Key findings:

• The House Appropriations Committee’s fiscal year (FY) 2027 funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security would make major changes to the H-2A visa program for seasonal farm jobs and the H-2B program for low-wage jobs outside of agriculture.
• For H-2A, the bill would:
  • Open the program to year-round agricultural jobs, such as in greenhouses and on dairies, which employ over 400,000 U.S. farmworkers. Current regulations limit H-2A to temporary and seasonal work.
  • Allow employers to pay year-round H-2A farmworkers drastically lower wages, cutting pay by roughly $17,000 to $40,000 per year in key industries and states in 2027 and incentivizing farm operators to replace U.S. farmworker employees with much lower-paid H-2A workers.
• For H-2B, the bill would:
  • Raise the annual cap to at least 270,000 visas in FY 2027 (more than doubling the current cap that includes supplemental H-2B visas) and 300,000 total workers.
  • Reward employers for applying for as many H-2B jobs as possible each year, since doing so increases their cap exemption for the following year, likely driving exponential growth in the program.
  • Move 10,000 amusement park, carnival, fair, and circus workers from H-2B to a newly created P-4 visa, which has no numerical cap and questionable worker protections—further expanding the pool of exploitable workers in H-2B industries.

• These changes would drastically lower pay for all farmworkers and degrade labor standards for U.S. workers on farms and in industries like landscaping, construction, and hospitality. Employers would gain an exploitable workforce they can control, made up of workers with no realistic path to a green card or U.S. citizenship.

Introduction and summary

In June 2026, Republican legislators in the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security—the subcommittee tasked with funding the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—proposed legislation to fund DHS for FY 2027, which was then considered by the full House Appropriations Committee. The bill includes several legislative riders that, if enacted into law, would make major changes to two temporary work visa programs, H-2A and H-2B. Those provisions would accelerate hiring and substantially expand the size and scope of the programs.1 The full House Appropriations Committee approved the bill on a party-line vote with 34 Republican members voting in favor of reporting the bill to the full House of Representatives.2 Nearly identical riders were passed in the House FY 2026 DHS appropriations bill, but were not included in the final FY 2026 omnibus bill that funded the federal government.

H-2A allows farm employers to hire migrant workers for seasonal and temporary agricultural jobs, while H-2B allows employers to hire migrant workers for temporary jobs in low-wage occupations outside of agriculture (including in landscaping, construction, hospitality, food service, seafood processing, and traveling fairs and carnivals). Both programs represent a flawed employment model that restricts workers’ rights by giving employers control over their workers’ immigration status.3 Both undercut U.S. wage standards, lack adequate regulations and enforcement to protect workplace rights, and fail to provide workers with a pathway to becoming lawful permanent residents or U.S. citizens. If the House legislative provisions on H-2A and H-2B become law, they would greatly increase the number of workers in these programs and lower wages for hundreds of thousands of farmworkers by tens of thousands of dollars per year.

The Trump administration’s unrestrained and indiscriminate immigration enforcement efforts and bureaucratic slowdowns have caused net immigration levels in the United States to turn negative for the first time in half a century.4 Given demographic projections and the fact that nearly all prime-age workforce growth in the past 30 years has come from immigration,5 it is becoming clearer that sustaining future economic and workforce growth will be difficult without policies that would expand pathways for immigrants. But those pathways must give workers full and equal rights in the workplace through immediate or eventual lawful permanent residence and a path to citizenship. Temporary work visa programs like H-2A and H-2B, often called “guestworker” programs, do not do that, and strong evidence shows they are degrading wages and working conditions for both migrant and U.S. workers.6

Efforts in Congress to expand H-2A and H-2B build on the Trump administration’s own use of executive authority to expand both programs. Meanwhile, DHS’s immigration enforcement agencies—Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—now have $270 billion at their disposal to detain, deport, and terrorize immigrants across the country,7 and temporary protections that provide lawful work authorization, like parole and Temporary Protected Status, are being terminated en masse. ICE and CBP have gone far beyond what their mandates and statutes allow, acting as gestapo-like forces that racially profile people and disregard whether a person has a green card, a temporary protective status like DACA, or, in many cases, a U.S. passport.8 The result is a shrinking workforce. Are measures to expand H-2A and H-2B an attempt to replace some of the foreign-born workers the economy is losing?

This report examines the provisions in the FY 2027 House Homeland appropriations legislation, which passed and was reported out of the House Appropriations Committee in June 2026, that would expand and modify the H-2A and H-2B visa programs, and estimates their impact. While the House Appropriations bill has not been voted on yet by the full House, with government funding set to expire on December 11, 2026, the bill is likely to be the starting point for negotiations on an omnibus bill to fund the government for the remaining 10 months of fiscal year 2027.

Both the Trump administration and Congress are working to create a deportation-to-guestworker pipeline

While this report focuses on congressional efforts to expand the H-2A and H-2B programs through the appropriations process, it is important to note that the Trump administration has already used its executive authority to expand the H-2A and H-2B visa programs: The Department of Labor (DOL) issued a regulation drastically cutting farmworker wages in October 2025 that the agency estimates will increase the size of the program from 383,000 to 515,000 jobs due to expanded hiring driven by lower labor costs for farm operators.9 One of the administration’s stated reasons for the DOL regulation is its own immigration enforcement. It expects to deport so many farmworkers that farm operators will lack sufficient employees to produce enough food, leading to higher prices for consumers, unless the deported workers are replaced with farmworkers hired from abroad through the H-2A program.10 Then, in January 2026, after a lobbying push by H-2B employers, the Trump administration doubled the size of the H-2B program using discretionary authority Congress granted it in FY 2026 appropriations legislation.11

While the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have embraced anti-immigrant rhetoric and adopted inhumane immigration policies, their efforts to expand work visa programs reveal that they recognize immigrant workers are an essential part of the U.S. labor market. The Trump administration is acknowledging that, without these workers, there will be negative consequences for the U.S. economy—many of which have already become evident, including a slowdown in employment and increased unemployment for U.S.-born workers.12 The administration and Congress are effectively creating a deportation-to-guestworker pipeline. Migrant workers who are deported or lose their status and work permits are left with only one viable way to work in the United States: as guestworkers. And as guestworkers, they have few workplace rights because their employer owns and controls their status and ability to reside and work in the country.

The H-2A program had 350,000 workers in 2025 and would be expanded to include 409,000 additional year-round jobs like dairy and livestock farming

The H-2A program is a visa program that allows employers to hire farmworkers from abroad for seasonal and temporary farm jobs, ostensibly when they can show that a U.S. worker is unavailable. The H-2A program accounts for a significant share of the total farm workforce, between 11% and 16% of total farm employment, and is a lobbying priority for the agricultural industry. The estimated size of the H-2A program in 2025 was nearly 350,000 workers (see Figure A).

