Virginia governor’s amended collective bargaining bill would leave workers’ rights optional and large public-sector pay gap unaddressed
This year, large majorities in both houses of Virginia’s General Assembly passed landmark legislation to extend equal collective bargaining rights to most public-sector workers. The Assembly’s collective bargaining bill proposed replacing Virginia’s Jim Crow-era ban on public employee collective bargaining with a new law affirming public-sector workers’ rights and creating a legal pathway to a union contract for those who choose to unionize. The Assembly bill was poised to put Virginia on a transformative path to narrowing one of the largest public-sector pay gaps in the nation and improving public education and services for all Virginians by reducing crisis-level shortages of educators, first responders, health care workers, corrections staff, and other frontline workers. Strengthening collective bargaining rights is also one of the most powerful policy levers states have available to confront primary economic challenges affecting all workers today: an affordability crisis driven by the failure of wages to keep pace with inflation, growing income inequality, and persistent racial and gender labor market disparities.
Once the Assembly’s bill reached her desk, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger had the opportunity to strengthen it or sign it into law. Instead, Governor Spanberger put forward her own heavily amended version of the bill last week, weakening the proposed collective bargaining framework so extensively that her version would lock Virginia into an unstable, ineffective system in which collective bargaining would remain merely “optional” and where employers and workers would remain perpetually uncertain about what rules might apply to them from year to year depending on what appointees of future governors might decide. The governor’s amended bill will now be considered by the Assembly in its one-day veto session this week. Below, we analyze some of the many substantive differences between the Assembly bill and the governor’s bill, as well as the likely economic impacts.
Voucher programs fail rural schools
Voucher programs—which use public funds to finance private education—have been sweeping state and federal legislatures over the past few years. These bills are harmful to public schools, especially public schools in rural communities. Yet, this week, the “Keep Public Funds in Public Schools Act” was introduced in the Senate, which would repeal the national private school voucher program passed in the 2025 reconciliation bill, thereby protecting rural communities from these programs. Often framed as “school choice” programs, vouchers give parents the equivalent of per-pupil public school funding to send their child to any private or homeschool program they choose.
But diverting public funds away from public K–12 schools and toward private schools does not guarantee educational opportunities will be expanded for all students—and this is especially true in rural communities. Most obviously, because students in rural communities often don’t have a private school option and therefore cannot use the vouchers, state voucher programs—which are financed by all the taxpayers in a state—amount to an education subsidy for wealthy urban families at the expense of strong public schools. Moreover, for rural areas that can support multiple school systems, voucher programs introduce a potentially large cost for the students that remain in public schools, as any sharp drop in public school enrollment will raise the fixed cost per pupil of running schools. For example, school facilities and staff that are efficient for 1,000 students in a school may no longer be efficient if enrollment were to drop to 800 or 900.Read more
Taxes are good, actually—especially if you care about affordability
Key takeaways:
- Recent Democratic proposals to exempt broad swaths of the middle class from federal income taxes accept a damaging frame of taxes as a pure drain on affordability.
- But taxes aren’t a drain on affordability; they fund the public services and social insurance programs that make a decent life possible for middle-class families.
- Progressive taxes on the ultrarich and corporations are essential and should be the immediate priority, but they cannot sustain the public sector alone, let alone expand it in ways needed.
- Middle-class tax rates have fallen by a third since 1979, yet economic anxiety remains high. Tax-cutting has failed because it has left the private-sector drivers of inequality untouched and starved public services.
For decades, anti-tax politicians have tried to smuggle in large tax cuts for the ultrarich and corporations by loudly offering tax cut crumbs to the middle class. Key to this effort has been framing taxes as a pure drain on typical families’ ability to afford a secure economic life. Any success in this dishonest campaign to foster anti-tax sentiment is a disaster for working people—and that’s why some recent tax policy ideas from Democrats and the rhetoric around them are so deflating.Read more
A snapshot of college athletes: Who are they and how much do they earn?
Key takeaways:
- The growing revenue of college sports and the heightened attention on the experience of college athletes suggest that college athletics is far from the amateur endeavor it might have started as decades ago.
- Recent policy changes have allowed some college athletes to receive compensation, whether in the form of name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights or revenue sharing. However, not all college athletes have the right to be compensated.
- The NCAA has backed the SCORE Act, which would jeopardize college athlete compensation by prohibiting them from being classified as employees in the first place.
- Policymakers should consider proposals that strengthen rights for college athletes, including granting them employee status under federal labor laws.
Introduction
It has long been argued that college athletes should not receive compensation to maintain the “amateurism” of college sports. However, the growing revenue generated from college sports and heightened attention on the experience of college athletes suggest that college athletics is far from an amateur endeavor.
Only recently have college athletes been granted the right to be compensated for name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights. This decision came into effect after years of antitrust lawsuits against the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) compensation rules. These lawsuits culminated in the Supreme Court decision in NCAA v. Alston, as well as a growing number of states enacting their own compensation laws for college athletes. The recent House v. NCAA settlement allows Division I schools—those with the largest and most economically lucrative athletic programs—to share revenue with college athletes, and further expands opportunities for college athletes to receive compensation.
As a result of these policy changes and a growing movement among college athletes to demand fair compensation for their performance, federal policymakers have put forward proposals to address college athlete compensation. In this blog post, we examine these proposals and their impacts on college athletes and their labor/employment status.
Supporting manufacturing employment: No president has tried so of course it has never worked
Quibbling with headlines is annoying, I know, but I was provoked by the title of economist Jason Furman’s New York Times piece last week: “Every President Tries It. It Never Works.” The “it” being referred to here is “reversing the loss of manufacturing jobs.”
The provocation was the “every president tries” part. If “trying” is defined as changing policy to consistently support employment growth in U.S. manufacturing, no president has tried in my lifetime to do this. Amazingly, doing nothing has indeed failed. Doing nothing was also the wrong choice.
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