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Paraprofessionals—who work under the supervision of licensed teachers to provide focused instructional and behavioral support to students—provide crucial services and play a critical role in educating students with disabilities. Research has demonstrated that paraprofessional educators are key contributors to effective schools.

Despite this, the current pay of paraprofessionals is too low, and clear labor shortages of paraprofessionals have developed in public schools around the country—including in New York City. Paraprofessionals working for the New York City Department of Education have annual earnings ranging from $33,000 to $54,000. EPI’s Family Budget Calculator shows that a single adult with no children in New York City needs to earn $83,262 to afford a modest but adequate standard of living. An additional $10,000 would move those salaries closer to—but still well short of—a living wage. 

One clear sign that the city could benefit from greater public investment in paraprofessionals is the fact that New York City now spends more than $1.5 billion each year on special education due process cases. These costs arise when families successfully demonstrate that the public school system has failed to provide the services required under federal law, requiring the city to cover the cost of remedies such as private school enrollment (the most well-known subset of these are often referred to as “Carter cases”).

Boosting pay by $10,000 for the roughly 25,000 full-time paraprofessionals is estimated to cost the city about $244 million in 2027, roughly 15% of what the city spends on special education due process cases. While no single policy will eliminate these due process case costs, investing in the workforce that delivers crucial special education services can certainly strengthen recruitment and retention and increase the share of families of children with disabilities who are satisfied with the quality of education and support that is being provided in public schools. In turn, more families of special education students choosing to remain in public schools will reduce expenditures on due process cases, helping defray the cost of paying paraprofessionals closer to a living wage.

Finally, we should note that while the state and city of New York would benefit greatly from increased investment in the public sector, this investment obviously requires revenue. This revenue should come from those most able to provide it: high-income households and rich corporations. The quality of services provided to the city and state will depend crucially on whether or not policymakers are willing to raise the revenue needed to make these investments.

In the last two years, Republicans in Tennessee have attempted to push legislation that would violate Plyler to set the stage to challenge the court decision (although neither proposal passed). Last year, the state proposed charging undocumented students tuition for public schools, and this year, Tennessee attempted to pass legislation to track the immigration status of all public school students.

The 1982 ruling of Plyler v. Doe is notable because it stated that the harm of not educating undocumented children would be worse for society than providing a basic education to all children in the U.S. The ruling recognized the huge positive spillovers public education has on the U.S. labor market, public health, and civil society and that leaving immigrant children out of public education would create an “underclass” in U.S. society.

Moreover, if the move to deny public education to children in the U.S. is successful, particularly in pockets of the country where immigrant children are a substantial share of the student population, it will lead to an extraordinarily high cost for the students who remain in public school.

Some school costs are hard to adjust, regardless of the number of students

Across the country, an estimated 17% of school-aged children live with at least one noncitizen adult, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. If these students were to leave suddenly, schools would be left to educate a fewer number of kids without any time to adjust their fixed costs. For example, when Alabama passed an immigration data collection law, more than 13% of Hispanic schoolchildren withdrew from classes.

At first, it would seem that reducing enrollment would reduce both total revenue and the number of students needing educational services proportionately, which should leave the schools’ ability to provide education unaffected. But schools can’t adjust every educational cost quickly: School bus routes still need to circulate to all stops, even if there is one fewer child in need of transit; buildings need to be heated and cooled, even if classroom size goes down; and guidance counselors and support staff are still required to support the remaining students.

School districts will pay more per pupil if student enrollment declines because of immigration enforcement

Since these fixed costs can’t be adjusted in the short run, when total revenue declines due to families’ fears of deportation, districts are stuck paying more per pupil on costs they can’t adjust. Effectively, native-born students who remain in public schools receive no additional benefit when immigrant students are denied services and rights. Districts instead will be paying more on costs that can’t be adjusted and getting less on the costs that can be adjusted for fewer students.

Calculating the cost under two different scenarios

We call all the costs of downward adjustment that occur when enrollment is reduced the fiscal externality. This means the per-pupil funds each district would require to maintain the same level of spending for remaining public school students due to a rapid decline in enrollment. This cost is entirely borne by state and local education budgets and leaves districts unable to deliver the same level of instruction to the remaining public-school pupils.

For districts with a large share of school-aged children in immigrant families, the costs of losing these students could be substantial. Table 1 shows the top-25 school districts, based on the number of K–12 students that are in immigrant families and the corresponding fiscal externality for two scenarios. In the first scenario, half of these students stop attending public school (referred to as the lower bound in the table). In the second scenario, all of these students stop attending public school (referred to as the upper bound in the table).

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The implications of a reversal of Plyler v. Doe or any type of policy restricting immigrant children’s access to public education would be extreme for these districts. In Houston, Texas, where 62% of students in the school district are Hispanic, we estimate that nearly 63,000 students may live in a household with immigrants and as such, might be vulnerable to dropping out of school due to anti-immigration efforts. The lower bound shows the costs if half of these students stopped showing up. Houston School District would have to reduce services by $1,654 for each remaining (and disproportionately native-born) public school student. This decline translates to a total fiscal externality of $268 million a year, or 11% of the total budget for the school district.

The extraordinarily high cost to native-born students of losing students in immigrant families due to anti-immigrant policies highlights the hypocrisy in the anti-immigrant movement. If all students in immigrant families stopped attending public school tomorrow, not only would those students suffer from the lack of public education, but the quality of public education would be much worse for the remaining students in those same schools. In short, no one wins. When the costs are tallied up, it’s clear that these policies are not about improving education quality for native-born students, but instead are malicious attacks on the institution of public education in the U.S.

Rising authoritarianism and the need to upend the failed Southern economic development model

For generations, Southern politicians backed by powerful business interests have promoted a Southern economic development model—characterized by low wages, regressive taxation, lax environmental regulations, a weak social safety net, and vicious opposition to unions—while claiming such policies will attract business and thereby generate regional economic gains. But data actually show a grim reality. The South lags all other regions on most indicators of economic health including job growth and wages, and Southern workers and their families experience significantly higher rates of poverty than in other parts of the country (Childers 2024a).

The truth is that this Southern economic development model was never designed to benefit most Southerners; rather, it is historically rooted in efforts of white plantation owners to retain their wealth following emancipation and ensure continued access to the labor of Black people for as little compensation as possible (Childers 2025). Foundational to these efforts was an authoritarian approach to state governance that suppressed popular democracy and worker organizing—an approach that also sanctioned prison labor, sharecropping, a century of Jim Crow laws, lynching, and other forms of state-sponsored terror and exploitation. Until partially challenged by federal legal and policy interventions won by post-WWII civil rights movements, many Southern states for decades held elections that served merely to provide a cover of legitimacy to one-party rule of white, wealthy elites—functionally excluding Black voters from the electorate and blocking working-class constituencies from any meaningful participation in governance (Mickey 2015; Perez 2024; Mast 2025).

Today, the Trump administration’s increasingly authoritarian actions echo this troubling Southern history. At their foundation, the administration’s approaches to bypassing constitutional checks and balances—while rolling back civil rights, worker rights, and environmental protections; terrorizing immigrant communities; deploying military troops in U.S. cities; and attempting to engineer election outcomes via gerrymandering and other forms of voter suppression—are rooted in authoritarian models developed and tested in the U.S. South, and that Black, brown, and immigrant communities across the country are no stranger to.

Recent attempts to terminate federal employee collective bargaining agreements, for example, are familiar to public employees in Southern states for whom collective bargaining has long been banned or severely restricted. The Trump administration’s use of military-style policing in communities across the country echoes Southern histories of weaponizing law enforcement (or National Guard troops) to suppress organizing and instill fear, while prioritizing the expansion of the carceral state over investments in housing, education, and public services. Trump’s efforts to override the authority of state officials mirror Southern state uses of abusive preemption laws to strip policymaking authority from local governments. And administration attempts to halt clean energy investments and environmental protections threaten to repeat harms familiar in Black and brown communities in the South, where corporations have insisted on lax environmental regulations that allow them to degrade air, water, and climate quality, while profiting from the exploitation of local natural resources and labor.

Seizing opportunities to reverse decades of anti-worker, anti-democratic policymaking in the South at a moment of rising authoritarianism in the U.S. is a daunting and unavoidably urgent challenge. It will require robust new forms of multiracial organizing and labor-community coalition building across a broad set of industries in the South. Labor-community coalitions can leverage community benefits agreements (CBAs) as a powerful tool to transform economic power relations in Southern workplaces and communities. Because CBAs are private agreements between labor-community coalitions and project owners, they do not rely on government action and can therefore shape economic outcomes of major projects even in otherwise hostile political environments. CBAs have traditionally been fought for and won by labor and community groups coming together and building necessary public pressure to hold developers, corporations, and elected leaders accountable for ensuring that public investments in major new developments truly benefit workers and communities.

In this report, we analyze the potential for labor-community coalitions to pursue strong CBAs that secure significant economic benefits for Southern manufacturing workers and communities, drawing on examples of existing agreements to model potential impacts. We examine the scale of recent public investments in Southern manufacturing and examine how strong CBAs on major publicly-subsidized private projects could improve the quality of newly created construction and production jobs; open up pathways to unionization; ensure equitable hiring and training opportunities for local residents; and address community needs such as child care, affordable housing, and natural resource protection.

We contend that upending the failed Southern economic development model and the authoritarian structures that underpin it will require building new forms of labor and community power to increase union density in the South. Well-known research shows that unions promote economic equality and help workers win improvements in pay, benefits, and working conditions (Economic Policy Institute 2021). But unions also powerfully affect people’s lives outside of work. They help foster solidarity, increase democratic participation, enable working-class communities to shape economic policies affecting their lives, and serve as a counterweight to corporate power in our economy and democracy (McNicholas et al. 2025). Historically, unions have been engines of resistance to entrenched and undemocratic power—mobilizing working people to challenge inequality, defend civil rights, and push back against authoritarianism in all its forms. For all these reasons, strengthening labor-community coalitions and pathways to unionization in growing Southern industrial sectors is not just good economic policy—it is also a democratic imperative amid national authoritarian backsliding.