Figure A

The language adopted in Section 410 of the FY 2027 House Homeland appropriations bill would allow H-2A workers to be employed in year-round jobs—which is currently prohibited—expanding the scope of the program and allowing employers to hire H-2A workers for jobs on dairy, livestock, and poultry and egg farms, as well as in nurseries and greenhouses and other nonseasonal agricultural jobs. This would be a major change to H-2A and has long been a priority of agribusiness. In fact, a nearly identical legislative rider was first proposed by the same House committee almost a decade ago.13 The Trump administration recently used sub-regulatory means to make a down payment on this change to H-2A, issuing a policy memorandum, which arguably stretches the bounds of the law: It instructs U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to begin approving petitions for H-2A workers who would be employed on dairies.14 The memorandum still requires employers to prove the dairy-related H-2A position is of a temporary or seasonal nature, however. The USCIS memo is susceptible to legal challenges, whereas a statutory change would be more durable, as some industry representatives have pointed out.15

Data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages show that there are approximately 409,000 year-round (full-time equivalent) jobs in agriculture. Table 1 lists four of the major agricultural industries employing farmworkers year-round. The largest are greenhouse production and cattle ranching, which includes dairy jobs.16 However, the true scope of jobs that could become eligible for H-2A under the vague language of Section 410 is unknown and potentially larger. Representatives of the agricultural industry could argue, for instance, that if Section 410 becomes law, eligible job categories should now include meat and poultry packing and processing, logging, equine, and aquaculture jobs, as well as various nonfarming jobs “performed by workers on agricultural operations.” DOL and USCIS would ultimately decide how to implement their interpretation of the provision.

Table 1

Expanding H-2A to include year-round occupations will dramatically lower wages for farmworkers

As noted above, the Trump administration’s Interim Final Rule (IFR) from October 2025 set the H-2A Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) methodology at dramatically lower rates than the previous one.17 Based on DOL’s own estimates, the 2026 H-2A AEWR will result in a $24 billion pay cut for H-2A farmworkers over 10 years and, by reducing H-2A labor costs, encourage employers to expand the H-2A program to 515,000 jobs a year.18 EPI has estimated that U.S. farmworkers will lose $2.7 to $3.3 billion in wages per year as a result of the Trump AEWR rule. In total, all farmworkers (U.S. farmworkers and H-2A farmworkers) will lose roughly $5 billion per year in wages thanks to this regulation from the Trump DOL.19

Under current regulations, H-2A farmworkers cannot be hired for year-round agricultural jobs.20 Because farmworkers in these jobs work year-round, rather than seasonally, they generally earn higher wages that can sometimes approach a living wage. But if the FY 2027 House Homeland appropriations bill becomes law and allows employers to additionally use H-2A visas for year-round jobs instead of just seasonal and temporary ones, the required minimum wage employers would have to pay H-2A workers would be set by the same H-2A methodology used for seasonal crop farming jobs. As a result, farmworkers in year-round jobs would see significant pay cuts, to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per year.

Table 2 shows a sample of some of the main year-round agricultural industries in major agricultural states, along with average annual employment in each (which together account for about 15% of the total year-round, full-time equivalent jobs in agriculture). Table 2 shows how much farmworkers earned annually on average in 2025 in those industries and states, and compares the annual earnings of farmworkers in 2025 with what H-2A workers would earn in 2026 or 2027 if they worked in the same jobs and were paid the corresponding 2026–2027 AEWR at Skill Level 1 for the entire year (40 hours per week for 52 weeks), minus the annualized amount that will be deducted from hourly wages for housing as permitted in the current AEWR methodology.21

The final column in Table 2 shows a few examples that illustrate the difference between what U.S. farmworkers working year-round in the selected industries earned in 2025 and what H-2A workers at Skill Level 1 would earn if they were paid the annualized AEWR in 2026 or 2027. Table 2 shows that the reduction in wages for H-2A farmworkers in year-round jobs could range from an annual pay cut of $17,500 for mushroom farming in California to over $43,000 per year for employment on poultry and egg farms in Texas.

Table 2

Outcomes such as these—in which farmworkers paid the 2026–2027 AEWR would earn tens of thousands of dollars less than what U.S. farmworkers earned in major year-round jobs in 2025—are in violation of the spirit and letter of the AEWR and the H-2A statute. Yet they would become legal if the year-round H-2A provision in the House appropriations bill becomes law. This would hurt some of the most vulnerable and lowest-paid workers in the U.S. labor market and give farm operators a strong incentive to replace their U.S. farmworkers with H-2A workers because the latter cannot easily change employers and have their rights restricted and wages restrained via H-2A program rules—which also have the effect of insulating employers from free market forces that would lead them to improve wages and working conditions in order to attract U.S. farmworkers.

The size of the H-2B program would be set by a new methodology that will start at 270,000 in 2027 and grow exponentially

The H-2B program currently has an annual numerical limit (or “cap”) of 66,000. Since FY 2016, Congress has passed amendments to annual appropriations bills that allow DHS to increase the number of visas available.22 In the past four fiscal years, both the Biden and Trump administrations have used the full authority granted to the executive branch in the legislative riders, raising the total H-2B annual limit to 130,716 during FY 2023–2026.23

The FY 2027 House Homeland appropriations bill includes language in Section 409 that would establish a new methodology for setting the H-2B visa program’s annual numerical limit to further increase the cap beyond the 130,716 during FY 2023–2026. The language of the bill states that for every employer who has had any H-2B positions certified in the past five fiscal years (2022–2026), the highest number that they had certified in those years will be the number of H-2B workers they may hire who will not count against the annual cap of 66,000. In other words, if an employer had 10 jobs certified in 2022, 15 in 2023, 20 in 2024, 100 in 2025, and 50 in 2026, they would be allowed to hire 100 H-2B workers in 2027 without them counting against the 66,000 cap. As the analysis below explains, the provision would result in a cap of nearly 270,000 visas in FY 2027.

Table 3 shows an estimate using 2021–2025 H-2B data that serves as a proxy for the estimated number of new H-2B workers who would be exempted from the cap in 2027, and the number of new H-2B workers permitted under the regular annual cap of 66,000. Altogether, the regular cap plus the supplemental cap for H-2B in 2027 would permit at least 269,617 new H-2B workers if the House Homeland appropriations legislation becomes law. That’s more than double the size of the total cap in 2023–2026, and a 309% increase relative to the original H-2B cap of 66,000.

The annual caps and total number of workers will grow rapidly if Congress reauthorizes the same language in the rider year after year, as it has done with past H-2B riders. The rider in Section 409 incentivizes employers to apply to DOL for labor certification for as many H-2B jobs as possible every year because that will increase the size of their exemption from the cap for the following year. The resulting growth is likely to be exponential.

Table 3

Total number of H-2B workers could reach 300,000 in 2027 if House Homeland appropriations legislation becomes law

Despite the size of the H-2B annual cap, the total number of H-2B workers is always larger because some workers extend their status and some change jobs, but those workers are not counted against the annual cap. In FY 2025, when 64,716 supplemental H-2B visas were added to the statutory cap of 66,000 for the fiscal year, for a total cap of 130,716, there were a total of 166,823 H-2B workers (see Figure B).

