Since the second Trump administration swept into office in January 2025, it has undertaken a range of damaging and destabilizing actions that have weakened the economy, undermined workers, hurt businesses and consumers, and threatened core elements of our democracy. While Trump has targeted numerous Democratic-led states and cities, the Washington, D.C., region has faced acute and prolonged harms since day one. From the first set of executive actions signed on Inauguration Day, the Trump administration has attacked people and businesses in the capital region repeatedly and intensely. These initial actions announced the president’s dubious claims of authority to fire large segments of the federal workforce, eliminate long-standing federal agencies and programs, and begin a campaign of illegal and inhumane mass deportations.  

The Trump administration’s damaging actions have been enabled and abetted by Republican members of Congress. Their passage of H.R. 1, the bill that the White House has referred to as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA), amplifies the administration’s mass deportation agenda and shreds critical health care and food supports for lower-income families to finance tax cuts for the wealthy. This funding bill will only cause more pain in the years ahead for Washington, D.C.-area households and throughout the country.

Congress also passed a federal spending bill that constrained the District of Columbia’s ability to spend its own tax revenue (Koma 2025) and a resolution that may force the district to adopt local tax code changes that match the OBBBA, whether the city wants to or not—changes that will jeopardize hundreds of millions of dollars for city programs (D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute 2026).

In this report, we assess the early indicators of the damage of Trump’s actions and their effects on the Washington, D.C., regional economy, with particular attention to effects on workers and the labor market. We focus on this region due to its prominence as an early target of the Trump administration, in part due to its large federal workforce. Additionally, the district’s unique status as a non-state means that its leaders have far less legal authority to resist Trump’s interference than other target areas do.

Throughout this report, unless otherwise indicated, the data describe economic conditions for the Washington, D.C., metropolitan statistical area (MSA), which includes the District of Columbia, four nearby counties in Maryland, six cities and 11 counties in northern Virginia, and one county in West Virginia. We also refer to this region as the DMV (Washington, D.C.; Maryland; and Virginia). While we do not yet have the requisite data to fully and precisely document all the effects of the administration’s actions, we can see clear signals that the regional economy is already struggling, with more severe impacts likely to register in the data soon.

We then explore some of the factors that make other regions particularly vulnerable to significant economic harm from the Trump administration’s agenda. These include counties with large concentrations of federal workers, areas where federal transfer income (such as Medicaid and Social Security) makes up a significant portion of the region’s economic base, and places with significant immigrant populations. Though Trump has largely targeted prominent, Democratic-led areas, many of the regions most susceptible to the harmful economic consequences of the administration’s actions are rural counties, frequently represented in Congress by Republicans.

Trump’s actions in Washington, D.C., have led to reduced employment and rising unemployment

The clearest sign of the harm that the Trump administration’s actions have done to the Washington, D.C., regional economy is the substantial drop in the region’s employment rate. Based on EPI analysis of Current Population Survey data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from December 2024 to December 2025, the share of the regional working-age population with a job fell by 3.2 percentage points.1 As shown in Table 1, this compares with a decline of just 0.4 percentage points for the country over the same period. Among prime-age workers (those ages 25–54), the share employed in the DMV fell by 2.7 percentage points, compared with a decline of just 0.1 percentage points for the country overall.

This dramatic drop in regional employment is a direct result of the Trump administration’s relentless attacks on federal government workers, cuts to federal programs and agencies, and their cascading effects on connected regional industries. Prior to Trump’s taking office, federal employees made up 11.2% of the metro area’s total workforce (BLS-CES-SAE 2025).2 Between the end of 2024 and 2025, federal employment in the DMV region fell by more than 53,800 jobs (-14.2%) (BLS-CES-SAE 2026).3 These losses reverberated through the regional economy as affected households pulled back on spending, and many may have even opted to move, as data show the DMV region had the largest increase in home sale listings of any major metro last year (Brookings Institution 2026).

These significant cuts to federal employment, though highly damaging on their own, are only the first layer of the administration’s harm on the regional labor market. The DMV has a non-federal workforce of over three million people (BLS-CES-SAE 2026), many of whom work at firms that consult with, contract with, are funded by, or are otherwise connected to the government.4 The Trump administration has terminated thousands of grants to scientific research institutions (Kozlov, Tollefson, and Garisto 2026) and frozen or delayed funding for tens of thousands of nonprofit organizations, causing those targeted to limit operations or lay off staff (Tomasko et al. 2025). These cuts have also shrunk the funding pool for nonprofit groups, causing budget challenges even for those not previously receiving federal funding, as they must compete with groups previously funded through federal programs that are now scrambling to fill gaps with private support (Barrett 2025). The administration has also moved to cancel contracts with any company that maintains a commitment to DEI standards (Singh 2026). Although these cuts affect organizations everywhere, the DMV is disproportionately vulnerable to the economic harms of attacks on this sector as it has one of the highest concentrations of nonprofits in the country (Friesenhahn 2025). This is evident in the region’s slight dip (-0.3%) in private-sector employment from December 2024 to December 2025, a change from the consistent, albeit slowing, growth that had marked the years following the COVID-19 pandemic. At the national level, private-sector employment experienced slow but still positive change (0.5%) over the same period (BLS-CES-SAE 2026).5

The widespread impact of the administration’s actions can be seen in the breadth of employment declines across racial, ethnic, gender, and age groups in the region. As shown in Table 1, the employment rate fell by at least 2 percentage points for every demographic category of workers in the DMV. Notably, young workers under age 25 (-4.3 percentage points), workers age 55 and older (-3.3 percentage points), men (-3.5 percentage points), and Black workers (-5.9 percentage points) all experienced drops in their employment rates larger than the regional average. For older workers, the above-average decline likely reflects, at least in part, the firings and retirements of many federal employees, including many who had been near retirement age and opted into the so-called “Fork in the Road” deferred resignation program. For young workers, the administration’s funding and programmatic cuts directly reduced many traditional Beltway early-career opportunities (internships, fellowships), while weakness in the broader regional economy simultaneously forced area employers to pull back on entry-level positions.