Worker and community power can ensure new manufacturing investments yield good jobs and community benefits

The latest wave of manufacturing growth in the South presents both opportunities and pitfalls for workers and communities. Southern states continue to lure businesses—including large manufacturing facilities—with promises of low corporate tax rates, low wages, lax regulations, and massive public subsidies. The automotive manufacturing industry has been a key recipient of public subsidies, receiving billions of dollars from Southern states in recent decades (Childers 2024a; Todd 2021). This system of low taxation and corporate giveaways starves other essential public goods, like education and social safety net programs (Mast 2025b). Likewise, weak or nonexistent environmental regulations have contributed to toxic sites and resource degradation that disproportionately affect Black and brown families, reflecting often intentional decisions to site hazardous facilities in low-income communities of color (Bergman 2019).

Some announced manufacturing projects have been cancelled or reduced in size after the Trump administration’s slashing of federal supports for strategic industries, but many projects launched during the Biden administration continue to move forward. These manufacturing investments, both in traditional industries and nascent ones such as electric vehicle (EV) and EV battery manufacturing, are spurring significant job growth in some Southern communities. Yet past experience shows that new investments and resulting jobs are unlikely to generate economic benefits for most Southerners unless local residents are able to ensure that developers and corporations respect workers’ rights, protect local natural resources, and contribute a fair share toward addressing priority community needs.

Community benefits agreements can be powerful vehicles for communities to secure lasting local economic benefits from major industrial development, at both new and existing facilities. A CBA is a legally enforceable contract between a private developer or company and a local coalition—typically made up of labor, community, faith, environmental, and other grassroots organizations—that details how a project will benefit workers and the community, and in turn how the community will support the project (including via potential public investment). Benefits spelled out in a CBA can include commitments to strong labor standards; respect for workers’ rights to organize; equitable workforce recruitment, training, and hiring practices; affordable housing; environmental protections; or a broad range of other community-identified priorities. CBAs are a well-developed model for responsible community development—so far mostly, but not entirely, in regions outside the South—and have been used for many different types of major projects including sports stadiums, events centers, manufacturing plants, airports, transit projects, and more (WRI n.d.).

CBAs can likewise mitigate risks for project developers by ensuring local project support and addressing important concerns early on, whereas failure to engage local communities in major development decisions can otherwise lead to strong community opposition, interruption of development, obstacles to obtaining necessary siting permits or rezoning approvals, or significant legal costs. In an example from June 2024, developers shelved plans for a $1.3 billion data center in Indiana after facing significant local opposition over environmental concerns (Fazili et al. 2025).

Because a CBA is a private, legally binding agreement, it does not require government action and can be used to shape outcomes of major projects even in contexts (as in most of the South) where state legislators have preempted local governments from establishing their own job quality or environmental standards (EPI 2025a). That being said, state and local governments can still have a role in facilitating, negotiating, or enforcing community benefits. Cities like Detroit and Cleveland have ordinances requiring developers of projects using public resources to engage in a community benefits plan process (City of Detroit n.d.; City of Cleveland n.d.). In 2005, Atlanta passed an ordinance specifying worker and community benefits for the Beltline redevelopment (WRI 2025). However, government involvement in community benefits plans does not guarantee strong agreements on its own. A strong labor-community coalition remains essential for securing meaningful community benefits.

Another key strength of a CBA is that it can set standards across all stages of a project’s development to ensure long-term benefits for the community at large. Private developers or public entities sometimes negotiate Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) or Community Workforce Agreements (CWAs) with building trades unions and community partners to set wages, working conditions, and timelines for the construction phase of a complex development project. A CBA can be negotiated alongside a PLA to also ensure pathways to quality jobs for local residents during the operational phases of a project, including any future expansions of the facility or additions to its workforce. A CBA can also secure commitments to build affordable housing, strengthen environmental standards, and provide other benefits to the community such as child care, public parks, or other community spaces.

To be successful, a CBA must also include defined enforcement mechanisms that hold all parties to the agreement accountable. It must clearly establish the obligations of each party, metrics for measuring progress, and ongoing monitoring of compliance with the agreement’s provisions (Last 2025; PWF and CBLC 2016). If the company or the coalition fails to make good-faith efforts on the agreement’s commitments, an arbitration process is initiated. While monitoring of the agreement is an ongoing responsibility of all members of the coalition, providing a pathway for workers to organize in the operational phase of a project is of particular importance. A newly established union at the project site is well-positioned to monitor the commitments of the CBA and hold the company accountable over the long term.

Organizers and advocates should be clear-eyed that while strong CBAs can yield powerful economic outcomes, such agreements are by no means easy to win. There are generally no legal requirements for a particular company or developer to recognize or engage with a labor-community coalition, much less to agree to negotiate and implement a CBA. Building the broad-based, durable coalitions and leverage necessary to compel private interests to engage in CBA negotiations (and then to implement and enforce the terms of a CBA) is unavoidably a challenging, long-term, resource-intensive organizing project. And like any worthwhile organizing, the formation of strong, durable labor-community coalitions is itself a key outcome of successful CBA campaigns. Vastly expanding the capacity of broad-based coalitions and labor, faith, environmental, and other grassroots organizations to gradually build community and worker power in Southern communities is the most essential ingredient for transforming existing power imbalances and, ultimately, upending the failed Southern economic development model.

Indeed, recent initiatives to win CBAs in Southern states have proven so threatening to some corporate interests that they have sought to undermine them. In 2025, Tennessee Republicans passed legislation prohibiting any company that enters into a CBA from receiving state economic development funds—aiming to create obstacles to replication of a highly successful CBA covering Nashville’s soccer stadium, and to discourage a coalition of West Tennessee residents and allied groups calling on Ford and SK Innovation to negotiate a CBA covering its massive BlueOval electric vehicle and battery manufacturing complex (Abrams 2025). In Tennessee and elsewhere, however, labor-community coalitions are nonetheless continuing to organize to ensure that massive, publicly subsidized new facilities yield good jobs and community benefits.

A new wave of Southern manufacturing is an opportunity to transform working conditions in growing industries—and across the South

Growth in Southern manufacturing industries presents a significant opportunity for labor-community coalitions to shape labor standards and community benefits in new plants and facilities—and to shape economic outcomes for generations of Southern workers to come. In recent years, the South has seen a wave of manufacturing investments. Between 2017 and 2023, manufacturing construction doubled in the East South Central Census division (Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi) (O’Brien 2023). The West South Central division (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas) has the highest amount of manufacturing construction spending of any division in the U.S. These investments are part of a long-term trend of manufacturing industries locating in the South, which in recent years was accelerated by large federal investments through the Inflation Reduction Act, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and CHIPS and Science Act. These federal investments included both direct public subsidies and tax credits to businesses that invested in key clean energy manufacturing industries such as the production of batteries, electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind energy products.

In contrast to the typical economic development approach of many Southern states, some recent federal investments have included incentives meant to encourage strong labor standards on projects receiving public funds. While the future of many of these investments (and accompanying incentives) is now uncertain, the U.S. has in the past two years experienced its largest investment in clean energy manufacturing ever, and much of that has occurred in Southern states.{{1}} Since the third quarter of 2023, more than $125 billion worth of clean energy manufacturing investments were announced across Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Texas (CET 2025). Advancing even a portion of these projects would result in thousands of jobs for Southern workers.

Independent of the future of federal support for clean energy manufacturing, the South will likely continue to be the largest manufacturing employer of all U.S. regions. Figure A shows manufacturing employment by region in the United States since 1990. While manufacturing employment overall has fallen during the last three decades, the South has retained the largest share of manufacturing employment of any region. In 2024, 35% of U.S. manufacturing employment was in the South. Furthermore, since 2010, manufacturing employment in the South has grown by 17%, the quickest growth of any region.

Figure A

Manufacturing jobs are often considered to be well-paid, benefit-providing “middle-class” jobs, but there is nothing inherent to the sector that determines their quality. Manufacturing jobs in some industries became “good jobs” thanks to relatively high levels of unionization during the mid-20th century, which improved wages, benefits, and working conditions (Bayard et al. 2024; Rhinehart and McNicholas 2020). As Figure B shows, unionization in manufacturing has fallen in all regions since 1983, but the South has almost without exception had the lowest unionization rate of any region.

Conservative Southern policymakers have long been hostile to union organizing. For example, every Southern state except Maryland and Delaware has passed anti-union so-called right-to-work (RTW) laws, which make it harder for workers to form, join, and sustain unions. Southern states like Florida and Arkansas were among the first to pass such laws in the 1940s, amid a wave of big business backlash against new federal labor laws and white supremacist campaigns to maintain racial hierarchies and suppress multiracial worker organizing. RTW laws suppress unionization rates and, as a result, have driven down wages for both union and nonunion workers alike across the South (Sherer and Gould 2025; Childers 2023).

Figure B

In 2025, Southern manufacturing had a 6.7% unionization rate—slightly below the national unionization rate for private-sector workers (6.8%). Unionization in Southern manufacturing grew by more than a percentage point between 2024 and 2025, a notable one-year reversal of the industry’s long-standing unionization decline, consistent with overall union gains in the South (McNicholas, Poydock, and Shierholz 2026). Nevertheless, Southern manufacturing’s unionization rate remains well below the Midwest’s (11.2%), the region where manufacturing is the most heavily unionized. Unions have a strong impact on job quality because they leverage worker power collectively to raise wages, win benefits like health care and retirement, and enact other meaningful workplace improvements, such as improved health and safety standards. These benefits can extend beyond unionized workers themselves, helping set standards across a workplace, and with enough density, across an industry.

As unionization declines in an industry or region, so does job quality. For instance, as unionization rates have fallen in auto manufacturing, the pay advantage for auto workers compared with the median worker has declined significantly (Barrett and Bivens 2021). Figure C demonstrates how this relationship holds across regions in 2025. Manufacturing jobs in the South have a pay advantage of 7%, the lowest of any region. Southern manufacturing workers also experience the lowest median hourly pay of any region ($24.41).{{2}}

Figure C

The Southern economic development model clearly hurts the region’s workers by denying them their right to organize and suppressing their wages, but there are harmful spillover effects for their communities as well. Corporate tax breaks with no strings attached provide billions of dollars to corporations that could otherwise be used to invest in schools and other essential government services. These types of tax breaks might be worthy of consideration if manufacturing employers were required to create high-quality jobs for local workers and make long-term investments in local community development needs (i.e., housing, infrastructure, education, etc.). Without such protections, they are simply taxpayer-funded giveaways that often drain the very resources needed to develop the local workforce recruited by large new facilities.