This was up from 75,122 total H-2B workers just a decade earlier. The nearly 167,000 H-2B total in 2025 included 139,736 H-2B workers with newly issued visas from the State Department, and 4,137 H-2B workers who had their employment extended with the same employer. An additional 22,950 were H-2B workers who changed employers. (The final totals in FY 2026 are likely to be similar to those in FY 2025 given the same cap methodology was in place.)

Figure B

To get a better sense of the total number of H-2B workers who would be employed in 2027 if Section 409 of the House Homeland appropriations legislation is enacted into law, I estimated that the same number of workers who extended their status or changed jobs in 2025 would also do so in 2027, and added that total to the FY 2027 total cap of 269,617 that would result from the new methodology in the legislation. This is also illustrated in Figure B, which shows the total number of H-2B workers from 2015 to 2025, and projections for 2026 and 2027. The annual cap plus the supplemental cap, together with H-2B extensions and job changes, would result in nearly 300,000 H-2B workers being employed in 2027—‎or 296,704 to be exact—which is a 78% increase relative to the number of H-2B workers who were employed in 2025 or estimated to be employed in 2026.

Close to 10,000 H-2B jobs would be moved to the P visa, a program with no worker protections and administered by DHS

The other notable change to the H-2B program in the FY 2027 House Homeland appropriations legislation is in Section 411, which would move H-2B fair and carnival workers, such as those employed at amusement parks, carnivals, traveling fairs, and circuses, to the P visa program. Section 411 would move those covered by the current P-4 visa—designated for spouses and minor children of P-1, P-2, and P-3 visa holders—to a new P-5 category and reassign the P-4 visa category to fair and carnival workers. The language in Section 411 appears to be a permanent statutory change, unlike Sections 409 and 410, which would only be in place during FY 2027 unless they are renewed in subsequent legislation for FY 2028 (and beyond). According to DOL, in FY 2025 there were 9,622 H-2B jobs certified in the “Amusement and Recreation Attendants” occupation, which is the most relevant occupation that would be moved to the P-4 visa. Unlike the H-2B program, there is no annual cap in the P visa program and the bill language does not apply the annual H-2B cap to the number of fair and carnival workers who could be employed with P-4 visas.

At present, the P visa is a little-known program intended for use by professional athletes and coaches, members of an internationally recognized entertainment group, or persons performing under a reciprocal exchange program or as part of a culturally unique program.24 The P visa program has no wage rules or worker protections and is administered exclusively by DHS, which has no dedicated staff or expertise on worker rights.25 This is extremely troubling, given that H-2B workers employed at fairs, amusement parks, and carnivals work grueling hours and in terrible conditions, making them some of the most exploited H-2B workers—as advocacy groups have pointed out.26 These workers are often paid below the minimum wage and are not paid for overtime hours. Yet it is unclear if DOL would have any formal oversight role to ensure they are protected as P-4 workers.

The language in Section 411 states that employers hiring H-2B fair and carnival workers through the P visa “shall be subject to the same program requirements that govern the admission” of H-2B workers, but it does not give clear authority to DOL to administer the P-4 visa program, nor explicitly state that post-entry H-2B worker protections will apply to P-4 workers. (The current H-2B program and rules are administered and enforced by DOL.) The legislation further directs DHS and DOL to each separately publish regulations to implement H-2B fair and carnival workers being moved to the P-4 visa program within 180 days and to finalize them within one year. But there is little direction from Congress in the legislation on how the H-2B program requirements will be implemented and enforced. Will DHS publish identical regulations to DOL’s H-2B rules and enforce them? Will DOL enforce the DHS regulations? Or will each play a role in enforcing the wage and worker protection regulations in the H-2B program? And will employers be allowed to begin hiring fair and carnival workers with P-4 visas before any regulations that include wage and worker protections are finalized?

The language in Section 411 reflects previously introduced legislation in the House and Senate during the 119th Congress: H.R. 2729, Carnivals are Real Entertainment Act (also known as the CARE Act), and a similar companion bill, S. 1281, Restoring Industry Development in Entertainment (RIDE) Act. However, the legislators on the House Appropriations Committee who support this amendment have provided no explanation or rationale for why it makes sense to create an entirely new process and set of regulations to move one of the biggest H-2B occupations from DOL into DHS—an agency that will be given primary responsibility over the P-4 visa and protecting fair and carnival workers, but that has no mandate or expertise on labor standards and employment laws. The most obvious explanation is that this legislative maneuver is simply a new way to expand the H-2B cap even beyond 270,000, in a way that gives fair and carnival employers an unlimited supply of workers who can be exploited and underpaid. It also generally seems absurd to put a low-paid traveling carnival worker into the same visa category—where there’s no labor oversight—as a professional baseball player coming from abroad to sign a multimillion-dollar contract with a major league team, or a world-famous singer, dancer, or painter.

Republicans in Congress are using the appropriations process to avoid scrutiny and expand H-2A and H-2B, while the administration seeks to deport millions

Finally, for over a decade at least, Congress has repeatedly changed policy on temporary work visa programs through an opaque process: riders attached to annual appropriations legislation, like the ones examined in this report.27 Riders that make policy changes are much more likely to pass without much public notice, debate, or pushback relative to dedicated legislation, since they are smaller parts of larger, must-pass legislation to fund the entire U.S. government. The significant changes proposed or passed for H-2A and H-2B visas in riders over the past decade have all pushed the programs toward the same direction: expansion, deregulation, and the watering down of worker protections, which benefits employers at the expense of U.S. workers and hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who will continue to see reduced wages and poorer working conditions.

Employers have a particular urgency to see riders that expand and deregulate the H-2A and H-2B visa programs, as the Trump administration arrests and deports workers at a breakneck pace and cancels temporary immigration protections that provided work authorization to millions.28 Employers are making the case that H-2 visas are “a workforce issue, not immigration,” as well as an essential service that must continue to function even during a government shutdown.29 Given the FY 2026 and FY 2027 riders in the House Homeland appropriations bills, it’s clear that a number of lawmakers and the Trump administration agree.

In effect, these legislators aim to create a deportation-to-guestworker pipeline, one where migrant workers who are deported or lose their status and work permit are left with only one viable option to work in the United States: as temporary migrant workers with few workplace rights because their employer owns and controls their ability to live and work in the country. Perhaps the legislator who is the most emblematic of the push to combine mass deportations with expanded guestworker programs is Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, a Republican member on the House Appropriations Committee. Politico recently profiled him for leading the charge on the H-2A and H-2B riders in recent appropriations bills, highlighting also his strong support for President Trump’s mass deportation efforts.30 Apparently, for Rep. Harris, there is no irony in supporting Trump’s removal of millions of employees who support the U.S. economy while simultaneously purporting to represent the interests of employers who say they don’t have enough workers, and tirelessly working to expand low-wage guestworker programs. It’s reasonable to ask whether the Harris strategy is to ensure that the only people from abroad who can work in the United States are those willing to be quasi-indentured to the employers that recruit them—and who accept that they will never become citizens able to fully participate in U.S. economic and political life.