Still, not all groups have been equally affected by Trump’s actions. As Table 1 shows, Black workers in the DMV region have suffered the largest employment declines, with the share employed falling by 5.9 percentage points in 2025. This is nearly triple the employment drop experienced by white workers (2.0 percentage points) in the region and, notably, more than seven times the employment drop of Black workers throughout the country overall (0.8 percentage points). Again, this is a direct consequence of the administration’s attacks on the federal workforce. Black workers have long tended to make up a larger share of the public sector than they do in the private sector—both in the DMV and across the country. This is because the public sector has historically been a pathway to the middle class for workers of color who face labor market discrimination in the private sector (Maye and Marvin 2025).

Trump’s massive cuts to federal employment have also rapidly undone what had been considerable progress in shrinking the regional Black-white employment gap. Figure A shows the employment rate of DMV workers, overall and by race/ethnicity, since the end of 2018. The rapid drop in the Black employment rate since the start of President Trump’s second term is striking, bringing the regional Black employment rate back down to its pandemic-era low. It is also notable that before that drop began, Black workers in the region were employed at essentially the same rate as their white counterparts—the only time in the last two decades when that occurred. These losses in employment will exacerbate existing racial and gender inequity across wages, poverty, and unemployment (Markoff and Zielinski 2026; Zielinski 2025; Busette and Elizondo 2022).

Recent increases in the DMV’s overall unemployment rate underscore the damage Trump is doing to the region. The non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate jumped more than a full percentage point, from 3.1% in January 2025 to 4.4% in January 2026—more than four times the increase in the national figure. (Importantly, this increase understates the weakening of the area labor market, as the BLS estimates the DMV labor force shrank by 3% over the same period—meaning that many workers who would have been counted as unemployed simply left the area labor force.) For comparison, the national non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased by less than half a percentage point, moving from 4.4% in January 2025 to 4.7% in January 2026 (BLS-LAUS 2026).

These numbers do not capture the full extent of the economic downturn in the DMV area, nor can they give us precise insight into where the pain has been most acutely felt. The administration’s violent deportation agenda, for example, will lead to a drop in immigrant and U.S.-born Hispanic workers’ employment, but resulting changes in Hispanic employment rates may be muted by the corresponding shrinking of the overall Hispanic population (Zipperer 2025). In other words, while the overall Hispanic population in the U.S. may fall dramatically in coming years, the ratio of remaining employed workers to remaining total population may stay somewhat consistent. This will mask the true scale of the economic and social harm being done to immigrant communities in the DMV and across the country.

It is also difficult to fully quantify how the deployment and continued presence of National Guard troops, violent immigration actions, and other authoritarian, fear-inducing tactics have impacted D.C.-area businesses, workers, and families, particularly in neighborhoods with predominately Black and Latino populations. Early data show regional declines in tourism, consumer spending, and foot traffic; harder to capture are the emotional and long-term economic consequences (Montgomery 2025; Hadden Loh and Haskins 2025; Sachs and Cocco 2025). Other recent analyses estimate similar economic harms in cities where targeted federal immigration enforcement actions have been aggressively deployed (Rosenthal and Sojourner 2026). A full accounting of the Trump administration’s harms on the Washington, D.C., region will take years to document.

Other localities should brace for similar consequences

Some of the Trump administration’s actions and their acute consequences are unique to the DMV, a function of the region’s high concentration of federal employees and government contractors, as well as the District of Columbia’s lack of statehood and full constitutional rights. However, the anti-government attacks the administration has unleashed on DMV-area households, workers, and businesses will have cascading consequences for communities throughout the country. The effects of the administration’s authoritarian attacks on the civil service, democratic institutions, and immigrants (Human Rights Watch 2026) that first registered across the DMV should be viewed as a preview of the consequences that will be felt in other regions. While no locality will be spared, regions particularly at risk include those with large shares of government workers (especially federal workers, but state and local government workers too), localities in which federal funding and social safety net programs make up a large portion of total area income, and those with large immigrant populations.

Trump’s attacks on the federal workforce will harm communities that rely on their employment

The day Trump returned to power in January 2025, he began attacking the federal workforce, first by moving to reclassify tens of thousands of federal employees to make it easier to fire and replace them with political loyalists (EPI 2026c), and then by stripping more than one million federal workers of their collective bargaining rights (EPI 2025a). The Trump White House subsequently worked feverishly to slash federal employment, attempting large and chaotic reductions in force, shuttering entire agencies, and coercing tens of thousands of staff to resign, among many other attacks (Poydock 2025). As of March 2026, the administration’s actions have reduced nationwide federal government employment by over 350,000 (11.7%) since January 2025 (Gould 2026).

Though federal workers make up a sizeable share of the DMV’s workforce, over 80% of federal workers live outside the region (Partnership for Public Service 2024). For instance, in Alaska, Hawaii, and New Mexico—states that are home to large swaths of federal and Native land, military bases, and federal research institutions—federal workers make up at least 4.5% of total employment (EPI 2025c). Within states, federal workers tend to be concentrated in specific localities. For instance, in Apache County, Arizona, which is largely made up of the Navajo Nation and the White Mountain Apache Reservations, lands that extend beyond county lines, the federal government employs 12% of the county’s workers, more than double the next most significant county for federal worker employment in the state (EPI 2025c). There are 22 U.S. counties, spread across the South, Midwest, and West Census regions, where federal workers comprise at least 10% of the county’s workforce (see Table 2).