Southern states enact little to no regulation of workplace safety or environmental pollution. This results in unsafe workplaces with greater levels of injury and death (Childers 2024a). Environmental pollution from manufacturing sites can negatively affect public health by contaminating water, air, and soil. New manufacturing investments also can mean significant changes to the demand for housing in a community. A new plant or factory can drive up the cost of living for nearby residents without yielding any economic benefits to a local community. Labor, community, and environmental groups need to collaborate on shared solutions to effectively address these intertwined challenges.

Labor-community coalitions can obtain commitments that ensure “economic development” means shared prosperity for all

Labor-community coalitions organizing around manufacturing projects can secure commitments that offer direct economic benefits to workers and communities, while also establishing groundwork for the growth of worker and community power in the area. While a campaign to win a CBA can be the impetus for forming a local labor-community coalition, the alignment and relationships built through this shared work can lead to longer-term, sustainable coalitions capable of transforming local and state power relationships.

The following section analyzes a set of commitments that can be included in a CBA for a manufacturing project. The CBA framework is flexible and allows for the inclusion of many different types of commitments prioritized by particular groups of workers, community members, and environmental groups. This report focuses on key types of commitments including union neutrality agreements, living wage floors, equitable workforce development practices (such as local or targeted hire policies and programs to expand pathways to apprenticeship training), affordable housing provisions, child care benefits, and environmental protections. Each type of commitment is analyzed in terms of its economic impacts and effectiveness in reshaping local economic development to ensure that public investments generate broadly shared community benefits.

The construction phase and Project Labor Agreements (PLA)

This report mostly focuses on community benefits for workers during the operational phase of a manufacturing plant. Nevertheless, it is just as vital to set high labor standards during the construction phase. Strong community benefits agreements are ideally developed in tandem with strong project construction labor standards set via project labor agreements (PLAs). A PLA is a multiparty agreement between a project owner and a coalition of labor unions that sets out labor standards and dispute resolution procedures to promote stability and efficiency on complex infrastructure projects while also ensuring the project will generate good jobs. PLAs ensure that construction projects run smoothly, are safer, and pay workers fairly (Mangundayao, McNicholas, and Poydock 2022). By setting negotiated wage and benefit levels for each type of work on a project, PLAs level the playing field in highly competitive construction bidding processes; they ensure that contractors base bids on their ability to deliver on quality and efficiency, rather than low-ball cost estimates that reflect intent to pay substandard wages or cut corners on safety. By standardizing wage and benefit levels and taking them out of the competition in the bidding process, PLAs incentivize the use of skilled union labor, which is 14% more productive than nonunionized construction work (McFadden, Santosh, and Shetty 2022). PLAs typically set wages, fringe benefits, and working conditions but can also include requirements to utilize certain numbers of apprentices, hire locally or from certain target worker populations, and/or provide child care or other benefits that open up pathways to good union construction jobs for members of underrepresented groups.

Several of the types of standards for construction workers typically included in a PLA have analogous labor standards in the operational phase. For instance, a CBA can secure commitments for local or targeted hiring and the development of registered apprenticeship programs in a manufacturing facility, extending equitable recruitment and high-quality training requirements that a PLA typically sets for construction into the operational phase of a project.

Removing obstacles to unionization: Neutrality and labor peace agreements

Protecting workers’ freedom to unionize has historically been key to turning manufacturing jobs into good jobs. This remains just as true today. However, like workers across the country, Southern manufacturing workers continue to face formidable obstacles—including weak labor laws, powerful anti-union corporations, and hostile politicians—to exercising their legally protected rights to form or join a union. Employers are charged with violating federal labor law in more than 40% of union elections and spend more than $400 million a year on “union avoidance” consultants (McNicholas et al. 2019; McNicholas et al. 2023). Because existing weak labor laws do not effectively deter employers from union busting, these tactics are treated by many employers as a normal cost of doing business—stacking the deck unfairly against workers seeking to exercise their rights to organize and collectively bargain.

Union neutrality agreements can help safeguard workers’ right to form unions free of the types of interference employers often deploy. Under a neutrality agreement, an employer agrees to remain “neutral” and not interfere with workers’ decisions on whether to unionize. Such agreements typically include joint commitments to a “card check” process for verifying whether a majority of employees have indicated interest in forming a union. Unions and employers sometimes also enter into a labor peace agreement, where unions agree not to engage in certain types of picketing, work stoppages, or other economic disruptions during the organizing process in exchange for employer neutrality.

Employers can also choose to commit to union neutrality as a matter of principle or company policy. Union neutrality—providing workers a more free and fair choice to decide whether to unionize—has been a key component of successful unionization drives in Southern manufacturing. To take two recent examples:

• In 2024, workers at the Volkswagen (VW) Chattanooga plant voted to join the United Auto Workers. Like many European corporations, the German-based VW has an established policy of maintaining neutrality in union election processes, although workers still voiced concerns that in its U.S. facilities, VW management tried to intimidate and dissuade workers from forming a union (Bomey 2024).
• In tandem with community benefits agreement negotiations with New Flyer in Anniston, Alabama, the United Steel Workers and Communications Workers of America negotiated three neutrality agreements with New Flyer and its subsidiaries in 2022. Over the two years that followed, these union neutrality agreements enabled workers to pursue five successful union drives, including at the New Flyer facility in Alabama (Last 2025; Sasha 2024).

Successful recent instances of union organizing in Southern manufacturing facilities have been powerful enough to generate their own backlash. Because of the threat that union neutrality agreements represent to the reigning Southern economic development model, several conservative state legislatures in the South have used model legislation developed by the American Legislative Exchange Council to pass laws intended to interfere with these agreements (Sachs 2024). While the legality of such measures remains in question and has not yet been tested, Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia now all have legislation in place stating that employers who agree to a union neutrality agreement will be barred from receiving state economic development funds, disincentivizing companies from participating in these agreements (Stephenson 2024).

Importance of unionization to improve manufacturing jobs and wages

Securing unionization in Southern manufacturing can have significant wage benefits for workers. Unionized manufacturing jobs are more likely to provide family-sustaining wages. Unionization in manufacturing is associated with a 17.9% wage premium for workers (Scott et al. 2022). This means that compared with similar workers in terms of education, occupation, experience, race, and ethnicity, unionized manufacturing workers are paid almost a fifth more per hour than their nonunionized counterparts.

Table 1 translates this union premium into how much more unionized workers in the South could make on an hourly, annual, and plant-wide basis. The average nonunionized manufacturing worker in the South earns $34.50 an hour, so with the typical union premium, that worker would be earning an additional $6.18 an hour. If that worker works full time, year-round, the hourly premium translates to $12,846 more a year. To illustrate the potential impact of unionization in an entire plant, we take the example of the BlueOval auto manufacturing investment in Tennessee, which is projected to create 6,000 jobs (TN Office of Governor 2023). For a plant of that size, unionization could mean more than $77 million in additional wages for workers.

Table 1

Wage gains from successful unionization are not hypothetical for manufacturing workers in the South. For example, in 2024, workers at New Flyer in Anniston, Alabama, ratified a union contract with significant pay raises, with some workers gaining raises of up to 38% through 2026 (CWA 2024). Establishing a union contract with transparent pay ladders will also help New Flyer workers combat persistent pay gaps between white and Black workers in Anniston’s manufacturing industry (Erickson 2021).

The benefits of unionization go far beyond hourly wage increases. The workers at New Flyer also achieved significant gains in terms of vacation time and retirement contributions. Unionized workers secure critical benefits like health care and sick days at greater rates than their nonunion peers. Adjusting for differences in industry, sector, and region, union workers are 18.3% more likely to have employer-covered health insurance than their nonunion counterparts (EPI 2021). Almost 9 in 10 private-sector union workers have paid sick days, compared with less than three-fourths of nonunion private-sector workers (EPI 2021).

Unions also contribute to safer and healthier working conditions across a wide range of industries (Dean, McCallum, and Venkataramani 2022). By strengthening workers’ voice on the job, unions empower workers to report safety issues and demand better protocols. One example of this is that unionized construction sites experience significantly lower rates of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) violations than nonunionized sites (Manzo IV, Jekot, and Bruno 2021). This is despite the fact that unionized workplaces actually experience greater rates of OSHA inspections than other workplaces, likely because many unions maintain active health and safety committees and because unionized workers have greater access to education on how to recognize safety hazards and are less afraid of reprisals from their employer for reporting them (Leigh and Chakalov 2021).

As the New Flyer agreement demonstrates, a strong CBA includes (or is negotiated in tandem with) union neutrality commitments ensuring that workers have a free and fair choice to unionize, without employer interference or retaliation. Securing a pathway to unionization can provide direct benefits to workers at a particular facility, while also increasing local organizing capacity and coalition strength for future negotiations over new projects and local development decisions. Not only is a new union a legally recognized institution that can monitor and hold the company accountable for commitments in the CBA, but it can also play a critical role in amplifying demands of workers and communities outside of the workplace and building power for working people more broadly.

Living wage floor

CBAs can also include commitments to minimum wage floors for the workers who will operate a new facility. For example, the 2018 Nashville Soccer CBA in Tennessee included a commitment to an hourly wage of at least $15.50 for stadium workers (SUN 2018). This provision set the stadium’s wage floor well above the minimum wage in Nashville, where workers—like all Tennessee workers and many across the South—are otherwise subject to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

If a wage floor set by a CBA is high enough, it can help workers achieve a living wage in the place that they live. What constitutes a living wage must be determined by labor and community partners (Gould, Mokhiber, and DeCourcy 2024). For example, a living wage could be defined narrowly as covering the necessities for a single adult, or more broadly as including the needs of a working parent and their children. A living wage target must also make assumptions about nonwage income such as health care benefits and government transfers. Manufacturing workers in the South can also rightfully seek wages that not only cover bare necessities but provide the family-sustaining resources needed to be healthy and thrive.