The H-2A and H-2B programs need reform to improve labor protections and provide workers with a pathway to citizenship

The appropriations committees in the House and Senate should not use parliamentary tactics like provisions in appropriations bills to make changes to the H-2A and H-2B programs that would likely not pass in Congress through regular order. Instead, policymakers and the public must reject the harmful and unjustified proposals coming from Trump and Congress to expand programs that allow employers to underpay migrant workers and keep those workers indentured and controlled by employers.

Instead of pursuing a strategy that combines deportations with expanded guestworker programs, Congress should work with the executive branch to reform both the H-2A and H-2B visa programs in the following ways: 

• Provide green cards to undocumented farmworkers and a path to a green card for farmworkers recruited from abroad through the H-2A program
• Rescind the October 2025 Adverse Effect Wage Rate and reinstitute the Farm Labor Survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which was previously used to set H-2A wages
• Prohibit H-2A visas, which are for temporary and seasonal jobs, from being used for year-round agricultural jobs like those on dairy and poultry farms and in greenhouses; workers from abroad who are recruited to fill year-round, permanent jobs must be granted a permanent status instead
• Provide H-2A and H-2B workers with new protections from retaliation and allow them to more easily change jobs
• Craft updated wage rules that protect U.S. wage standards for all workers in H-2B industries
• Provide H-2B workers with a quick path to a green card after being in H-2B status for 18 months
• Ensure U.S. workers seeking employment in H-2B occupations are adequately considered for open temporary and seasonal jobs by requiring employers to hire available U.S. workers and offer them housing and transportation
• Prohibit lawbreaking employers from hiring through the H-2A or H-2B programs by creating a screening and registration system

In addition, the Trump administration has tacitly admitted and shown through policy actions described in this report that migrant workers are making important contributions to the U.S. economy in key industries. Rather than continue to harm the economy through immigration enforcement, it should end its mass deportation efforts and reinstate humanitarian protections like Temporary Protected Status and parole for persons who have been stripped of them and lost their work permits.

Notes

1. For more background, see these two blog posts discussing the provisions on H-2A and H-2B that were passed in the FY 2026 House Homeland appropriations legislation: Daniel Costa, “Congressional Budget Amendment and New DOL Wage Rule Together Would Greatly Expand Work Visas for Farmworkers and Drastically Lower Their Wages,” Working Economics Blog (Economic Policy Institute), December 5, 2025; Daniel Costa, “Rider in the House Homeland Security Appropriations Bill Would Increase the Number of Workers in the H-2B Visa Program by 113,000,” Working Economics Blog (Economic Policy Institute), December 11, 2025.

2. For the legislative text, see H.R.9310 – Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2027, 119th Congress (2025-2026), placed on the Union Calendar on June 12, 2026. See also House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, “Committee Releases FY27 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill,” Press Release, June 4, 2026; “Committee Approves FY27 Homeland Security Appropriations Act,” Press Release, June 11, 2026; and for the roll call vote on the bill, see House of Representatives, Roll Call 15 in “Full Committee Votes,” June 2026.

3. For more background on temporary work visas, their flaws, and proposed reforms, see Daniel Costa, Temporary Work Visa Programs and the Need for Reform: A Briefing on Program Frameworks, Policy Issues and Fixes, and the Impact of COVID-19, Economic Policy Institute, February 2021.

4. Laura Romero, “US, for 1st Time in 50 Years, Experienced Negative Net Migration in 2025: Report,” ABC News, January 13, 2026.

5. William Frey, “America Is Turning 250. Here’s How Immigration May Shape Its Future,” Brookings Institution, June 25, 2026; see question 6 in Daniel Costa et al., “Immigrants and the Economy,” in Immigration FAQ, Economic Policy Institute, April 2025.

6. See, for example, Daniel Costa and Ben Zipperer, “Trump’s New H-2A Wage Rule Will Radically Cut the Wages of All Farmworkers: New Estimates Show Farmworkers Stand to Lose $4.4 to $5.4 Billion Annually Under DOL’s Updated Adverse Effect Wage Rate,” Working Economics Blog (Economic Policy Institute), November 26, 2025; Daniel Costa and Josh Bivens, The H-2B Visa Program Has Ballooned Without Being Fixed. Expanding It to Year-Round Jobs Like Meatpacking Would Lower Wages and Revenue: A High-Road Employment Strategy That Includes Green Cards Would Raise Wages and Spur Investment Instead, Economic Policy Institute, September 2025.

7. See, for example, Economic Policy Institute, The Cost of Deportations Calculator (interactive tool), accessed October 25, 2026; AFL-CIO and ACLU, Citizenship and the Affordability Agenda: A Path to Better Jobs, Higher Wages, and Prosperity for All, September 2026.

8. See, for example, Nicole Foy et al., “506 U.S. Citizens Detained,” ProPublica, October 6, 2026.

9. See Exhibit 7 in Employment and Training Administration, Adverse Effect Wage Rate Methodology for the Temporary Employment of H-2A Nonimmigrants in Non-Range Occupations in the United States, U.S. Department of Labor, Interim Final Rule, DOL Docket No. ETA-2025-0008, RIN 1205-AC24, 90 Fed. Reg. 47914 (October 2, 2025).

10. See Lauren Kaori Gurley, “Trump Administration Says Immigration Enforcement Threatens Higher Food Prices,” Washington Post, October 11, 2025; David Dayen, “Trump Labor Department Says His Immigration Raids Are Causing a Food Crisis,” American Prospect, October 8, 2025; Employment and Training Administration, Adverse Effect Wage Rate Methodology for the Temporary Employment of H-2A Nonimmigrants in Non-Range Occupations in the United States, U.S. Department of Labor, Interim Final Rule, DOL Docket No. ETA-2025-0008, RIN 1205-AC24, 90 Fed. Reg. 47914 (October 2, 2025).

11. Chris Cameron, “Trump Officials Move to Double Number of H-2B Guest Visas This Year,” New York Times, January 30, 2026. For more background on H-2B appropriations riders giving the executive branch authority to expand the program, see Daniel Costa and Josh Bivens, The H-2B Visa Program Has Ballooned Without Being Fixed. Expanding It to Year-Round Jobs Like Meatpacking Would Lower Wages and Revenue: A High-Road Employment Strategy That Includes Green Cards Would Raise Wages and Spur Investment Instead, Economic Policy Institute, September 2025.