In these counties and elsewhere, federal workers are the backbone of the regional economy, both through the essential services they provide and through their contributions to the local economy. Trump’s attacks simultaneously threaten federal workers’ livelihoods and the economic health of communities in which these workers’ spending on goods and services makes up a large share of economic activity in the region. In Apache County, Arizona, civilian government workers’ earnings comprise 11.7% of total economic activity in the county (see Table 3)—roughly the same as their share of overall county employment. However, in some counties, federal employees’ earnings are a disproportionate share of the regional economic base. For instance, in Leavenworth County, Kansas, where federal employees make up 10.0% of employment (Leavenworth has a large federal prison), federal civilian earnings comprise 22.1% of total income in the county.

The effects from lost federal jobs and income in these regions could be devastating. Some of these communities are places that have already faced historic disinvestment and in which there are few local employment opportunities that can match the quality of federal government jobs. These jobs are historically stable, good quality, union jobs that offer a pathway to the middle class, particularly for workers without a college education.6

Regions highly dependent on federal revenue will also suffer from a reduction in services and a loss of income

Beyond the harm to localities from reductions in the federal workforce, localities that are particularly reliant on federal government revenue and services will bear the consequences of Trump’s actions most acutely, though no locality will be spared from harm. For example, the Trump administration has announced or considered $23 billion in cuts to federal clean energy projects in nearly every state (CATF 2025) and $8 billion in cuts to colleges and universities that will impact every state’s economy (Bedekovics and Ragland 2025). Trump’s 2025 budget bill also made massive cuts to federal safety net programs that millions of low-income households rely on in order to finance tax cuts for the wealthiest households and corporations.

Funds from federal programs such as SNAP, Medicaid, and other social programs not only help struggling families make ends meet, they also comprise a significant share of a locality’s “economic base,” the amount of money circulating in that region, as shown by sociologist Robert Manduca in a recent working paper (2025). Indeed, an often-overlooked benefit of Medicaid coverage is its role as a source of income for low-income households (money they would have had to spend on medical care in the absence of Medicaid). For the bottom 20% of households in the U.S., Medicaid comprised 70% of their total money income, based on recent data from the Congressional Budget Office (Bivens, Wething, and Morrissey 2025). In fact, government transfers such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid collectively made up 40% of the economic base of U.S. regions in 2022 (Manduca 2025). Substantial cuts to government social programs that support low-income households could reduce the economic base of these localities, at a scale equivalent, in many cases, to the loss of entire private industries in those areas.

Without deliberate intervention by state lawmakers to offset lost federal revenues, localities in every state face dire economic losses, but states particularly reliant on government transfers will suffer most. For instance, take Clay County, West Virginia, which is represented in Congress by Rep. Carol Miller (R-WV01), who voted in support of Trump’s budget bill (Miller 2025). Clay County’s poverty rate is more than double the national rate, and its per capita income is half the national amount (U.S. Census 2024a). Of the 10 U.S. counties that rely most on each of the largest federal social insurance programs (Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and Social Security) as a share of their economic base, Clay is the only county in the country to show up three times (see Table 4). Federal government transfers in the form of Medicare, SNAP, and Social Security payments comprise 57% of Clay County’s economic base, 20 times the share comprised by the earnings of every private industry in the county combined. Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia all have at least three counties that are ranked in the top 10 in the country for their reliance on a given social safety net program as a share of the county’s economic base (see Table 4).

Localities that have significant shares of federal workers and rely heavily on federal government transfers may face particularly significant consequences as a result of Trump’s attacks on the federal workforce and the Republican budget bill’s cuts to essential social safety net programs. For example, in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, and Apache County, Arizona, federal government workers make up 16.1% and 12.0% of all workers in the county, respectively (EPI 2025b). At the same time, both counties are ranked in the top-10 counties most reliant on federal government transfers—Apache is #2 for Medicaid, and Rio Arriba is #10 for SNAP. In Apache County, federal government transfers account for three-quarters (76.9%) of the county’s economic base, and the earnings of federal government civilian workers account for 11.7%—the Navajo Nation Tribal Government is the county’s largest employer (NACOG 2023). Meanwhile, private earnings account for a mere 2.8% of the county’s economy. In Apache, Trump’s cuts to both the federal workforce and federal government programs mean that the federal government may be unable to fulfill its legal obligations to tribal communities (Brown 2025) that have faced decades of disinvestment and depressed economic outcomes resulting from historic land theft and forced assimilation. Apache County’s poverty rate of 31.2% (AZ Economics 2026) is nearly triple the national rate of 11.1% in 2023 (Shrider 2024).

Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown and deportation agenda hurt localities with large immigrant populations

Trump has launched a campaign of terror against immigrant communities, communities of color, and those who stand with them. Last summer, Trump federalized local police and deployed thousands of federal troops to diverse cities with large immigrant populations (Kim 2025). Though Washington, D.C., may have experienced the most visible federal troop presence, a function of the district’s lack of statehood and the president’s unchecked authority to mobilize the National Guard there (Dallas 2025), Los Angeles was the first city Trump targeted after public opposition to aggressive immigration raids (Kim 2025). It was soon followed by Washington, D.C.; Memphis, Tennessee; Portland, Oregon; New Orleans, Louisiana; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Portland, Maine.