Figure D shows the share of manufacturing workers in the South earning less than $30 an hour, or $62,400 a year in wages for a full-time worker. More than 3 in 5 (60.8%) manufacturing workers in the region earn less than $30 an hour. Around 80% of Southern Black and Hispanic manufacturing workers earn below the $30 threshold. Women in manufacturing are also more likely to earn below $30 an hour (71.8%) than men (59.1%).

Figure D

A $30 wage floor exceeds the minimum costs for a single adult in most jurisdictions in the U.S., but still barely covers needs for many families with children in manufacturing-dense counties nationwide. EPI’s Family Budget Calculator estimates living wage standards by county that cover modest but necessary costs families face like food, rent, and transportation in the United States. Table 2 shows three Southern counties with significant clean energy manufacturing investments in recent years (CET 2025). Each county has significant manufacturing employment, exceeding the U.S. average for manufacturing employment density. For each county, living wage standards from the Family Budget Calculator are listed for different family types. In Morgan County, Georgia, and Maury County, Tennessee, a single adult with a child must earn at least $30 an hour to cover basic needs. For a single economic provider to cover the costs of a four-person family, they must earn over $35 an hour in all the counties listed. These living wage standards indicate that a $30 wage floor would provide significant economic security for workers with smaller families or multiple wage-earners.

Table 2

A CBA that secures a strong living wage standard in a manufacturing facility can create a virtuous cycle that brings about greater prosperity in the area. Higher wages for low- and middle-income workers boost spending in the local economy because these workers spend a greater share of their paycheck than high-income workers (Anderson 2014). Other employers in the area might have to raise their wages to compete for workers with the CBA-bound employer. The establishment of a living wage also demonstrates to other workers in the area that higher wages are a feasible goal through collective action.

Local and/or targeted hire policies

Local and targeted hiring refers to policies that prioritize recruitment of individuals from the local community, or workers from specific groups who are otherwise underrepresented in a given workforce relative to local population demographics, such as women, people of color, veterans, low-income workers, formerly incarcerated workers, or workers with disabilities (Lawliss, Finfer, and Sherer 2022). A local hire policy can require that a certain percentage of hours worked on a project be completed by local workers. These policies can also require giving local workers the first option to apply for jobs on a project. For the prosperity created through manufacturing investments in the South to be shared equitably, it is important that local community members have access to the jobs that are created during both the construction and operation phases of a development. Workforce policies also should be designed to remove barriers to employment for groups of workers—especially workers of color and women—who have historically been excluded from many construction and manufacturing career opportunities. Increasing access to these well-paying jobs can increase economic mobility for workers with more limited opportunities.

Despite these benefits, some state policymakers have been hostile to local hire as a public policy. In 2015, Nashville voters passed a ballot initiative that required city-funded construction projects to dedicate 40% of construction hours to Nashville residents, with 25% of those hours going to low-income Nashville residents (Blair et al. 2020). The Tennessee state legislature then quickly passed a bill that preempted the city from creating its own local hire policy.

As Figure E shows, the harm of Tennessee’s preemption of local hire falls disproportionately on workers of color. The construction workforce in the Nashville metro area has a higher share of workers of color and immigrant workers compared with the state construction workforce overall. Black workers are 8.2% of the construction workforce in Davidson County, but 5.5% of the overall state workforce. More than half (51.5%) of construction workers in Davidson County are Hispanic, compared with less than a quarter (20.1%) of the state overall. Davidson County construction workers are also more than twice as likely to be immigrants (40.2%) than in all of Tennessee (14.8%). State preemption of local hire prevented Nashville from ensuring that public spending would benefit local workers. However, private agreements like CBAs offer an opportunity to incorporate local hire and/or targeted hire requirements into publicly subsidized developments, even in heavily preempted jurisdictions.

Figure E

In 2018, three years after the preemption of Nashville’s local hire policy, the labor-community coalition Stand Up Nashville was able to leverage $275 million in public subsidies for a new professional soccer stadium into a successful CBA (SUN 2018). The Nashville Soccer CBA included commitments to local hire for stadium workers, particularly workers from “Promise Zones,” i.e., high-poverty areas with fewer economic opportunities (SUN 2020). Through the CBA, Nashville Soccer Holding, LLC agreed to consider qualified Promise Zone resident referrals for jobs at the stadium. So far, the program has succeeded in hiring Promise Zone residents. In 2023, Nashville Soccer Club had hired 180 employees, 80 of whom were residents of Promise Zones (SUN 2023).

CBAs in the South and throughout the country are securing similar commitments to local and targeted hiring in clean energy and manufacturing investments. In Alabama, the New Flyer CBA commits the company to ensuring that at least 45% of new hires and 20% of promotions are members of “Historically Disadvantaged Groups” (Sabin 2022).{{4}} In Massachusetts, a new offshore wind terminal entered into a CBA with the City of Salem—setting targets for hiring of local workers, workers of color, and women workers (Sabin 2024). The CBA for Maine Aqua Ventis, an offshore wind facility, includes local hiring opportunities for residents of Monhegan, Maine (Sabin 2017). 

These types of agreements help ensure that local residents benefit from large investments in their communities, particularly when policymakers have invested public dollars in the form of tax breaks or corporate subsidies to support a new facility. Ensuring local workers are prioritized in training programs and hiring processes for newly created jobs also helps community members stay in the area when housing costs are driven up by a large new manufacturing investment. And in the longer term, providing pathways for local workers to benefit directly from these investments strengthens the labor and community alliances needed to hold developers and corporations accountable over time.

Equitable workforce development through apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships

In addition to local hire policies, which help create equitable pathways for local workers to secure good jobs at a manufacturing site, construction and manufacturing projects require a skilled workforce to operate safely and productively. A robust ecosystem of registered apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs can help ensure both that employers find the skilled workers they need in a large new manufacturing facility, and that local workers can access pathways to newly created jobs.

Registered apprenticeship programs are training programs vetted by federal or state agencies to ensure use of high-quality, best-practice training standards and approved curriculum aligned with skills needed to succeed in a particular occupation. Registered apprenticeships combine paid on-the-job and classroom training and result in a recognized, portable credential certifying that a worker has the skills and experience necessary for a specific occupation. Pre-apprenticeship programs (also known as apprenticeship readiness programs) recruit and prepare participants for registered apprenticeships—often partnering with community organizations—to open pathways to apprenticeship for women, Black and brown youth, immigrants, workers with disabilities, or others historically excluded from skilled trades occupations. The best practice is for these apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships to be joint programs between unions and employers, providing high-quality instruction tailored to industry needs and training that leads to placement in a high-quality job with wages, conditions, and benefits negotiated into a union contract. Often, a vital building block for successful manufacturing apprenticeship programs is the establishment of a unionized workforce at a facility.

Unlike lower-quality workforce development programs, registered apprenticeships pay workers fairly for their labor during their training—and in joint apprenticeship programs, the wages and benefits of apprentices are negotiated into a union contract and typically include scheduled increases as apprentices progress through the training program. Registered apprentices (across joint and non-joint programs) typically see their earnings increase 49% between the year before they enter the program and the year after completing it (Walton, Gardiner, and Barnow 2022). These increases in earnings are greater than for similar workers who do not enter the apprenticeship during the same time period (Katz et al. 2022). Apprenticeships can also be particularly attractive to workers because they are debt-free. Most apprentices (60%) consider debt avoidance the most important reason for choosing to enroll in an apprenticeship (Walton, Gardiner, and Barnow 2022).

Apprenticeships can be a powerful tool for increasing the diversity of construction and other industry workforces. While participation of women and workers of color in apprenticeships has grown in recent years, this growth has been painfully slow for decades (CEA 2024). Research finds that union-based (joint) apprenticeship programs have been more successful than other types of apprenticeships at increasing diversity in the construction industry (Ormiston and Bilginsoy 2024). Joint apprenticeships enroll a higher share of women, Black workers, and Hispanic workers than non-joint programs, and have higher program completion rates for all workers, including for women and workers of color. Community benefits agreements can secure commitments and partnerships that equitably grow this pipeline of workers and set enforceable local and targeted hiring goals which in turn spur diversification of construction and manufacturing apprenticeship programs.

For instance, the New Flyer CBA creates a partnership between the company and coalition partners to develop pre-apprenticeship and technical training programs that expand access to manufacturing jobs for workers with low incomes and from disadvantaged groups (Sabin 2022). For these programs to succeed, community groups and educational institutions must have an active role in shaping the programs and connecting workers to these opportunities. The development of a growing skilled workforce and a robust, high-quality workforce development ecosystem can in turn be a strong incentive for bringing more facilities to an area over time. In 2015, Polaris stated that a significant factor in its decision to choose Huntsville, Alabama, for a new production facility was the area’s skilled workforce (Polaris 2015). As more workers participate in high-quality training programs that lead to union jobs, the organized workforce of the region will grow, strengthening labor-community coalitions the next time there is an opportunity to shape new development in the region.

Child care

Child care is an essential but extremely costly expense for many working families across the South. Average annual infant care costs in the South range from $6,868 in Mississippi to $14,277 in Virginia.{{5}} The Department of Health and Human Services recommends that 7% or less of family income go toward infant child care costs, but typical Southern families spend significantly more. In Alabama, infant care costs are 9.8% of median family income, while in Oklahoma the share is 15.4% (EPI 2025b).

Increasing access to high-quality, affordable child care not only makes work more accessible to parents (and especially to women, who on average continue to assume disproportionate care responsibilities), but is a powerful investment in children’s development that can help narrow class and racial inequalities (Morrisey 2020). In addition, child care workers tend to work for very low wages and experience poverty at greater rates than the typical worker.

A large manufacturing investment in a locality might produce a significant number of jobs, and in turn increase the demand of workers and their families to live nearby. This is likely to increase the need for child care services in the region. However, data show that child care employment has not kept up with manufacturing growth in Southern counties. Table 3 compares counties with high manufacturing density, where manufacturing employment makes up more than the national average (9% in 2009), with those with lower manufacturing employment density (EPI 2025c).