12. See, for example, Daniel Costa and Ben Zipperer, “Unemployment Has Increased for U.S.-Born Workers in the Face of Mass Deportations: Trump’s Draconian Immigration Enforcement Is Harming All Workers,” Working Economics Blog (Economic Policy Institute), April 3, 2026; Ben Zipperer, “Trump’s mass deportations were sold as a major jobs program, but they’re still failing to help U.S.-born workers,” Bluesky, @benzipperer.org, September 4, 2026, 5:46 a.m.; Marcela Escobari, Ian Seyal, and Paul Beach, Shock, Awe, and Economic Fallout: The Employment Effects of ICE Enforcement in U.S. Cities, Brookings Institution, May 2026.

13. For more background, see Daniel Costa, “Proposal to Change the H-2A Program via Appropriations Would Allow Agribusiness to Fill Hundreds of Thousands of Permanent, Year-Round Jobs with Temporary Guestworkers,” Working Economics Blog (Economic Policy Institute), October 25, 2017.

14. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Policy Memorandum PM-602-0200, Subject: Guidance on Temporary or Seasonal Need for H-2A Petitions for Dairying, June 17, 2026; see also discussion in Lauren Kaori Gurley, Mariana Alfaro, and Jarrell Dillard, “Trump Allows Dairy Farms a Path for Migrant Labor, Upsetting Anti-Immigration Camp,” Washington Post, June 27, 2026.

15. Lauren Kaori Gurley, Mariana Alfaro, and Jarrell Dillard, “Trump Allows Dairy Farms a Path for Migrant Labor, Upsetting Anti-Immigration Camp,” Washington Post, June 27, 2026. However, a statutory change made with an appropriations rider would presumably have to be renewed yearly. The H-2B riders that allow the executive branch to double the program with supplementary visas have been renewed every year since FY 2016, suggesting that once these riders make it into the bill, they are likely to be renewed as part of the yearly underlying bills.

16. The industries listed do not include the many year-round (or nearly year-round) jobs that can be found on crop farms, including equipment operators and supervisors. It’s possible that up to one-third of the total 1.6 million full-time equivalent jobs in agriculture could be year-round.

17. The AEWR IFR has been challenged in federal court and vacated on procedural grounds, but the court left the current AEWR in place for the time being, with an order issued to DOL to issue a new AEWR methodology by December 30, 2026. What will result from a new methodology is an open question, but the possibility remains that the new rule could be similar to the current rule, if DOL fulfills the procedural requirements. For more background, see, for example, Office of Foreign Labor Certification, Employment and Training Administration, “OFLC Announces Updates to Implementation of the H-2A Adverse Effect Wage Rate Methodology for Non-Range Occupations Interim Final Rule; Compliance with District Court Order” (announcement), September 2, 2026, U.S. Department of Labor; Envoy Global, “Federal Court Orders DOL to Replace H-2A Wage Methodology,” updated October 5, 2026.

18. See Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 7 in Employment and Training Administration, Adverse Effect Wage Rate Methodology for the Temporary Employment of H-2A Nonimmigrants in Non-Range Occupations in the United States, U.S. Department of Labor, Interim Final Rule, DOL Docket No. ETA-2025-0008, RIN 1205-AC24, 90 Fed. Reg. 47914 (October 2, 2025).

19. Daniel Costa and Ben Zipperer, “Trump’s New H-2A Wage Rule Will Radically Cut the Wages of All Farmworkers: New Estimates Show Farmworkers Stand to Lose $4.4 to $5.4 Billion Annually Under DOL’s Updated Adverse Effect Wage Rate,” Working Economics Blog (Economic Policy Institute), November 26, 2025.

20. Except, arguably, for some positions in dairy as a result of the June 2026 USCIS memo; however, even employers hiring through that route must demonstrate that the need for the H-2A dairy worker is seasonal or temporary. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Policy Memorandum PM-602-0200, Subject: Guidance on Temporary or Seasonal Need for H-2A Petitions for Dairying, June 17, 2026.

21. The amounts have not been adjusted for inflation. The 2026 AEWR provides two “skill levels” for farmworkers, which are set at specific percentiles along the distribution of Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics wages surveyed. Skill Level 1 is the 17th percentile while Skill Level 2 is the median (50th percentile) of wages surveyed. For this calculation, I am only estimating the wage differentials for H-2A workers in year-round jobs who are classified by employers at Skill Level 1, which DOL estimates will account for 92% of all H-2A workers.

22. For a discussion of the first instance of H-2B riders in the FY 2016 appropriations legislation, see Daniel Costa, “The Substance and Impact of the H-2B Guestworker Program Appropriations Riders Some Members of Congress Are Trying to Renew,” Working Economics Blog (Economic Policy Institute), June 17, 2016.

23. For more background, see discussion in Daniel Costa and Josh Bivens, The H-2B Visa Program Has Ballooned Without Being Fixed. Expanding It to Year-Round Jobs Like Meatpacking Would Lower Wages and Revenue: A High-Road Employment Strategy That Includes Green Cards Would Raise Wages and Spur Investment Instead, Economic Policy Institute, September 2025.

24. See U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services information pages for P visa subcategories: P-1A Athlete, last updated March 26, 2026; P-1B A Member of an Internationally Recognized Entertainment Group, last updated January 24, 2025; P-2 Individual Performer or Part of a Group Entering to Perform Under a Reciprocal Exchange Program, last updated February 24, 2021; P-3 Artist or Entertainer Coming to Be Part of a Culturally Unique Program, last updated February 24, 2021; U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

25. While there is a requirement from USCIS that an appropriate labor organization be consulted and provide a written letter for a P visa petition, it is unlikely, but ultimately unclear, that this requirement will apply to the new P-4 category. Further, there is no DOL labor certification, no prevailing wage requirement, and no DOL enforcement of P visa program rules to protect workers.

26. See, for example, Centro de los Derechos del Migrante and American University Washington College of Law Immigrant Justice Clinic, Taken for a Ride: Migrant Workers in the U.S. Fair and Carnival Industry, February 2013.

27. Daniel Costa, The H-2B Temporary Foreign Worker Program: For Labor Shortages or Cheap, Temporary Labor?, Economic Policy Institute, January 2016; Daniel Costa, “The Substance and Impact of the H-2B Guestworker Program Appropriations Riders Some Members of Congress Are Trying to Renew,” Working Economics Blog (Economic Policy Institute), June 17, 2016; Daniel Costa, “Proposal to Change the H-2A Program via Appropriations Would Allow Agribusiness to Fill Hundreds of Thousands of Permanent, Year-Round Jobs with Temporary Guestworkers,” Working Economics Blog (Economic Policy Institute), October 25, 2017; Daniel Costa, As the H-2B Visa Program Grows, the Need for Reforms That Protect Workers Is Greater Than Ever: Employers Stole $1.8 Billion from Workers in the Industries That Employed Most H-2B Workers Over the Past Two Decades, Economic Policy Institute, August 2022; Daniel Costa and Josh Bivens, The H-2B Visa Program Has Ballooned Without Being Fixed. Expanding It to Year-Round Jobs Like Meatpacking Would Lower Wages and Revenue: A High-Road Employment Strategy That Includes Green Cards Would Raise Wages and Spur Investment Instead, Economic Policy Institute, September 2025.