These attacks are characteristic of an authoritarian playbook that includes forcing the leaders of diverse, opposition-led communities to bend to the strongman government’s will (McManus, Benson, and Herman 2024). Minneapolis, home to a large immigrant population, was subjected to an unprecedented immigration crackdown that drew widespread protests (Boone 2026). During “Operation Metro Surge,” as it was called, federal immigration enforcement officials made 4,000 arrests and killed two U.S. citizens. Though the true toll of this violent operation may never be fully quantified, initial economic data show clear cause for concern. A recent analysis estimated that Trump’s immigration crackdown has led to a 2.9% decline in consumer spending in Minnesota over a single month—the equivalent of the state’s economy losing $626 million (Rosenthal and Sojourner 2026). Relative to overall consumer spending, the food and accommodation sector (which employs a large share of immigrant workers) saw the most significant decline in January 2026—3.8% or a $46 million reduction in economic activity. Researchers also estimated that nearly 3% of workers in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region were unable to work during the occupation, resulting in a loss of over $100 million in wages (Sojourner and Rosenthal 2026).

Trump’s deportation agenda will continue to destabilize local communities and result in job losses for immigrant and U.S.-born residents alike (Zipperer 2025). Though immigrants live in counties across the U.S., coastal urban areas tend to have the largest shares of foreign-born residents. Counties with the largest foreign-born populations include Miami-Dade, Florida; Queens, New York; Aleutians, Alaska; and Hudson, New Jersey (see Table 5). Counties with relatively large shares of immigrants may see particularly acute harms from aggressive immigration enforcement.

Communities face overlapping economic threats from attacks on federal workers, the social safety net, and immigrants, but state and local lawmakers can resist them.

The Trump administration’s attacks on the federal workforce, the social safety net, and immigrant communities are designed to exacerbate economic precarity in many communities that are already struggling (Bivens 2026). The implementation of Trump’s authoritarian agenda in the DMV region may be the first, clearest, and in some cases most direct manifestation of its harms, but other localities across the country—particularly those with large federal workforces, those that are heavily dependent on federal revenue and those with sizeable immigrant populations—are far from immune, and many will suffer as much, if not more, from this agenda.

While state and local leaders cannot stop federal attacks, they do have the power to resist Trump’s agenda by improving state labor standards (EPI 2026b), advancing protections for immigrant workers (Díaz and Whitaker 2026), investing in the public-sector workforce (Bivens and Shierholz 2026), and using progressive tax policies (Austin and Davis 2025) to stabilize funding for critical social programs and other investments that workers, families, and communities need.

Notes

1. Throughout this report, unless explicitly noted, the source for all employment rate data is the authors’ analysis of Current Population Survey data (EPI 2026a). We compare an average of calendar year 2025 with calendar year 2024 in order to have adequate sample sizes for the noted demographic groups.

2. Employment level by industry and sector data come from the authors’ analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Employment Statistics (CES) State and Metro Area (SAE) data.

3. These numbers are calculated using monthly totals rather than annual averages. A quarterly comparison of 2025Q4 to 2024Q4 finds roughly the same results—employment fell by 52,600 jobs (13.9%). The quarterly analysis omits October in both years to maintain an apples-to-apples comparison, accounting for missing data due to the government shutdown that began in October 2025 and the subsequent lapse in Bureau of Labor Statistics funding.

4. The non-federal workforce includes private sector workers as well as state and local government employees.

5. These numbers are calculated using monthly totals rather than annual averages. Quarterly comparisons of 2025 Q4 to 2024 Q4 produce similar results—private sector employment fell by 0.1% in the DMV and grew by 0.7% nationally. The quarterly analysis follows the methodology outlined in note 2.

6. On average, federal workers with advanced degrees typically earn less in wages and total compensation than their private-sector counterparts. Federal workers without an advanced degree typically earn more than their private-sector counterparts and have access to retirement benefits that have become less common in the private sector (CBO 2024).

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The relentless attack of the Trump-Vance administration on basic needs programs, access to data, and economic equity will harm the well-being of Native families and children even more. This is evident when we examine the impact of the administration’s cuts to vital programs like Medicaid and SNAP. The ongoing government shutdown threatens to further exacerbate the gaps in the provision of quality services that Native communities rely on for their health and nutritional needs.

Poverty continues to disadvantage AIAN children and their families

More than 1 in 6 (16.6%) AIAN children continued to live under the poverty line last year. This figure has remained statistically unchanged since 2022 (see Figure A) and is much higher than it was in 2021 when fewer than 1 in 10 AIAN children wrestled with poverty. The big difference in the numbers from 2021 and 2022 was due to pandemic relief efforts like the enhanced Child Tax Credit (CTC), which helped thousands of AIAN families with children meet their basic needs and avoid material shortcomings. But these gains for AIAN families and children were short lived. By 2022, AIAN child poverty rates climbed again, more than doubling after the expiration of the expanded social safety programs.

The situation of these economically vulnerable families and children has not changed since then and is only likely to deteriorate further with the historic cuts to basic needs programs (like Medicaid and SNAP) that the Trump-Vance administration passed this year. These cuts will disproportionately harm economically vulnerable families of color, such as AIAN families who are more likely than their peers to have a parent or child with a disability and who are still recovering from the impact of the last two recessions.

Figure A

Native families are more likely to suffer food insecurity than their peers

Early this year, we wrote about the rising threat of food insecurity for families of color. The persistent experience of AIAN families with poverty leaves them disproportionately affected by these concerns surrounding their ability to meet the nutritional needs of their household. Between 2016 and 2021, for example, AIAN households recorded a much higher prevalence of food insecurity relative to other groups (see Figure B). During this period, nearly 1 in 4 (23.3%) AIAN families struggled with food insecurity, compared with fewer than 1 in 10 (8%) white households.