Table 3

Between 2009 and 2024, manufacturing employment in high-manufacturing-density counties in the South grew 15.9%, achieving faster growth than similar counties in the U.S. overall (12.1%). However, over the same period, child care employment only grew 4.5% in Southern high-manufacturing-density counties, far below the national rate of 14.2%. Child care employment growth in the South for low-manufacturing-density counties (22.3%) is also below the national level (28.5%). The South systematically underinvests in child care, despite its importance to a healthy economy in the region.

CBAs and PLAs have been used to secure both the construction of physical child care spaces and financial support for actual services. The Nashville Soccer CBA reserved 4,000 square feet for the development of a child care center (SUN 2020). In 2001, the CBA for the North Hollywood Commons mixed-use development project in Southern California secured a commitment to an on-site child care center. Fifty child care spaces at the center were reserved for low- and moderate-income families (Sabin 2001). In the Boston area, unions have secured Project Labor Agreements that seek to address the unique child care needs of the construction industry. The PLA for the Winthrop Center in Boston established a child care access fund to research, develop, and implement alternative child care models within the construction industry, with a particular focus on assisting single mothers with child care while supporting their career (NEREJ 2019).

These types of investments are vital supports for working families, particularly mothers, seeking to balance professional and care work. Combined with union neutrality for the child care workers at these facilities, commitments to providing child care can further elevate worker power in the region and help large new facilities recruit and retain the skilled, experienced workforces they need to succeed.

Affordable housing

Without strategies to address the housing needs of a community impacted by a new manufacturing investment, local residents can experience increased economic precarity or forced displacement. The local housing impacts of a large industrial investment can be complex. A significant manufacturing investment can make a local community more attractive as workers move into the area to be close to their place of work. Manufacturing investments are also likely to be paired with prospective real estate investments in anticipation of future development around the original project. State and local governments might use eminent domain and other purchasing mechanisms to secure land for roads and other new infrastructure. These dynamics can increase housing costs for residents, particularly renters who are most vulnerable to the impacts of housing speculation and prospective rent increases. For instance, the BlueOval development in West Tennessee is already reported to have increased property prices and housing rents (TCG 2023). Homeowners, particularly those with fixed incomes, can also be more burdened with housing costs as higher demand in the area increases property tax valuations (Payne 2019).

On the other hand, extreme proximity to an industrial site can expose residents to environmental hazards and noise pollution, and may be considered unsightly, which decreases property values (Currie et al. 2016; Upton and Talpur 2024). The exact distribution of these changes in demand for housing across a community will depend on the type of industry and any other types of development included in the project.

Industrial investments like manufacturing facilities tend to take place in rural and semirural areas, in part because land is relatively inexpensive (Wiley 2015). While the counties with a higher share of manufacturing employment tend to have lower housing costs than urban areas, housing affordability remains a significant issue for workers. On average, across high-manufacturing-density counties in the South, a two-adult, two-child household must cover more than $14,000 a year in housing costs.{{6}} A large share of renters in high-manufacturing-density counties in the South still are cost-burdened by housing, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent, utilities, and other housing costs. As shown in Figure F, across the Southern states, the share of cost-burdened households in high-manufacturing-density counties ranges from 28% in Arkansas to 47% in Florida. More than 2 in 5 (42%) of Texas renters in these counties are also housing cost-burdened.

Figure F

A strong CBA will secure commitments to build a certain number of affordable housing units or dedicate a share of housing at the site as affordable. The Nashville Stadium CBA created agreements that at least 12% of residential units in the development would be affordable and that 20% of those units would be three-bedroom units to accommodate families (SUN 2020). The Staples Center CBA in Los Angeles, California, was another successful example of strong affordable housing benefits. The 2001 agreement for the development of an expanded convention center, theater, and surrounding housing, hotel, and retail space secured commitments that 20% of housing units would be affordable. The developer also agreed to provide $650,000 in interest-free loans to nonprofit affordable housing developers in the local community (WRI 2001).

Even in situations where a labor-community coalition is unable to reach a final CBA with a company, coalition organizing around community demands can still deliver meaningful affordable housing victories. Between 2002 and 2006, a labor-community coalition in Denver pressured Cherokee Investment Partners to provide community benefits as part of their redevelopment of the site of the Gates Rubber Company. The coalition leveraged zoning changes necessary for the project and a potential subsidy package from the city to extract benefits including an affordable housing plan for hundreds of rental and for-sale affordable housing units (Ingram and Hong 2011; PowerSwitch Action 2025).

In 2005, the labor-community coalition organized by Georgia STAND-UP was able to attach community benefits to an Atlanta city ordinance allocating $2 billion in public funding for the Atlanta Beltline transit-oriented development project. The city resolution shaped by the coalition established an affordable housing trust fund and a goal of developing 5,600 affordable housing units (PowerSwitch Action 2025). As of 2024, more than 4,100 affordable units have been created as part of the project (Atlanta Beltline, Inc. 2024).

Labor-community coalitions can also pursue other land-use commitments beyond the development of affordable housing. The BlueOval Good Neighbors coalition in West Tennessee has demanded commitments to protect land for farmers in the area. The development of the Ford factory has pushed Tennessee’s Department of Transportation to pursue land for new roadways through purchase and eminent domain. The area targeted for new roadways is a majority Black farming community, and several farmers are engaged in lawsuits with the state over the state’s meager compensation offers for their land (Wadhwani 2023). The coalition has demanded that farmers be offered replacement land in exchange for their sold land, as well as the creation of a 10,000-acre community land trust (BlueOval Good Neighbors n.d.).

Creating or protecting affordable housing is essential for protecting the communities that are necessary for any effective labor-community coalition. Large developments can cause instability within the community as new residents arrive, and existing residents are buffeted by rising housing costs. Because of historic and ongoing racial discrimination in housing policy, labor policy, and real estate practices, the costs of these changes are most likely to impact Black and Hispanic workers. Black families and other workers of color are the most likely to be cost-burdened by housing (JCHS 2024). Creating housing for workers and families to remain in the area is vital for continued collective action to secure benefits from developers and hold those developers accountable for their promises.

Environmental standards, funding, and monitoring

Large-scale manufacturing projects often have significant environmental impacts, both during construction and once they are in operation. Air, noise, and groundwater pollution; harm to wildlife habitats; and residents’ exposure to toxic byproducts are just a few examples of common concerns, and these consequences can be severe when projects are approved without sufficient environmental consideration. The consequences of large manufacturing projects often disproportionately harm communities of color and low-wealth areas throughout the South (Brouk 2024). For decades, poor and Black residents in the region have been exposed to toxic chemicals, pollution, and other environmental dangers at alarming rates (Bergman 2019).

In 2021, the Tennessee governor approved the construction of a General Motors lithium battery supplier in the city of Spring Hill, on the banks of the Duck River. Though the project was seen as an economic success, the plant’s operation has taken a toll on the fragile river ecosystem. The lithium battery factory is not the only strain—just eight companies along the river drain tens of millions of gallons of water daily (Wadhwani 2024). This enormous water usage has lowered river water levels, threatened biodiversity, and harmed local tourism and recreation. Advocates for the river’s health blame the state’s prioritization of manufacturing expansion without regard to the long-term environmental or economic consequences for local residents or other existing local industries.

CBAs are a tool that may help community-labor coalitions address the environmental impacts of data centers in the South. Data centers are booming across the United States, but particularly in Southern states like Georgia, Texas, and Virginia (Walker and Goldsmith 2026). New centers are heavy users of water and energy, create noise and air pollution, and are driving up electricity costs nationwide both by increasing demand for energy and requiring utilities to invest in new infrastructure paid for by all ratepayers (Merchant and Guerra 2025; Bizo et al. 2021; AI NOW 2025; Reed 2025). For example, in Virginia, electric bills were on track to increase as much as 25% in 2025 because of data centers (Penn and Weise 2025).

Growing community concerns surrounding data centers could create leverage for labor-community coalitions to pursue CBAs and other community benefits strategies. In 2025, community opposition blocked or delayed $64 billion in data center projects across the nation (Data Center Watch 2025). As community resistance to data centers continues to grow, more developers may recognize the need to come to the table with local coalitions to negotiate binding commitments on environmental and economic outcomes to secure project approvals. A handful of localities have begun to create agreements with data center developers regulating water use and securing commitments to green energy use (Turner Lee and West 2026).

Past development projects provide examples of how communities have used CBAs to secure long-term commitments to clean energy transition and protection of local natural resources in a multitude of ways, from mandating that any new construction must meet specific sustainability standards to requiring companies to contribute a set dollar amount to a city’s renewable energy transition fund. In Virginia, the City of Richmond Resort Casino CBA ensured the developing and operating company would design and construct all project buildings to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver standards and would use previously existing pavement where possible (WRI 2021). The agreement also required the developer to attempt to reduce the urban heat island effect by planting shade trees along sidewalks and using other landscaping methods (WRI 2021). These agreements can mitigate additional environmental harm in areas that have already been polluted. A CBA between the Town of Waterloo, New York, and Seneca Meadows, Inc. regarding a landfill expansion commits the waste management company to pay for the development of new public water lines and other potable water infrastructure if existing public water wells become contaminated (WRI 2005).

CBAs can also be used to expand the positive impact of an already climate-friendly project. In New York, a CBA with an offshore windfarm developer stipulates that the company must contribute $2 million to the town of East Hampton’s Ocean Industries Sustainability Program (WRI 2018). Additionally, Deepwater Wind South Fork, LLC must spend $200,000 to establish an Energy Sustainability and Resilience Fund to support East Hampton’s transition to 100% renewable energy (WRI 2018). CBAs with environmentally focused companies provide valuable opportunities for communities looking to address climate change, especially where state governments have failed to invest in environmental programs.

A CBA can achieve a variety of climate and environmental commitments from a company but is also a strong starting point for building local capacity to monitor resource use, pollution, and other environmental priorities. A strong coalition of community, labor, and environmental groups can play essential roles in implementing and enforcing CBA commitments in contexts where understaffed government agencies have limited ability to monitor or investigate pollution and other environmental harms. Instead, workers and community members are often the first to report harmful practices and safety concerns. A strong CBA can provide opportunities for labor and environmental groups to work together to monitor and protect worker and community health, natural resources, and ecosystems.