28. See, for example, Daniel Costa, “Trump Attacks on Temporary Immigration Protections Like TPS Hurt the Economy and Strip Millions of Their Workplace Rights,” Working Economics Blog (Economic Policy Institute), May 12, 2025; Carolyne Im and Mia Hennen, “Second Trump Administration Has Ended Temporary Protected Status for Most Immigrants Who Had It,” Short Reads (Pew Research Center), August 12, 2026.

29. Andrew Kreighbaum, “Stalled Release of Seasonal H-2B Visas Puts Strain on Employers,” Bloomberg Law, March 26, 2025; Nick Niedzwiadek, “DOL Brings Back Visa-Processing Staff as Shutdown Drags On,” Politico Pro, October 31, 2025.

30. Jennifer Scholtes, “The Trump Ally Cracking Down on Immigration in Washington — and Bringing in Foreign Workers Back Home,” Politico, April 12, 2026.

Notable weakness in today’s #jobs report for this morning. Payroll employment grew by 29,000 while downward revisions to both July and August totaled 60,000. July is now recording losses. The job growth in September (29,000) is slower than the prior 12 months (45,000).
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 8:39 AM · Oct 2, 2026

Payroll employment growth has averaged 50,000 over the last three months, but it continues to be relatively volatile. Four months of jobs losses over the last year, while some notable gains recorded as well. Economic uncertainty may be at play in the latest spell of weakness and downward revisions.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 8:51 AM · Oct 2, 2026

Health care employment continues to chug along, adding 17,000 in September. Modest job growth in construction, leisure and hospitality, and manufacturing. After a bounce back in August, state and local government recorded losses for September.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 9:00 AM · Oct 2, 2026

Manufacturing employment grew modestly in September, a gain of 9,000 jobs. But the fact remains that manufacturing employment is still down 21,000 jobs since January 2025. It’s hardly a manufacturing boon.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 9:00 AM · Oct 2, 2026

Federal employment lost 1,000 jobs in September, but the deficit in the federal workforce remains stark: there are 328,000 fewer federal jobs since January 2025. The vital services federal employees provide cannot be done without these essential workers.
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 9:02 AM · Oct 2, 2026

Nominal wage growth continued to decelerate in Sept, rising just 3.0% over the year. Slowing nominal wage growth suggests workers don’t have the leverage to bid up their wages. Even with low unemployment, the depressed hires rate means workers aren’t finding new jobs to raise their wages.
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 9:05 AM · Oct 2, 2026

Slower wage growth means that with higher prices, workers and their families continue to find it difficult to make ends meet. Year-over-year real wages fell for five months in a row. When the latest price data is out on October 14, we’ll learn if real wages have fallen for six months straight.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 9:10 AM · Oct 2, 2026

Today’s #jobs data can be considered a solid bounce back to relative weakness in June and July. Job growth has averaged 71k over the last 3 months. Weaker numbers for leisure and hospitality and unusual July losses in local government education employment seems to have resolved in August.
#econsky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 7:43 AM · Sep 4, 2026

Leisure and hospitality and state/local government led the job growth for August, following by construction. Information and financial activities reported losses. Federal employment continues to trend down.
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 7:51 AM · Sep 4, 2026

With August losses, federal employment is now down 336,000 jobs since January 2025. The vital services federal employees provide cannot be done without these essential workers.
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 7:52 AM · Sep 4, 2026

The preliminary benchmark revisions were out last week, regular BLS communication needed for timely and accurate data. That release suggests there were 79,000 fewer jobs added than originally reported since Trump took office, including 178,000 fewer private sector jobs.

www.bls.gov/news.release…

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 7:59 AM · Sep 4, 2026

Nominal wage growth decelerated in August, rising just 3.1% over the year. Slowing nominal wage growth suggests workers don’t have the leverage to bid up their wages. Even with low unemployment, the depressed hires rate means workers aren’t finding new jobs to raise their wages.
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 8:15 AM · Sep 4, 2026

Even though unemployment held steady, I have continuing concerns about the depressed hires rate. Those who are lucky enough to have a job are sitting tight while new entrants or long-term employed can’t find work. Long-term unemployment has been steadily rising led by those unemployed over a year.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 8:37 AM · Sep 4, 2026

Weak #jobsreport all around
-Nonfarm payrolls fell by 23,000 (mostly driven by state and local losses)
-The unemployment rate ticked down for the “wrong” reasons as labor force participation and employment-to-population ratio softened
-Nominal wage growth decelerated to 3.2% over the year
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 7:47 AM · Aug 7, 2026

Large losses in the public sector in July (-53k), particularly in local education (-49.6k jobs). An initial look doesn’t suggest an issue with seasonal adjustment because losses were also registered in NSA data for June and July. Local education jobs have fallen by nearly 100k (-98.3k) since March.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 8:01 AM · Aug 7, 2026

While public sector weakness in July was centered around state and local jobs, federal jobs ticked down by 3,000. Federal employment remains 327,000 below its January level. The vital services federal employees provide cannot be done without these essential workers (e.g. food inspectors).
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 8:12 AM · Aug 7, 2026

Although manufacturing employment ticked up slightly in July (+5k), manufacturing jobs are still down by 62k since January 2025.

Instead of adding these blue collar jobs, the manufacturing sector has lost 62,000 jobs since Trump took office.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 8:16 AM · Aug 7, 2026

Nominal wage growth decelerates in July, rising just 3.2% over the year. Slowing nominal wage growth suggests workers don’t have the leverage to bid up their wages. And, along with rising prices, workers and their families continue to find it difficult to make ends meet.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 8:26 AM · Aug 7, 2026

Today's jobs report came in weaker than expected. The economy added 57k jobs in June and prior months were revised down. April and May are a combined 74k lower than previously reported. Analysts believe the World Cup added 40k to June numbers—without that, job growth would have been 17k.
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) July 2, 2026 at 8:48 AM

The household survey came in even weaker. While the topline unemployment rate ticked down, it happened for the wrong reasons as labor force participation fell by 720k while employment fell by 507k. Even the prime-age employment-to-population ratio, which had remained resilient, fell 0.6ppts in June.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) July 2, 2026 at 8:58 AM

Given expectations around the World Cup, it's surprising to me that leisure and hospitality fell by 61k in June (and May growth was revised down by 30k). Perhaps those gains are offset by reduced discretionary spending as real wages fall.
#NumbersDay #EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) July 2, 2026 at 9:18 AM

We won't get the inflation data for June until July 14, but recent price data suggest year over year real wages likely fell in June. Workers and their families are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet and real wages are most surely now below where they were in January 2025.
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) July 2, 2026 at 9:18 AM

Manufacturing employment is crawling along, gaining 3k jobs in June, all in durable goods. After downward revisions, manufacturing lost jobs in May.

Since January 2025 when Trump took office, the manufacturing sector has lost 75,000 jobs.

