint and notes from the briefing are below.
A more diverse workforce isn’t ‘DEI-motivated discrimination’—it’s just demographic change: How Trump is weaponizing the EEOC against the workers it was built to protect
Key takeaways:
- Trump has weaponized the EEOC to go after employers with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, accusing them of “reverse racism” against white workers—but nothing in the EEOC’s own data points to evidence of systemic discrimination against white workers.
- People of color have made up a growing share of the U.S. working-age population since 1989, while the share of the white working-age population has fallen from 76.9% in 1989 to 55.4% in 2025.
- According to data submitted to the EEOC by large employers, workers of color make up more than 40% of the workforce but hold only 1 in 5 executive or senior-level positions—a pattern that contradicts the administration’s narrative of bias against white workers.
Trump’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently opened a federal investigation into Nike and its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives—alleging systemic discrimination against white workers. This is the first time the EEOC has targeted a large private employer with a federal investigation and subpoena explicitly linked to their DEI initiatives and hiring goals. Shortly thereafter, the EEOC sued a Coca-Cola bottling company for sex discrimination following a networking event it held for female employees. The EEOC chair closed a busy February with a letter to Fortune 500 companies, warning them about “unlawful discrimination” related to their use of DEI initiatives.
These recent EEOC actions reflect Trump’s undue control over the agency and his administration’s effective weaponization of the EEOC to fight against DEI, a broad set of programs and initiatives designed to remedy the long and well-documented history of systemic injustices against people of color and women in the labor market. Established by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the EEOC has operated as an independent federal agency throughout its 60-year history enforcing employment nondiscrimination laws—until last year.Read more
U.S. economy lost an alarming 92,000 jobs in February: Private sector experienced vast majority of losses, one-third were due to temporary strikes
Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her insights on the jobs report released this morning. Read the full thread here.
EPI’s updated Family Budget Calculator shows that higher minimum wages are needed in states like Oklahoma to afford the cost of living
Key takeaways
- EPI’s updated Family Budget Calculator shows how much income it takes to afford basic expenses in every metro area and county across the United States in 2025.
- The Family Budget Calculator can be used to assess a living-wage level and shows that states like Oklahoma need a higher minimum wage. The state’s minimum wage falls short by over $12 an hour in meeting a one-person budget in the state’s lowest cost county.
- Voters in Oklahoma will have the chance to raise their state’s minimum wage this summer, which will help low-wage workers better achieve a decent standard of living.
- As of 2025, there is no county or metro area in the country where a minimum-wage worker is paid enough to meet the requirements of their local family budget on their wages alone.
Now updated with 2025 data, EPI’s widely cited Family Budget Calculator (FBC) shows what it takes to make ends meet for different family types in all counties and metro areas in the United States. For more than 20 years, we have calculated family budgets for basic expenses like housing, food, health care, child care, transportation, other necessities, and taxes. In doing so, we create a more location-specific and realistic assessment of cost of living than traditional poverty thresholds.
We use government-provided data where possible and stay up to date with changes in policy and data availability. Because of this, and due to related changes in methodology, we don’t recommend comparing budgets over time. For more details on the construction of EPI’s family budgets and all of the datasets we use, see the full methodology. For a video tutorial on how to use the FBC, see here. The full dataset is downloadable here.