Conclusion

For decades, Southern economic policies shaped by dominant business and corporate interests have resulted in poor working conditions and failed to ensure that profits generated by publicly subsidized development are shared with local workers and communities. Confronting the deep, long-standing imbalances of power that have entrenched this failed economic development model will require significant organizing and coalition-building to increase the collective power of workers and community members to shape different outcomes from the latest Southern manufacturing boom. Building new forms of worker and community power will be equally necessary to counter escalating authoritarian actions of the Trump administration, which closely parallel many features of the failed Southern economic development model that by design prioritizes corporations over workers and communities.

Our analysis shows that community benefits agreements could be powerful tools for Southern labor and community groups building the shared power necessary to reshape local and eventually regional economies. When strong coalitions of labor, environmental, faith-based, and other grassroots community organizations are able to build the necessary power to bring a company or developer to the table to negotiate an enforceable agreement, such coalitions can secure measurable economic benefits like higher wages, respect for workers’ rights to unionize, local or targeted hiring, protection of natural resources, or more affordable housing. Such economic gains are beneficial in themselves, but they also raise expectations, build local capacity to pursue additional gains, and demonstrate to the community at large that local residents can shape their own economic futures, and that these types of victories are achievable in the face of the Southern status quo.

While the urgent project of upending the Southern economic development model will require vigorous and persistent organizing across many sectors and geographies, community benefits agreements are one key strategy for turning manufacturing jobs into good jobs, ensuring long-term local economic gains from new industrial investments, and even renewing democracy in contexts where it has long been suppressed. Forming strong, long-lasting labor-community coalitions is essential to winning concrete gains for local workers as well as reshaping the political fabric of Southern communities and increasing working people’s influence over broader state or regional economic policy decisions. Winning and implementing any strong CBA requires the formation of an empowered labor-community coalition, which ideally endures and gains greater strength, experience, and influence over time. Just as the economic benefits of unionization extend far beyond an individual workplace, establishing a strong CBA coalition can create broader positive impacts across a community or region—delivering higher-quality jobs; more equitable tax systems; stronger public services; and healthier, more inclusive political systems.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the AFL-CIO Center for Transformational Organizing for their partnership and invaluable contributions in the production of this report. The authors are also grateful to Athena Last and Ian Elder at Jobs to Move America and Ben Beach at PowerSwitch Action for their expert feedback.

Appendix

Appendix Table 1

Notes

{{1.}} Clean energy manufacturing includes manufacturing of batteries, electric vehicles, mineral products, solar energy products, and wind energy products.

{{2.}} Workers in Southern states experience lower wages than in other regions even after adjusting for cost-of-living differences (Childers 2023).

{{3.}} The facilities covered by these agreements included plants in Alabama, California, Kentucky, Minnesota, New York, and Wisconsin.

{{4.}} This category includes workers who are Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color; women; LGBTQ+ persons; systems-impacted people (formerly incarcerated people); persons emancipated from the foster care system; residents of Anniston, Alabama, lacking GED or high school diploma; and veterans.

{{5.}} Southern states excluding D.C., Delaware, and Maryland.

{{6.}} EPI analysis of Family Budget Calculator and Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data.

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What is happening?

At a time when working-class families are already facing a weakened job market, high prices, and general economic uncertainty due to erratic federal policy, Republicans in Congress seem committed to worsening their economic anxieties. The enhanced ACA premium tax credits, instituted with the American Rescue Plan (ARPA) and extended through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), were not extended through the Republican-led reconciliation budget. These credits have led to the largest increase in health insurance coverage since the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, and saved enrollees on average $705 annually in 2024.

Working-class families across the country will feel the implications of this policy failure as health insurance premiums rise (Groundwork Collaborative 2025). However, Black families, who face higher rates of poverty and uninsurance even under “normal” circumstances, are positioned to be hit especially hard by the loss of the enhanced subsidies. The loss of the premium tax credits is also set to economically drain the cities where lots of Black families live, especially those cities in states that neglected to expand health coverage through the ACA (Ortaliza 2025).

This analysis will focus on 10 major metro areas: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.

Impact on Black families across 10 major metro areas

The Affordable Care Act, largely through its Medicaid expansion in 2014, set in motion a decade-long trend of falling rates of uninsurance throughout the country (Ortaliza, McGough, and Cox 2025; Hill et al. 2025). However, some states, particularly those throughout the South where the majority of Black Americans live and work, refused to expand Medicaid through the ACA (Childers 2023). Southern states’ refusal to expand access to Medicaid has meant lower coverage rates in those states and that a large share of Black Americans fall into what is known as the health insurance “coverage gap”; that is, they qualify for neither Medicaid nor traditional ACA subsidies (Lukens and Harker 2024). Even outside the coverage gap, many individuals who do qualify for ACA subsidies remain uninsured due to cost and enrollment difficulties.

The enhanced ACA premium tax credits do not eliminate racial disparities in health insurance coverage, nor do they close the coverage gap faced by Black Americans. However, the tax credits do make insurance more affordable, and thus practically more accessible, for those individuals who qualify. This increase in accessibility has led to the largest increase in Marketplace enrollment since the Medicaid expansion, with outsized increases among low-income individuals and in states that did not expand Medicaid. The loss of the tax credits would reverse hard-won progress made in reducing racial disparities in uninsurance rates (Buettgens et al. 2025).

Table 1

Figure A

Younger and healthier individuals are more likely to forgo coverage when faced with a sharp increase in the price of insurance compared with those who are less healthy and for whom coverage is less optional (Monaghan 2014). The expiration of the tax credits will therefore likely bring a knock-on increase in premiums as younger enrollees forgo coverage, since insurance premiums are cheaper for everyone when there is a large pool of healthier enrollees.

The remaining enrollees in the insurance pool of each metro area will also see premiums, and thus their health care spending, increase. Given that the states where larger shares of the Black population live are those set to be hit hardest by increased rates of uninsurance, we anticipate that the impact on consumption in metro areas in those states will be more severe.

Table 2

Access to health care in the United States is largely mediated by health insurance coverage. As a result, losing coverage in most cases means losing access to adequate and necessary care. Indeed, though access to health insurance does not guarantee affordability, uninsured adults are nearly twice as likely to report some difficulty in affording health care compared with those with insurance, with three-quarters either skipping or postponing needed care due to cost (Sparks et al. 2025).

Over time, a lack of access to adequate health care contributes to excess mortality. Black Americans are more likely to be uninsured, more likely to face difficulties in affording health care, and are thus more likely to postpone or skip care due to cost. To the extent that the expiration of the enhanced premium tax credits does lead to reduced health care access, it will likely also lead to excess mortality (Sommers, Long, and Baicker 2014).

Table 3

The loss of the enhanced premium tax credits will have knock-on economic costs, in addition to the public health costs resulting from excess mortality and increased health care costs for remaining marketplace enrollees. We assume a multiplier of 1.8 for health care spending, meaning that every lost dollar in premium tax credits reduces economic activity in a given metro area by $1.80 (estimates range from a multiplier of 1.5 to 2; see methodology section). Metro areas with large Black populations in states that lack Medicaid expansion will face significant losses in economic activity from this reduction in federal spending.

Table 4

Metro areas with large Black populations will also suffer significant productivity losses due to diminished worker health, assuming a productivity loss of $1,650 per newly uninsured Black worker. Finally, we assume employers in these metro areas will pay an additional $4,000 annually due to increased costs associated with each newly uninsured Black worker. Each of these impacts is felt most acutely in places where losing the enhanced premium tax credits is most costly—that is, those MSAs with the largest Black populations facing precarity in their coverage status.

Table 5

Why is this happening?

The Republican reconciliation bill passed last summer gives a clear distillation of conservative priorities: They prioritize the well-being of the wealthiest households and corporations over that of working-class families (Acemoglu et al. 2025). As such, the new budget contains several provisions that provide disproportionate tax relief to the wealthiest households, at the expense of social programs designed to benefit working- and middle-class families.

Allowing the premium tax credits to expire also repeats an unfortunate pattern associated with pandemic-era expansionary policy aimed at easing economic conditions for American families. Through several provisions in the American Rescue Plan Act (namely the expansion of the Child Tax Credit), the scourges of poverty, child poverty, and child hunger were all drastically reduced in 2021 (Gould 2022). When those expansionary provisions were allowed to expire in 2022, these measures snapped back to their previously higher levels, erasing the progress that was made (Cid-Martinez and Zipperer 2023; Moore and Maye 2023). The ARPA and IRA policies provide clear evidence that policy can be used to effectively reduce poverty, hunger, and uninsurance rates in ways that close racial disparities; it is a matter of prioritization, not practicality.

Why does this matter for public health?

The loss of the premium subsidies will almost certainly lead to a reduction in insurance rates, concentrated amongst those with the least ability to pay. Even for those with more income, having to face increasing health care costs amid a broader affordability crisis will also likely lead those families to go uninsured at the margin. This reduction in insurance will lead to a reduction in families’ access to adequate and timely care. Writ large, reduced access to preventative, adequate, and timely care leads to a less healthy population overall. Moreover, when more individuals and families access health care on an emergency rather than preventative basis, it puts greater strain on the entire health care system, contributing to overcrowding in emergency departments and longer wait times, and reducing the quality of care possible for a broader population (Sartini 2022).

Whether health care is a necessary or luxury good within an economy is partially shaped by the extent to which health care is publicly subsidized (Khan and Mahumud 2015). This is because the income elasticity of demand for health care changes with income. With public support, many more individuals and families can purchase health services as they become necessary than would otherwise. In the absence of public support, and at lower income levels, many view health care much more as an optional purchase when weighed against other pressing costs like shelter and food. Structural changes to the social provision of health care, like allowing subsidies to expire, lead to direct changes in consumption of health services by families, and much more so by working- and middle-class families.

Why does this matter for racial health disparities?