#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) July 2, 2026 at 9:30 AM

While there's been little change this year, federal employment has shrunk an alarming 324,000 jobs since January 2025. The vital services federal employees provide cannot be done without these essential workers.
#NumbersDay #EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) July 2, 2026 at 9:31 AM

The latest jobs report came in stronger than expected this morning. The economy added 172,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%. Nominal wage growth continued to decelerate, further exacerbating affordability as prices rise.
#EconSky #NumbersDay @epi.org

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 7:46 AM · Jun 5, 2026

Job growth was strongest in leisure and hospitality, state and local governments, and health care. Losses continued in financial activities in May.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 7:58 AM · Jun 5, 2026

Manufacturing employment rose by 7,000 in May, slowly clawing back the large losses last year.

Since January 2025 when Trump took office, the manufacturing sector has lost 68,000 jobs.

#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 8:00 AM · Jun 5, 2026

While there’s been little change this year, federal employment has shrunk an alarming 333k jobs since Jan 2025. The vital services federal employees provide cannot be done without these essential workers.
#NumbersDay #EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 8:08 AM · Jun 5, 2026

Nominal wage growth continued to slow in May, now 3.4% over the year. While we don’t get the May inflation data until next week, it’s very likely, given recent trends, that real wages will continue to fall and workers and their families will find it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 8:14 AM · Jun 5, 2026

Key takeaways:

• The vast majority (85%) of young college graduates work in occupations that have seen strong employment growth in recent years.

• Young college graduates, like college graduates in general, are more likely to work in AI-exposed occupations than the overall workforce—and considerably more likely than young noncollege workers.
• But both young college graduates and young noncollege workers have experienced rising unemployment over the last three years, suggesting AI is not likely to be driving labor market weakness.

In the first blog post of our Class of 2026 series, we showed that the strong labor market for young college graduates of the early 2020s had begun softening in recent years. A growing share of young college graduates are seeking employment, but because their employment rates have not kept up with this job search, their unemployment rate has risen faster than the overall rate. The second blog post in the series discussed the industries where young college graduates worked. We found that recent graduates work in growing industries, but are forced to enter a weakened labor market with less job turnover, deteriorating their ability to break in. Young college graduates work in the tech sector at a similar rate to college graduates, and there is no clear evidence that tech sector employment is significantly decreased despite warnings about the advancement of AI.

In this blog post, we delve deeper into the occupations where young college graduates are likely to work.1 We examine whether it has been relatively more difficult to secure employment in these fields as the labor market has weakened. We also scour the data for signs that exposure to AI-related occupations may disproportionately affect the prospects for young college graduates as they enter the labor market.

Most young college graduates work in occupations with strong growth

Over 60% of young college graduates work in professional and related occupations or management, business, and financial occupations. Figure A displays the share of employment in each occupation or occupation grouping for young college graduates ages 22 to 27, all college graduates, and young workers without a four-year college degree. Occupations in the figure appear in order of the share of young college graduates employed in each, from largest to smallest. Over half (62.8%) of young college graduates work in professional, management, business, and financial occupations. Workers of any age with a college degree are slightly more likely to work in those two occupations (64.5%), though more likely in management occupations than professional occupations. On the other hand, nearly half (48.3%) of young noncollege workers are in service occupations or farming, construction, installation, and production occupations.

Figure A

Figure B shows the change in employment in each occupation between 2019 and 2026 and between 2023 and 2026, arranged in the same order as Figure A for comparison. Since 2019, management, business, and financial occupations and transportation and material moving occupations experienced the most growth, followed by professional and related occupations.

The top four occupations for job growth since 2023 account for 85% of young college graduate employment. The occupations with employment losses over the last three years were more likely to employ young noncollege workers than college graduates. It doesn’t appear that the occupations where young college graduates tend to work have been hit particularly hard in the last couple of years.

Figure B

While there has been job growth among occupations that tend to be filled by young college graduates, some worry about an increase in labor market underutilization, i.e., when workers with a college degree wind up working in jobs that typically don’t require one. Using O*NET data2, the New York Federal Reserve tracks this type of labor market underutilization. While the share of recent college graduates working at a job that doesn’t require a college degree has ticked up slightly over the last three years, it remains lower than it was for workers who graduated in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Even as late as 2017, young college graduates were working at these noncollege jobs at higher rates than they are today.

While college-educated workers are in more AI-exposed occupations, this does not appear to be driving labor market weakness

Much has been written in the last few years about AI exposure and its impact on the labor market. Using data from ADP, a large payroll processing company, Brynjolfsson, Chandar, and Chen find that entry-level workers in AI-exposed occupations—particularly AI uses that automate, not augment their work—have experienced an employment decline larger than that of older workers in the same occupations and all workers in less exposed occupations, explaining some of their stagnant overall employment growth. Atkinson and Yamco also find that declines in AI-exposed occupations are tied to lack of hiring rather than layoffs, hitting harder for young people attempting to enter the labor market. The second blog post in our series noted an across-the-board slowdown in hiring—which hurts the job prospects of all young workers, not only those in the industries most affected by AI.

On the other hand, researchers at the Yale Budget Lab argue that there has only been a slight increase in the shift in the occupation mix of employment, which would be evidence of AI automating jobs. They find that high AI-exposed occupations—determined by the top quintile of AI exposure—have yet to show declining employment, so no “dissimilarity” between young and older college graduates in terms of occupation mix has materialized. Raderman also finds that there isn’t strong evidence that AI is responsible for weaker labor market outcomes for recent college graduates, using evidence from Tillerman on college majors paired with change in unemployment.

Given the variation in assessments, we wanted to take a look at the data ourselves. Gimbel, Kendall, and Kulsakdinun have done an admirable job of summarizing the literature that attempts to classify AI exposure and propose a weighted aggregate measure of AI exposure.3 We employ this measure to investigate whether young college graduates may be more likely to be at risk in AI-exposed occupations than other workers.

In Figure C, we display the AI exposure of occupations weighted by the share of the entire workforce in each occupation. Moving from the left to the right on the figure increases AI intensity. For instance, professional and office & administrative support occupations are more AI exposed (to the right), while production, transportation, and service occupations are less AI exposed (to the left). Overall, the mean AI exposure score is 0.23.4

Figure C

In Figure D, we show the distribution of select demographic groups by occupation and AI exposure. As with earlier analysis, we compare young college graduates with all college graduates and young noncollege workers, in separate panels in the figure.

According to the aggregate measure, college graduates do have higher AI exposure in the labor market than the overall workforce. It is clear there is more mass in the direction of higher exposure (to the right) and their mean exposure is 1.07, higher than that of workers writ large. But the AI exposure of young college graduates isn’t any higher than that of college graduates in general. Mean AI exposure among young college graduates is 1.00.