Figure B

The situation of AIAN parents is even worse. During the six-year period referenced, more than 1 in 4 AIAN households with children under 18 (27.8%) and families with children under 6 (27.4%) did not feel secure in their ability to provide their families with an adequate and balanced diet. Irrespective of the characteristics of the household, AIAN families are significantly more likely than all families to struggle with food insecurity.

This disadvantage will likely compound in the years ahead as the Trump-Vance administration cuts funding for the Department of Agriculture (USDA), further restricts eligibility for programs like SNAP, and limits public access to crucial data about hunger. This year, for example, Trump’s USDA canceled the country’s leading survey that helps us understand the magnitude and severity of hunger and food insecurity in the U.S., on the grounds that it was “redundant” and “politicized.”

Lack of access to health insurance leaves Native communities disproportionately vulnerable to an early death

The well-being of Native communities is also threatened by lack of access to health insurance. Relative to peers, AIAN individuals suffer the highest uninsured rate in the U.S. Nearly 1 in 5 (18.9%) AIAN individuals (amounting to more than half a million people) lacked access to health insurance last year (see Figure C). While the Affordable Care Act (ACA) helped reduce the uninsured rate for AIAN individuals (nearly 3 in 10 AIAN individuals lacked health insurance in 2010), disparities in access have persisted over the years. Compared with their non-Hispanic white peers, AIAN people have been more than twice as likely to lack access to health insurance in just the last decade. These inequities also translate into disparities in life expectancy. AIAN men and women, for example, record a lower life expectancy at birth than their peers. Trump’s attacks on public health agencies, their personnel, research infrastructure, and programs for the needy threaten to exacerbate these disparities for years to come. 

Figure C

The Trump-Vance administration has weakened the agencies and programs that help the U.S. meet its obligations to Native communities

In less than a year, the Trump-Vance administration has weakened every aspect of the U.S. social safety net that helps AIAN families and children escape poverty, hunger, and disease. Trump began his second term by cutting staffing and funding for public health agencies and programs. By April 2025, the administration had reduced the Department of Health and Humans Service by more than 20%. Trump’s attack on equity also targeted workplace safety regulations and the broader research infrastructure for public health that works to identify and address the structural barriers that yield and widen racial and ethnic disparities in health. 

To top this off, Trump’s most significant legislative achievement this year delivered historic cuts to health programs (like Medicaid and CHIP) that are estimated to strip 10 million people of their health insurance coverage by 2034. More than 1 million AIAN individuals rely on Medicaid and CHIP. While AIAN individuals will be exempt from the new Medicaid work requirements, public health experts have warned that cuts to the program can widen gaps in tribal health services and disparities that already exist due to chronic federal underfunding of AIAN communities.

Trump’s major legislative achievement this year also weakened SNAP, the country’s most important nutritional assistance program. In FY 2023, more than 500,000 AIAN households relied on SNAP to meet their nutritional needs and avoid deeper economic insecurity. Trump’s reconciliation legislation from this summer is estimated to impact the benefits of millions of SNAP recipients. While pre-existing work requirements exemptions partially mitigate the harmful impact of Trump’s law on AIAN individuals, the phasing out of culturally relevant initiatives (such as SNAP-Ed) and cuts to the broader program weaken an important vehicle through which the U.S. delivers its obligations to Native communities.

In addition, beginning on November 1 of this year, the Trump-Vance administration has been denying access to SNAP benefits to millions of people due to the administration’s unwillingness to use SNAP’s contingency reserve funds during the government shutdown. In doing so, the administration is removing a critical safety net for Native American tribes and for over 1 in 5 Native American households more broadly.

States with some of the largest Native American populations are also states with higher overall population shares participating in SNAP. Oklahoma and New Mexico have some of the highest Native populations and more than 16% of their population receive SNAP benefits. Native Americans living in Oklahoma, on reservations, and other designated areas may be able to continue to receive food assistance through the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR). However, that program may face constraints due to additional demand and is not accessible for many Native people who do not live near federally recognized tribes that participate in FDPIR.

With every step this year, the administration has weakened the capacity of the federal government to meet the needs of Native communities. And families and children are being hurt in the process because they are disproportionately vulnerable to costly disparities in poverty, food insecurity, and health care access.

The overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) provide protections to most hourly workers and many low-salaried workers, guaranteeing time-and-a-half pay for hours worked in excess of 40 a week. FLSA overtime rules apply to all private businesses with annual revenue of at least $500,000, as well as hospitals, care centers, schools, and public agencies. Because federal law otherwise sets no limits on the hours employers can require people to work (and no requirements for rest breaks or days off), overtime pay is an especially important policy to disincentivize overwork and encourage employers to share work across more employees, bolstering hiring.

What are the threats to federal overtime protections?

Current threats to overtime pay include:

• Excluding workers from overtime by lowering the salary threshold for automatic eligibility: The first Trump administration took action to lower the salary threshold at which workers become automatically eligible for overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week, denying eligibility to millions of low-salaried workers. It is widely anticipated that the second Trump administration will likewise block a new proposed rule to raise the salary threshold, again denying coverage to millions of workers who earn between $35,568 and $58,656 (likely by refusing to defend the rule against ongoing court challenges from business groups).
• Stripping overtime coverage from direct care workers: The Trump administration has proposed rule changes that would reverse a 2013 regulation expanding overtime coverage to include “direct care” workers, such as home health aides and certified nursing assistants, employed by agencies.
• Allowing employers to deny overtime pay: Proposals laid out in Project 2025 recommend altering the FLSA to allow employers broad new discretion to deny workers overtime pay by altering calculations of what counts as a workweek, substituting time off in place of overtime pay, and/or deeming remote employees ineligible for overtime pay.
• Increasing likelihood of underpayment or nonpayment of overtime: Failure to pay overtime is one of the most common forms of wage theft, and diminished U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) capacity to enforce wage and hour laws will exacerbate this problem.