Even among the working class, Black families are more likely to be uninsured compared with white families. Black families are more likely to live in states that did not accept the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, and they are less likely to work for employers that provide insurance coverage. Black families will therefore be impacted more heavily by policies that reduce access to insurance at the margin. This matters because, again, Black families are more likely than their white counterparts to forgo or delay access to adequate health care for financial reasons. Losing access to the enhanced tax credits will result in increased health costs, loss of coverage, diminished health, and excess deaths, concentrated amongst the most disadvantaged. This is in keeping with the Trump administration’s stance that racial equity is not a policy goal worth pursuing.

What will this mean economically for workers and their families?

Families facing economic precarity—those for whom even a relatively small negative economic shock could lead to a crisis—stand to lose the most from the expiration of the ACA premium tax credits. More families are in a precarious financial position than live below the poverty line, and the ongoing affordability crisis being exacerbated by erratic and harmful economic policy decisions increases that number. Black and brown families are more likely to be in the position in which losing the subsidies would be impactful because they are more likely to lack financial assets, even after earning a college degree and escaping income poverty.

The cities where Black workers and families reside will also face a negative shock due to the loss of the subsidies, resulting from lost worker productivity and a drop in revenue, as those families shift more of their spending toward maintaining health insurance and less on other locally purchased consumer goods. Reduced economic activity from Black workers and families will have a broader impact on economic growth and activity throughout these cities.

What should we do about it?

The enhanced ACA premium tax credits are a prime example of a policy used to address the income side of the affordability crisis. The credits work as an income transfer from the federal government to families, making purchasing health insurance more affordable; enhancing the credits allowed more families to access timely and adequate health care. Allowing those enhanced credits to expire imposes a major cost on American families and their local economies, especially those in states where Medicaid was not expanded through the ACA.

But temporary tax credits are weak policy tools for addressing structural affordability crises. When the credits inevitably expire and those federal dollars are taken away, families will face the same issues of affordability; only now their consumption will have adjusted around having the credits. The new “increase” in the cost of health insurance means families must decide whether to risk going without coverage or reduce spending elsewhere— a tough choice with no good outcomes for local economies. 

A better policy strategy for addressing an affordability or accessibility problem with health insurance is to make structural changes to the program ( i.e., permanent changes that expand affordability and accessibility). In this case, extending the premium subsidies to become standard policy would be the strategy that creates the least harm for workers and their families.

Extending the tax credit subsidies would still leave millions of Americans and their families without access to health insurance, and thus facing diminished access to timely and affordable health care. The ACA, even in the expanded form adopted by many states throughout the country, is an imperfect system for achieving the goals of health equity. Moving our health care system in the direction of single-payer health insurance in which access to affordable and high-quality health care is given as a right not contingent on wealth, income, or employment is the strategy most consistent with reducing economic and health disparities across race and improving our overall economic and public health.

Allowing the ACA premium tax credits to expire would make it harder for American families to access health care, worsen an ongoing affordability crisis, and have a knock-on negative impact on local economies. Black workers and their families would feel these shocks most acutely because even under normal circumstances, Black families are less likely to live in states with expanded access to Medicaid, less likely to work in jobs that provide access to health insurance, and more likely to forgo or delay health care due to financial challenges.

The Trump administration has continually shown its disdain for the pursuit of equity as a policy goal through dismantling institutions committed to reducing disparities, rescinding executive orders and federal commitments to set higher standards for equity, and failing to maintain policies that brought us closer to those goals. The pursuit of equity in this moment requires us to hold fast to the progress we have made thus far, both so that we limit the suffering of as many American workers and families as possible, and so that when we do have the opportunity to build toward further progress, those families will be in the best position to help us do so.

Methodology

This analysis uses publicly available data and fixed parameter assumptions alongside author calculations to produce annual, metro-level estimates for Black coverage losses and related economic impacts for 10 metropolitan areas. Demographic and labor market statistics are derived from 2023 IPUMS American Community Survey microdata and aggregated from the county to the metropolitan level using Census Core-Based Statistical Area definitions (Ruggles et al. 2025). Coverage data is derived from the 2024 CMS OEP county-level public use file for states using the federally facilitated Marketplace (CMS 2025). For states operating state-based exchanges in which county-level Marketplace data are unavailable, enrollment and subsidy totals are derived from Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) state-level estimates and allocated to metropolitan areas based on Marketplace-eligible population shares calculated from ACS microdata (KFF 2025). Projected coverage losses are derived from Commonwealth Fund estimates of coverage loss at the state level and allocated to metropolitan areas based on each metro’s share of state Marketplace enrollment (Ku et al. 2025). Parameter assumptions for economic activity and public health multipliers are drawn from literature listed in the references, including estimates of lost economic activity from reduced health care spending, productivity losses and employer costs associated with uninsurance, and preventable mortality linked to coverage loss (Chernew 2016; Ortaliza 2025; Sommers, Long, and Baicker 2014; EBRI 2000; O’Brien 2003).

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The Trump administration has consistently prioritized aggressive and arbitrary immigration enforcement, with the ultimate goal of deporting 1 million people every year of his term—regardless of their contributions to their communities and the U.S. economy. While the Department of Homeland Security’s pace currently falls short, increased enforcement would curtail business operations and reduce employer demand for both immigrant and U.S.-born workers. Over four years, 1 million annual deportations could cause total employment in the United States to fall by 5.9 million jobs, with particularly severe losses in construction and child care industries.

The direct care sector is also highly vulnerable to these enforcement actions. Amanda Kreider and Rachel Werner’s recent research indicates that job losses will significantly affect workers who provide long-term care in home- and community-based settings. The direct care sector—which includes home health aides, personal care aides, orderlies, psychiatric aides, and some nursing assistants—relies heavily on immigrant labor. Immigrants constitute nearly 30% of the direct care workforce, compared with 20% of overall employment. Among home health aides who assist with daily living and healthcare tasks, four in 10 workers are immigrants.

Kreider and Werner found that previous increases in immigration enforcement caused the direct care sector to shrink. If these patterns hold under the current enforcement regime, four million deportations over four years could cause direct care employment to fall by 394,000 (see Figure A).

Figure A

The majority of this employment decline—274,000 jobs—will result from the loss of immigrant workers. However, in addition to removing a supply of labor, deportations also make the labor market more precarious for immigrant workers. When immigrants face heightened risk of arrest, detention, or deportation, their ability to change jobs becomes severely constrained. With reduced labor market leverage, employers can worsen working conditions and suppress wages for all workers in the sector, not just those directly affected by deportations.

Contrary to the misconception that deportations will increase job opportunities for U.S-born workers, existing research consistently demonstrates that increased immigration enforcement reduces the employment for both immigrant and U.S.-born workers. Deteriorating pay and conditions for direct care workers would make U.S.-born workers unlikely to step in to replace the shortfall of immigrant workers, consistent with what studies have found when immigration enforcement decreased the size of the construction and child care sectors. In direct care, about 30% of the employment decline—the equivalent of around 120,000 jobs—will affect U.S.-born workers.

While employment reductions will be widespread, they will hit certain states particularly hard due to the geographic concentration of noncitizen immigrants in the direct care sector (see Table 1). New York faces especially severe challenges. Immigrants comprise two-thirds of the state’s direct care workforce, and more than one-third of all noncitizens working in direct care nationwide live in New York. If the Trump administration achieves its deportation goals, New York’s direct care sector could shrink by 45%.

Table 1

These large employment losses would translate directly into reduced availability of direct care services. Kreider and Werner found that past escalations of immigration enforcement led to substantial increases in the number of older adults living without any help at home. Among the Medicaid population, formal nonfamily caregiving declined while family-based caregiving increased, reflecting the contraction of the formal direct care sector.

This shift from formal to family-based care suggests that job losses in the direct care sector will have large spillover effects across the economy, greatly increasing their potential harm to even U.S.-born workers. As direct care supply becomes constrained due to deportations, some family members may need to leave their jobs or reduce their work hours to assume new caretaking responsibilities. Indeed, other research has shown that increases in immigration enforcement caused U.S.-born mothers to work fewer hours due to declining availability of household services like cleaning and child care. Family members may well be forced to choose between their careers and caring for aging and disabled relatives.

The Trump administration’s deportation agenda threatens to trigger a cascading crisis in senior and disability care that will harm families across the economic spectrum. Even in the absence of deportations, caretaking needs will accelerate as the older population grows tremendously, especially in the next five years. If the direct care workforce contracts by nearly 400,000 workers due to deportations, millions of older adults and people with disabilities will be left without the professional assistance they need to remain safely in their homes. Rather than creating jobs for U.S.-born workers as proponents claim, mass deportations eliminate employment opportunities for citizens and immigrants alike while dismantling a care infrastructure that seniors, people with disabilities, and families depend on.

For well over a decade now—time and time and time and time again—Congress has been making policy changes to temporary work visa programs not through the normal process of debating and passing legislation, but through a backdoor process. This involves amendments to annual appropriations legislation (known as “riders”) that fund the U.S. government. 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 whole U.S. government. The significant changes proposed or passed in riders over the past decade have all pushed temporary work visa programs in the same direction: expanding and deregulating the H-2A and H-2B visa programs, 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. It’s already clear that low-wage work visa programs won’t be improved during the Trump administration; instead, they’ll be made much worse.

This fiscal year, there is a particular urgency around the riders to expand and deregulate the H-2A and H-2B visa programs, in light of the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort that is arresting and deporting workers at a breakneck pace, as well as canceling temporary immigration protections that provided work authorization to millions. The Trump administration got the ball rolling on this effort with a new proposed H-2A wage regulation issued by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) on October 2, 2025. This proposed regulation contains a stunning admission: The administration’s mass deportation effort is likely to raise food prices. DOL’s solution to this problem of the administration’s own creation is an irrational and anti-worker solution. Instead of pushing the administration from within to stop their campaign of mass deportation, DOL proposes to lower farmworker wages by $24 billion over the next 10 years.

Having seen this proposed rule, employers who are heavily reliant on migrant laborers—especially those in the hospitality, construction, and agricultural industries—can now be confident they have a friendly administration willing to dismantle labor standards and are lobbying furiously for more work visas that allow them to employ a vulnerable workforce. 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 the recent government shutdown. A number of lawmakers and the Trump administration seem to agree.