Figure D

What is striking is that the AI exposure among young college graduates (1.00) is considerably higher than that of young noncollege workers (-0.61). If AI was driving labor market outcomes, we’d expect young college graduates to fare worse in today’s economy, e.g., see larger declines in employment or faster increases in unemployment. But, when we compare unemployment rates as we did in the first blog post of this series, both groups experienced similar increases in unemployment over the last two to three years. Trends in employment rates were also consistent across these groups.

Since the weakening labor market is hitting both young college and noncollege workers alike, it’s hard to argue that AI is uniquely causing job losses for new labor market entrants graduating from college now or in recent years. These findings are consistent with the literature, as there is currently no consensus about the effects of working in AI-exposed occupations on employment thus far.

1. Throughout this brief, we define young college graduates as people between the ages of 22 and 27 with only a four-year college degree. Unlike similar analyses of young workers, we do not exclude young college graduates who are currently enrolled in school, but the results here are robust either way. Unless otherwise noted, data for 2026 represent a 12-month average from April 2025 through March 2026 for the most up to date and reliable estimates, which removes seasonality and increases sample sizes.

2. O*NET or the Occupational Information Network provides the largest up-to-date database of information about workers sorted into detailed occupations. Information provided is about skills, abilities, education, training, and more.

3. We use an updated summary AI exposure PCA score (principal component analysis weighted standardized z-score) provided by the authors, May 13, 2026.

4. The PCA score scale is centered at 0, the unweighted mean across occupations.

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.

Today’s jobs report was much weaker than expected. Payroll jobs fell 92k in Feb, and revisions to Dec data show a loss of 17k jobs. Average job growth over the last 3 months now under 6k.

Household survey population controls indicate a significant drop in the labor force.

#NumbersDay #EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Mar 6, 2026 at 7:48 AM

Job losses in Feb were most acute in health care, due to striking workers who have since gone back to work. Notable losses as well in leisure and hospitality and educational services. Job were added in financial activities and social assistance. On net, 92k job losses for Feb.

#EconSky #NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Mar 6, 2026 at 8:03 AM

Manufacturing jobs fell again, down 12,000 between January and February 2026. Since January 2025, the manufacturing sector has lost 100,000 jobs. I repeat: The manufacturing sector lost 100k jobs since Trump took office.

#EconSky #NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Mar 6, 2026 at 8:19 AM

Attacks on the federal workforce continue. Federal employment has shrunk an alarming 327,000 jobs since January 2025. The vital services federal employees provide cannot be done without these essential workers. The cost of these losses are only beginning to be felt.
#EconSky #NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Mar 6, 2026 at 8:19 AM

The overall unemployment ticked up slightly in February, while the unemployment rate rose for Black, Asian, and Hispanic workers. Notably volatile series, but Black unemployment is now back up at 7.7% compared to only 3.7% for white workers.
#EconSky #NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Mar 6, 2026 at 8:51 AM

Child labor violations have been on the rise nationally and in Indiana, and fundamental federal child labor standards have recently come under threat. There is no reason to eliminate Indiana’s simple, easy-to-use system for documenting youth employment, except to make it easier for employers to violate child labor laws and harder for investigators to find out about violations.

Lawmakers in at least five other states have introduced bills to weaken child labor standards this year. Florida, Missouri, and Nebraska lawmakers have proposed allowing employers to pay minors less than the minimum wage, with the Nebraska bill recently being signed into law. Virginia and West Virginia lawmakers proposed bills to weaken hazardous work protections for minors who participate in work-based learning programs. Advocates in Virginia and West Virginia are working to amend both bills to limit their harm and ensure these programs do not come at the expense of youth education and safety.

Bill would eliminate employer registration system that replaced Indiana’s youth work permit process

In 2020, lawmakers eliminated Indiana’s youth work permit process and replaced it with the new Youth Employment System (YES), which requires certain employers of five or more minor workers to register key details about that employment in an online database, with penalties of up to $400 for each failure to register employment of a minor. Less than five years after they were implemented, lawmakers are now seeking to eliminate these requirements through House Bill (HB) 1302. If signed into law, there will no longer be any state oversight system in place for ensuring legal, age-appropriate work for minors or for state agencies to use in investigating suspected violations.

The legislation being considered is especially concerning because Indiana lawmakers have already made some of the country’s most extreme changes to child labor protections in recent years. Lawmakers made other substantial changes to Indiana child labor law in 2020, including eliminating rest breaks for minor workers and extending maximum weekly hours for 16- and 17-year-olds.

State systems for documenting youth employment are key to preventing child labor violations

Recent research shows that requiring the documentation of youth employment—like youth work permits—play an important role in preventing child labor violations, but Indiana got rid of work permits in 2020, and now they are hoping to get rid of the system that replaced them. In an analysis of federal child labor violations between 2008 and 2020, states with work permit mandates had 13.3% fewer violation cases and 31.8% fewer minors involved in these violations. That’s because youth work permits ensure employers know the law and create a paper trail to aid in enforcement when state investigators suspect violations. According to the new study, requiring that work permits clearly state permitted working hours reduces the number of minors involved in violations by 24.0%.

Often, employers that violate mandated documentation requirements are also violating other child labor standards. For example, a recent audit of a major Burger King franchisee in Wisconsin found over 1,600 child labor violations affecting nearly 1,400 young workers, the largest in the state’s history. In addition to employing minors without a work permit, violations included failing to provide mandated rest breaks, employing minors beyond permissible working hours, and failing to pay overtime.

Sadly, lawmakers’ desire to eliminate the YES system may be precisely because the system has been working as intended. Last year, the Indiana DOL assessed over $250,000 in penalties on employers that failed to register youth employment. Indiana’s youth employment registration system allowed investigators to identify employers out of compliance with the registration law and may have played a role in deterring future, more serious violations.

As violations increase, lawmakers should seek to strengthen—not weaken—youth employment standards

Child labor violations have risen significantly in recent years across the U.S. and in Indiana, where a 2025 IndyStar analysis found an uptick in violations in recent years, particularly driven by instances of illegal hazardous child labor and illegal employment of children under age 14. According to state fiscal analysts who assessed HB 1302’s impact, the change “will likely reduce the efficiency of on-site employer inspections for compliance with child labor laws.” In other words, the legislature’s own analysts acknowledge that this bill will make it harder to protect Indiana children from illegal and potentially dangerous, exploitative, and abusive employment conditions.

There is no rationale for eliminating basic documentation requirements that prevent child labor violations and aid in enforcement, except to make it easier for unscrupulous employers to get away with breaking the laws that keep kids safe on the job. Coming on the heels of multiple bills that weakened Indiana’s child labor standards in the past few years, HB 1302 represents another shameful step backward for the state. But it is not too late for Indiana to reverse course. If the bill is sent to the governor, Indiana Governor Mike Braun can break with his party to veto the bill, just like Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine did when he vetoed a bill to extend working hours for minors late last year. At a time when federal child labor standards are under threat, state lawmakers have an opportunity and responsibility to resist efforts to weaken child labor protections and, instead, consider any of the numerous, proven options to strengthen them.