Ending ACA tax credits would impose high costs on Black Americans in 10 major metro areas: Over 170,000 losing health insurance, $740 million more in annual premiums, and more than 200 preventable deaths each year
If Congress allows the enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium tax credits to expire, millions of working families will lose health care coverage while millions of others will face sharply higher premiums. With four Republicans breaking ranks to vote with Democrats and force a House vote on whether to extend the credits, Congress now has a chance to avert this crisis. Losing the tax credits would be an added blow for households already squeezed by rising costs and tight budgets. But a deeper story emerges when we look at who stands to lose the most. A forthcoming analysis from the Economic Policy Institute and Groundwork Collaborative finds that Black Americans in some of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas would face deep coverage losses and financial harm if credits expire.1
This analysis was produced in partnership with Groundwork Collaborative.
More than 170,000 Black adults in 10 major metro areas would lose health care coverage in 2026 if the ACA credits expire, with the largest losses in Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, and Miami. Losing insurance wipes away a basic source of security for working families and reverses gains made under the ACA, which disproportionately reduced uninsured rates for Black adults—narrowing longstanding racial coverage gaps.
Our analysis shows that coverage loss is only the first shock. Families who lose insurance and families who remain covered both face significant new burdens, and the costs are substantial across the 10 metropolitan areas.
Don’t be fooled—Senator Cassidy’s labor reform proposals are not pro-worker
Last month, U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.) unveiled a package of four bills that he described as advancing President Trump’s purported “pro-worker” agenda. But there is nothing in the legislation to address the problems workers face when they try to organize unions at their workplace. In fact, Senator Cassidy’s bills construct new barriers to worker organizing and create new incentives for employers to undermine workers’ rights.
Below, we compare Senator Cassidy’s bills to the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which is comprehensive legislation to reform our nation’s broken labor law system. As you can see, it’s clear which legislation actually helps workers.
Over 8.3 million workers will benefit from minimum wage increases on January 1: Nineteen states will raise their minimum wages. Here’s where.
Three key takeaways:
- More than 8.3 million workers will get a raise starting January 1 as 19 states raise their minimum wages.
- For the first time, there will be more workers in states with a $15 or greater minimum wage than in states with the federal minimum of $7.25.
- Minimum wage increases are critical for improving affordability. State and federal policymakers should ensure wage floors meet the needs of all workers.
Nineteen states will increase their minimum wages on January 1, boosting earnings for more than 8.3 million workers by a total of $5 billion. In addition, 47 cities and counties will raise their minimum wages, adding to the number of workers likely to get larger paychecks because of lawmakers—or in some cases, voters—taking action to lift state and local wage floors.
Federal layoffs trigger a sharp slowdown in job growth: Unemployment rises to highest rate since 2021
Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her insights on the jobs report released this morning, which showed 41,000 jobs lost over October and November. Read the full thread here.
The Department of Justice is making a mistake by suing Minneapolis Public Schools: The union contract protects all workers while ensuring that Black and brown educators can hold on to good jobs
The U.S. Department of Justice filed suit on Tuesday, December 11, against the Minneapolis school district, alleging that the contract the district signed with the teachers’ union—the Minneapolis Federation of Educators (MFE)—discriminates against white teachers by requiring the school district to shield Black and brown teachers from layoffs. The lawsuit fundamentally misrepresents the innovative Minneapolis union contract, which protects educators from arbitrary dismissal while also seeking to preserve a diverse teaching workforce. The lawsuit is however aligned with the Trump administration’s revisionist version of history that positions white workers as the primary victims of employment discrimination. At the same time, this ahistorical narrative dismisses the long and well-documented record of discrimination against Black and brown workers evident in persistent racial disparities in unemployment and pay—patterns the contract seeks to remedy. The lawsuit was filed soon after the Trump administration’s racist decision to target Minnesota’s Somali community and is yet another example of how racial animus is a defining feature of Trump’s policies.Read more
Trump’s deportation plans threaten 400,000 direct care jobs: Older adults and people with disabilities could lose vital in-home support
If the Trump administration follows through on its goal of deporting 4 million people over four years, the direct care industry would lose close to 400,000 jobs—affecting 274,000 immigrant and 120,000 U.S.-born workers. This dramatic reduction in trained care workers would compromise home-based care services, forcing family members to scramble for informal arrangements to support relatives who are older or have disabilities.Read more
Should high earners support scrapping Social Security’s cap on taxable earnings?
Earnings above a cap aren’t subject to the payroll taxes that fund Social Security. As a result, billionaires pay the same tax as someone earning $176,100 in 2025 (the cap is indexed to the average wage, so it changes every year).
“Scrapping the cap” is a popular and effective way to address Social Security’s funding gap. Nearly three-fourths of Social Security’s projected long-term shortfall would be eliminated if the cap were scrapped without increasing benefits.Read more
New measure of poverty shows that undoing ACA subsidies will push millions into economic insecurity: Communities of color would be hit hardest by Trump’s health care affordability crisis
A new measure of poverty that accounts for health care needs and resources being developed by the U.S. Census Bureau—the Health Inclusive Poverty Measure (HIPM)—shows that poverty affects even more people in the U.S. than the typical statistics estimate. This is particularly true for people of color. This is primarily a function of the limited access to health insurance that Black and Hispanic communities endure. Black and Hispanic individuals, for example, are more likely than peers to be uninsured and to rely on Medicaid for coverage. This is why we warned about the uneven impact of cuts to the program early this year.Read more
Rider in the House Homeland Security appropriations bill would increase the number of workers in the H-2B visa program by 113,000
This is part 2 of a two-part series analyzing the impact of an amendment to the House Homeland appropriations bill on the H-2A and H-2B visa programs. Read part 1 here.
Key takeaways:
- The government funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may include a rider amendment that would establish a new methodology for setting the H-2B visa program’s annual numerical limit. This amendment (originally known as Amendment #1 but later dubbed the Bipartisan Visa En Bloc amendment) would result in a cap of at least 252,000 visas in fiscal year (FY) 2026.
- H-2B visa extensions and job changes are not counted against the annual cap, but after adding them to the updated cap of 252,000, the total number of H-2B workers employed in FY 2026 would be 282,000, which is almost 113,000 greater than the total number of workers in 2024 and 2025.
- The rider would move 12,000 H-2B workers employed at carnivals, traveling fairs, and circuses to the P visa, which lacks any numerical limit on the number of visas, further expanding the number of exploitable workers in H-2B industries.
- The rider would restrict the already limited ability of H-2A and H-2B workers to change employers, leaving them more exploitable and vulnerable to workplace violations.
- This amendment in Congress would mainly benefit employers by allowing them to gradually hire an exponentially higher number of workers they can control, while undercutting labor standards for all workers.
In part 1 of this two-part blog post series, I provided background and discussion on a rider amendment that the Homeland Security subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee proposed and passed over the summer. Originally known as Amendment #1 but later dubbed the Bipartisan Visa En Bloc amendment, it would make major changes to the H-2A and H-2B visa programs through the appropriations process, while completely circumventing the committees that should have subject matter jurisdiction in the House and Senate. Part 1 focuses on the changes and impacts in the H-2A program; this post will briefly explain the components of the rider that would make changes to the H-2B visa program and the impact of those changes, as well as one change that would affect both programs.
Governor DeWine acts “in the public interest” to veto a dangerous child labor bill in Ohio
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has vetoed a bill that would have extended the number of hours that employers can schedule 14–15-year-olds to work on school nights, in violation of federal law. DeWine vetoed the bill last week after advocates from a long list of child health and welfare, education, organized labor, and economic justice organizations publicly urged him to oppose the bill.Read more