How can states maintain and strengthen overtime protections?

States have legal authority to establish their own overtime standards so long as they are at least as protective as those in the FLSA; federal overtime laws set a floor above which states can adopt and enforce their own stronger standards. Given the very real risk that aspects of FLSA overtime protections could be eliminated (or will go unenforced), it is important for states to at least lock in existing FLSA overtime protections. Additionally, states should seek to go beyond the current floor, as some FLSA provisions—such as those exempting certain categories of workers from overtime—are long overdue for an update.

Step I: Update state statutes to lock in current federal protections

Because for decades most states have deferred to the FLSA’s overtime standard and relied at least in part on federal enforcement of overtime laws, existing overtime language in state statutes is often outdated, incomplete, or inadequate. For example:

• Minnesota state law only requires overtime after 48 hours of work in a week; in Kansas it is 46. These laws are of no practical import right now, because the FLSA overrules them, but in the absence of FLSA protections, workers in these states would have to work more hours to qualify for overtime.
• In several states—including Iowa, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and others—there is no state statutory right to overtime. At present, workers with unpaid overtime claims in these states can only go to the federal government for redress, meaning that if DOL lacks adequate enforcement capacity, workers’ recourse may become limited. Moreover, while the FLSA currently covers workers in all states, if FLSA overtime protections disappear, workers would have no right to overtime pay at all in these and other states with no overtime language in state code.
• Some states, like Hawaii and Michigan, do require overtime pay after 40 hours in a workweek but currently exclude employment that is subject to the FLSA from state coverage. States with such exclusions should remove them to ensure consistent state coverage and enforcement jurisdiction, rather than expecting some workers to rely solely on tenuous federal overtime standards and enforcement.

Many states, such as New Jersey, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania, already mirror the basic overtime provisions of the FLSA, guaranteeing overtime pay after 40 hours in a workweek. Lawmakers in other states should act quickly to ensure their state codes at a minimum follow suit. There is no harm in codifying overtime protections in state law even if federal standards don’t change, whereas delaying updates to state law puts workers at risk of real harm if federal protections are diminished or left unenforced.

One legislative model for states to consider is the 2025 “trigger law” enacted in Illinois that directs state agencies to ensure all state wage and hour standards remain at least as protective as existing federal wage and hour standards in the event that federal standards are weakened or eliminated. 

State overtime rules, if they exist, are typically part of state labor and employment or wage and hour statutes. Policymakers and advocates should review their state’s laws to assess whether overtime language codifies at least the same level of protection currently provided under the FLSA and to ensure that the state has the power to enforce its own overtime laws without relying on the federal government.

Step II: Close critical gaps in overtime coverage

While the FLSA sets an important floor for overtime pay, it is an 80-year-old statute with notable gaps in coverage that state policymakers should try to close. Priority steps states can take to update overtime coverage include:

1. Eliminate occupational exemptions: Agricultural workers are not covered by the FLSA, a racist holdover from when the act was initially passed in 1938. And while some domestic service workers such as nannies and house cleaners were covered in 1974, certain home care workers providing care for seniors and persons with disabilities remain excluded. A 2013 Obama-era rule that extended coverage to many home care workers is at risk of being rolled back by the Trump DOL. Other exceptions apply to smaller categories of workers. States have it in their power to eliminate these exemptions. For example, several states—including California, Washington, and Colorado—already cover agricultural workers under state minimum wage and overtime laws. And some states like California have already taken action in 2025 to ensure that state law will guarantee home care workers overtime pay in response to proposals to remove existing federal protections. 
2. Raise and automatically update the salary threshold for exemption of workers in executive, administrative, and professional (EAP) jobs: Currently, workers in EAP roles are exempt from FLSA overtime requirements if they earn more than $684 per week. The Biden administration issued a rule to update that threshold to $844 per week in 2024, $1,128 per week in 2025, and to automatically adjust for inflation thereafter. This rule was blocked by the courts and there is every expectation that the Trump administration will not defend the new rule. States can move to lock in the new threshold and assure regular future updates. Six states—Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, New York, and Washington—already have an EAP salary threshold above the federal level. For example, Washington will by 2028 remove the exemption for any employee making the equivalent of 2.5 times the state minimum wage or less. Because the state minimum wage is indexed to inflation, the state’s salary threshold will continue to rise with the state minimum wage.

Step III: Modernize overtime policies to fit today’s economy, improve safety and productivity, and promote work-life balance

In addition to codifying FLSA overtime rules and closing coverage gaps, there are many steps states can take to serve priority policy goals like preventing overwork, stabilizing work schedules, and increasing work-life balance. Indeed, overtime pay was incorporated into the 1938 FLSA as a compromise, following decades of international worker struggles for the eight-hour day and during a period of intense debate over whether public policy should place some limits on the often near-absolute control many employers exerted over workers’ time. These are questions worth revisiting in the context of state policymaking today, when overtime pay alone has failed to curb excessive use of forced overtime or scheduling practices that in some industries include dangerously long shifts or months of consecutive shifts with no days off, both of which are closely correlated with declining productivity and adverse health and safety impacts.

1. Add overtime pay to discourage excessively long shifts, encourage periodic days off, and promote fair scheduling. Many state laws include useful examples of overtime policies targeted at discouraging excessive consecutive hours of work or days of work without time off:
   • California mandates that workers receive double time (not just time-and-a-half) after 12 hours of work in a day.
   • In Alaska, overtime pay applies to all eligible employees working more than eight hours in a day. Other states have more limited expansions; for example, Oregon requires manufacturing employers to begin paying overtime after 10 straight hours.
   • A number of states, including Alaska, Florida, Nevada, and Oregon, make some employees eligible for overtime pay after a certain shift length, regardless of the number of hours worked in the week.
   • Kentucky requires overtime pay for all work done on a seventh straight day of work. California requires overtime pay for all work done beyond eight hours on a seventh straight day of work.
   • Fair scheduling laws, which Oregon and a number of cities have adopted, similarly require employers to provide advance notice of schedules and extra pay for schedule changes. Some laws also crack down on “clopenings”—the practice of requiring an employee to work late in the evening and start again early the next morning—by requiring extra pay for shifts within 12 hours of each other.
2. Guarantee rights to refuse excessive forced overtime: States could also ensure that hourly workers have the right to decline excessive overtime hours without fear of retaliation. For example, Maine proposed legislation to protect overworked paper industry workers—who were sometimes forced to work 24-hour shifts—guaranteeing a right to refuse more than two hours of overtime in a day, and requiring seven days advance notice of schedules.
3. Expand overtime laws to incentivize transitions to shorter work weeks: Well before passage of the FLSA and up to the present day, workers and advocates have proposed that productivity gains should result in shorter work hours (with no loss of pay). Numerous versions of proposals to move to a four-day or 32-hour standard work week have been introduced in several states, including pilot and study bills. State expansions of overtime pay to hours worked beyond 32 in a week (or other numbers less than 40) could help incentivize shifts toward shorter work weeks.
4. Look to tested overtime language in collective bargaining agreements for policy models: Collective bargaining agreements negotiated between unions and employers often contain more expansive overtime and scheduling provisions that can serve as models for more ambitious policy ideas. For example, language in such agreements may list additional circumstances when overtime or other forms of premium pay are required for work on weekends, holidays, on-call hours, or following scheduling changes. These agreements may also set out processes for workers to accept or decline additional work hours or new shift assignments, timelines for employers to provide notice of work schedules, fair procedures for assigning overtime, and more.

Additional recommended resources 

• State minimum wage [and overtime] laws (U.S. Department of Labor) 

• Overtime laws by state (Bloomberg Law) 

• Explaining the Department of Labor’s new overtime rule that will benefit 4.3 million workers (Economic Policy Institute) 
• Home care worker rights in the states after the federal companionship rules change-2013 (National Employment Law Project; note that this resource is an excellent tool for identifying relevant state code sections, but may not reflect more recent changes to state laws) 

Editor’s note: This piece was revised on October 24, 2025, to add an “Additional recommended resources” section and include updates on federal and state policy developments that took place after initial publication. 

Political and religious coercion in the workplace is a growing problem affecting workers from all backgrounds and across the political spectrum. U.S. employers have tremendous power over worker conduct under current federal laws. For example, employers can require workers to attend “captive audience” meetings—and force employees to listen to political, religious, or anti-union employer views—on work time.

In the face of this growing threat, legislators in 18 states have advanced bills to protect workers from offensive or unwanted political and religious speech unrelated to job tasks or performance. These bills are designed to prohibit employers from threatening, disciplining, firing, or retaliating against workers who refuse to attend mandatory workplace meetings focused on communicating opinions on political or religious matters.

Importantly, these state laws do not limit employers’ rights to express their beliefs freely or even to continue inviting employees to attend workplace political or religious meetings. These laws simply empower workers to opt out of unwelcome political speech by protecting them from financial harm or retaliation if they choose not to attend such meetings.

A growing number of states are taking action to protect workers’ freedom of thought and association

So far, six states have enacted laws designed to protect employees’ dignity and freedom of thought and association. Table 1 summarizes these laws, additional bills currently under consideration, as well as bills that have been previously proposed.

Table 1

Because most workers (in the absence of a collective bargaining agreement) are considered “at-will” employees who can be terminated at any time, employers often try to exercise vast authority over employees’ lives, including their political activities or freedom of association.

This power is routinely abused to coerce workers into attending political rallies, religious discussions, or anti-union meetings under the threat of disciplinary action. State legislators, however, are working to fill the void left by continued congressional inaction. State legislation that creates a minimum labor standard to protect workers from abusive forms of employer coercion can help workers more fully exercise their basic rights.

Current labor and employment laws allow bosses to bombard workers with politics and religion

Employers are increasingly using the workplace to advance their political interests, and the lack of legal protections for workers has created a situation ripe for coercion. Traditionally, employers have relied on donations, lobbying, and political action committees to advance their political interests. However, nearly universal “at-will” employment laws and recent legal rulings are emboldening employers to politically mobilize their own employees.

Pervasive “at-will” employment laws give employers the right to terminate workers without cause or for virtually any reason—including their political beliefs. And the 2010 landmark Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission extended First Amendment protections to corporate political spending and gave employers the green light to hold political captive audience meetings. In tandem, these laws have had dire implications for workers and the democratic process.

A 2015 study revealed how widespread political communication is in U.S. workplaces. One in four U.S. workers has been contacted by their employer regarding a political matter. Of these workers, 20% (representing 5% of all U.S. workers) received messages from their boss that included one or more threats of job loss, business closure, or changes to wages and hours. Under current federal labor and employment laws, it is perfectly legal for an employer to threaten, discipline, or terminate an employee for objecting to their boss’s political views.

Political coercion affects U.S. workers of all backgrounds and across the political spectrum. Consider the following examples in which workers were pressured to vote in specific ways or forced to donate to political campaigns or lobby other voters to support legislation.

• In 2014 at a ConocoPhillips’ site in Alaska, some 200 construction workers were called into a “safety stand-down” meeting—typically held after serious workplace incidents. Rather than addressing a safety concern, a ConocoPhillips’ representative discussed the company’s stance on the upcoming August primaries, emphasizing its opposition to a ballot measure to repeal a significant tax cut for oil companies. The message to the workers was that their jobs relied on tax breaks, and voting against the repeal could harm their industry and livelihoods. One worker described the meeting as an abuse of safety protocol, while others reported fearing for their jobs.
• During the 2012 election, presidential candidate Mitt Romney spoke at an Ohio coal mine at the invitation of Murray Energy’s CEO, Robert Murray. Workers later said that mine operations were halted, and they were forced to attend the event without pay. Managerial staff also reported being pressured to donate to Murray Energy’s political action committee. Internal records later revealed that employee donations were monitored and that employees who failed to donate generously enough faced potential demotions and missed bonuses.
• In 2018, D.C. voters introduced Ballot Initiative 77 that would have raised the tipped wage from $3.33 to the regular minimum wage ($12.50 an hour at the time). Restaurant industry representatives embarked on a vigorous campaign opposing the initiative called “Save Our Tips,” warning of widespread restaurant closures and job losses. Around the city, restaurants displayed “Save Our Tips” and “NO on 77” signs. Some employers distributed weekly newsletters to employees featuring anti-Initiative 77 content and provided workers with instructions on how to vote on the initiative. Other employers held captive audience meetings during work hours to tell workers that Initiative 77 would harm them. Additionally, workers were encouraged to inform customers about the perceived negative impacts of the initiative.

While Title VII of the Civil Rights Act explicitly prohibits religious discrimination by employers, religious coercion is rampant in U.S. workplaces. For example:

• In an infamous Oregon case, a formerly incarcerated worker of Native American descent attended weekly, hour-long Bible study sessions out of fear “that he wouldn’t be able to find other work” if he declined. Following six months of weekly attendance, the worker declined to attend further sessions and was subsequently fired.
• A North Carolina-based home renovation company required employees to attend daily worship sessions that included prayer and Bible reading. A lawsuit alleged that the company owner would track attendance and reprimand employees who were absent. Additionally, when a manager asked to be excused from prayer, the owner subsequently cut his pay and then fired him.
• Employees at a Long Island, New York, firm alleged they were compelled to pray, chant, and partake in spiritual interpersonal workshops as part of a program called “Onionhead.” Workers described the workplace as “cult-like” with religious ceremonies where incense was burned to purify the workspace and lights were dimmed to deter demons. Employees and later the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission asserted that employees who resisted were disciplined or terminated.

Employers use ‘captive audience’ meetings to support union-busting

Captive audience meetings have likewise become one of employers’ preferred union-busting tactics. Workers who express interest in unionizing are routinely required by employers to hear one-sided propaganda. Workers have no right to ask questions or hear opposing viewpoints during these meetings. Analysis of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) elections documents shows that 89% of all employers conduct captive audience meetings in response to unionization efforts. And the use of captive audience meetings caused the average union election win rate to fall from 73% to 47%.

Today, employers spend over $400 million per year on “union-avoidance” consultants, who specialize in using captive audience meetings along with a host of other tactics designed to intimidate and instill fear in workers for the purpose of union-busting. Legislation giving workers the right to opt out of captive audience meetings without fear of discipline or termination is fundamental to restoring workers’ basic right to organize without interference.

The unequal impact of coercive speech on workers

Legislation to protect workers from coercive speech is particularly important for the workers most likely to encounter discrimination at work.

Particularly vulnerable to such coercion are Black, brown, disabled, formerly incarcerated, LGBTQ, and other groups of workers who have historically faced discrimination and unequal treatment in the labor market. Structural racism and discrimination in the form of systematically higher unemployment rates, higher job search costs, lower wages, and greater tolerance for unfair treatment, put these workers in a disadvantaged position to resist employer abuses.

Further, the United States’ piecemeal approach to holding employers accountable for discrimination often puts the onus of enforcement on workers, leaves many exposed to retaliation, and excludes many of the most vulnerable workers altogether. Given the precarity of employment for non-union workers in the United States, there is a clear need for comprehensive and enforceable worker protections from coercive speech.

Conclusion: State-level solutions to coercion

State lawmakers have the power to fight back against employer coercion and address gaps in weak, outdated federal laws. States can legislate to protect workers from unwanted speech, as affirmed by the Supreme Court’s 1988 ruling Frisby v. Schultz. Many of the proposed state-level laws also have the advantage of offering quicker enforcement mechanisms than federal proceedings and include provisions for “injunctive relief” (emergency court intervention to immediately stop damaging employer behavior), restitution for lost wages, reinstatement with retained benefits and seniority, and coverage of attorney fees. As the national spotlight intensifies on growing economic inequality and decades-long erosion of workers’ rights, it is clear that state-led initiatives could play a pivotal role in shaping the future of worker rights in the U.S.

Legislators in all states should continue to build on existing momentum to protect the freedom to avoid offensive or unwanted political and religious speech at work. Lawmakers can enact enforcement mechanisms to protect workers against financial harm and retaliation if they opt out of such speech. This legislation will help safeguard democracy by protecting citizens from undue influence over their political views, donations, or votes; guaranteeing workers’ freedoms; and ensuring all workers can fully exercise their rights in the workplace.