The latest legislative vehicle that has a chance at furthering these goals is a rider that the Homeland Security subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee proposed and passed. It was originally known as Amendment #1 but was later dubbed the Bipartisan Visa En Bloc amendment. As Politico Pro reported, “House appropriators from both parties came together…to back big changes to visa policies that would boost the number of seasonal workers who can come to the United States.” The rider was cosponsored by three Republicans and one Democrat (but the Democrat was Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), the recent recipient of a pardon from Trump for federal bribery charges). However, it’s worth noting that because rider passed by a voice vote, there is no on-the-record vote tally showing who voted for it.

The rider still has a long way to go before becoming law and will also depend on whether an omnibus government spending bill is ultimately passed for fiscal year 2026. As of the time of publication, the Senate has not yet released their version of a Homeland Security appropriations bill. To become law, the Senate would also have to adopt the same rider provision for it to become part of the broader omnibus appropriations legislation. Nevertheless, the rider is a statement of intent from legislators who are willing to go to bat for employers seeking new exploitable and underpaid migrant workers to replace their long-term immigrant workers who have been deported or lost status.

Below is a summary of the four major changes that the Bipartisan Visa En Bloc rider amendment would make to the H-2A and H-2B visa programs. Only the first major change is discussed in this explainer, but a follow-up to this blog post will discuss the other three changes. Under the rider:

• Employers would be permitted to hire H-2A farmworkers to fill year-round jobs.
• The H-2B visa program would be expanded by at least 100,000 workers relative to its size in 2024.
• H-2B workers employed at carnivals, traveling fairs, and circuses would be moved to the P visa program, a program that has no wage rules or worker protections and over which DOL has no formal oversight role.
• DHS would not be permitted to spend funds to implement the January 2024 regulation that incrementally improves rights and protections for H-2A and H-2B workers. This regulation allows them to be eligible for green cards through existing pathways and helps them more easily change employers, reducing the indentured nature of the visa programs, and requires additional scrutiny on employer applications if they’ve committed certain violations.

The H-2A program has expanded rapidly and is rife with abuse

Employers use the H-2A visa program to fill seasonal and temporary jobs in agriculture, after employers go through a (mostly pro forma) process to prove that they could not find an available U.S. worker to hire. There is no annual limit on the number of H-2A workers that can be hired, and H-2A has in recent years been the fastest-growing U.S. work visa program, tripling over the past decade. Figure A shows the three available data sets on H-2A job certifications, petitions, and visas, as well as an estimate of the total number of H-2A workers between 2015 and 2024, with 352,682 H-2A workers estimated to have been employed in the United States last year. The vast majority of H-2A workers are employed on crop farms, picking fruits and vegetables, and the average duration of an H-2A job is roughly six months.

Figure A

There have been countless exposés from journalists and advocates that reveal how H-2A farmworkers are indentured to their employers, frequently robbed, exploited, victimized, and trafficked, and how the main source of wage and hour violations on farms comes from employers breaking H-2A rules.

The rider adopted in the House would allow H-2A workers to be employed in year-round jobs—which is currently prohibited—expanding the scope of the program and allowing H-2A workers to fill jobs on dairy, livestock, and poultry and egg farms, as well as in nurseries and greenhouses and other nonseasonal agricultural occupations. This would be a major change to H-2A, and it has long been a demand of agribusiness.

Making H-2A year-round raises three key questions:

• How many permanent, year-round jobs might be impacted?
• How will farmworker wages be impacted?
• How much will the H-2A program expand?

There are 410,000 year-round jobs in agriculture

For an answer to the first question, see Table 1, which lists four of the major agricultural industries employing farmworkers year-round, the largest of which are greenhouse and dairy jobs. Together they total nearly 410,000 full-time equivalent jobs. 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. In total, it’s possible that up to one-third of the total 1.6 million full-time equivalent jobs in agriculture could be year-round.

Table 1

DOL’s new Adverse Effect Wage Rate will result in a pay cut for H-2A workers and U.S. workers that will line the pockets of employers by billions

Next, let’s consider what would happen to the wages of farmworkers in year-round occupations if the H-2A visa program were expanded to include them.

The wages of nearly all H-2A farmworkers are set by the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR), unless the federal, state, or local hourly minimum wages are higher, or if there is an applicable local prevailing wage or collective bargaining agreement in place. The purpose of the AEWR is to ensure that H-2A workers are paid a wage that is consistent with U.S. wage standards and prevent adverse impacts of H-2A employment on the wages of farmworkers in the United States.

On October 2, 2025, DOL issued an interim final rule laying out a new AEWR methodology. A recent EPI post describes in detail how the new Trump AEWR will cut wage rates dramatically by using an inferior data set for agriculture and creating two artificial “skill levels,” which set H-2A wages at the 17th percentile of wages surveyed for farm occupations (skill level 1) and at the 50th percentile, which is the median of wages surveyed (skill level 2). EPI has also submitted a detailed comment to DOL critiquing the new Trump AEWR methodology. 

In the new AEWR, the Trump DOL also removes the previous H-2A program requirement that employers pay for 100% of housing costs for H-2A workers. In its stead, the new AEWR deducts a set amount out of every hour of an H-2A worker’s pay, to compensate the employer for H-2A housing costs. This shifts housing costs to H-2A workers who will have the added burden of paying for housing costs out of the already-low wages they earn. The housing deduction is subtracted from the AEWR—lowering a low wage even further—so low that in many states, the state minimum wage will be higher and become the de facto AEWR.

In total, DOL estimates that over $1.7 billion will be transferred from H-2A workers’ pockets back to farm employers under the new wage rule in 2026, amounting to $24 billion over the next 10 years as the program grows to over 500,000 jobs. EPI’s own estimates are that H-2A workers will see a wage cut of between $1.7 billion and $2.1 billion in 2026, depending on how state minimum wage laws are enforced. Reducing the AEWR for H-2A workers will also lower wages for U.S. farmworkers—one-third of whom are U.S.-born citizens, according to the latest DOL survey. A fall in the H-2A wage will increase demand for H-2A workers, since employers can save significantly on labor costs if they hire them. As a result, it will become relatively more expensive to hire non-H-2A U.S. farmworkers. Employers will therefore reduce demand for U.S. farmworkers, putting downward pressure on their wages, with U.S. farmworkers seeing wage reduction of $2.7 to $3.3 billion in annual pay.

This would represent a shocking upward redistribution of income away from some of the country’s most underpaid and essential workers for the food system.

Under the new AEWR, H-2A farmworkers in year-round jobs would be paid tens of thousands of dollars less annually compared with what U.S. farmworkers earn now

The wage cuts from the AEWR described above currently apply only to H-2A farmworkers, who can only be employed in seasonal jobs. However, if the rider to make H-2A year-round goes into effect, farmworkers in year-round jobs will see the biggest pay cuts.

Table 2 lists a sample of some of the main year-round agricultural industries in major agricultural states, along with average annual employment, which together accounts 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 2024 in those industries and states, and compares the annual earnings of farmworkers in 2024 with what H-2A workers would earn in 2026 if they had worked in the same jobs and had been paid the corresponding 2026 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 according to the 2026 AEWR.{{1}}

The final column in Table 2 shows a few examples that illustrate the difference between what year-round U.S. farmworkers in the selected industries earned in 2024 and what H-2A workers at skill level 1 would earn if they were paid the annualized AEWR in 2026. Table 2 shows that the reduction in wages for H-2A farmworkers in year-round jobs could range from an annual pay cut of nearly $19,000 for farmworkers on dairy farms in Wisconsin to a pay cut of over $44,000 for farmworkers on poultry and egg farms in Texas.

Outcomes such as these—in which farmworkers paid the 2026 AEWR would earn tens of thousands of dollars less than what U.S. farmworkers earned in major year-round jobs in 2024—are egregious and in violation of the spirit and letter of the AEWR and the H-2A statute, but will be the norm and allowed if the year-round H-2A provision in the rider becomes law. This would hurt some of the most vulnerable and lowest-paid workers in the U.S. labor market and create an almost unstoppable incentive for employers to replace their current farmworkers who now fill year-round jobs with H-2A workers who can’t easily switch employers or effectively complain when their wages are stolen and when they’re forced to work in unsafe conditions.

Table 2

The year-round H-2A rider with the new AEWR rule could triple the current size of the H-2A program and cause wages to drop sharply for farmworkers

The ultimate result of the new H-2A wage rule combined with making the H-2A program year-round would be a likely tripling of the size of the H-2A program to about 900,000 workers, which includes the complete decimation of job quality for the 410,000 jobs in agriculture that can provide stable year-round employment and sometimes a living wage for U.S. farmworkers.

How would this occur? The Trump DOL’s new wage rule estimates that the lower pay for farmworkers it institutes will encourage farms to rapidly increase hiring through the H-2A program, estimating that 515,000 H-2A workers will be employed in 2034. If those low wages remain in effect and the year-round H-2A rider becomes law and is renewed yearly (as the H-2B riders have been every year), employers are likely to ramp up hiring for year-round jobs until nearly all are filled by H-2A workers who can be paid extremely low wages and, because of their precarious immigration status, have little bargaining power or the ability to complain in the face of employer lawbreaking.

For context, the 410,000 H-2A workers in year-round jobs plus the estimated 257,500 year-round equivalent jobs done by H-2A workers in seasonal jobs (i.e., 515,000 H-2A workers employed in 2034 for six months out of the year), would equal 667,500 full-time equivalent jobs in agriculture, or roughly 42% of all annual average employment in agriculture.

Instead of ballooning the H-2A program, policymakers should create a pathway to citizenship for farmworkers to ensure their rights on the job

Policymakers and the public must reject the harmful and unjustified proposals coming from Trump and Congress to pay less to farmworkers who already live on the margins of society, and to keep more of them indentured through the H-2A program. This rider is another example that reveals the truth about the Trump administration’s immigration agenda: They have no real interest in protecting jobs or pay for American or “native-born” workers, only in giving employers what they demand.

Using H-2A, a problematic temporary work visa program—in which workers are virtually indentured to their employers and that accounts for most of the wage and hour violations that take place on farms—to fill permanent, year-round jobs should give pause to all members of Congress. It makes no sense, unless the goal is to keep the workers employed in those jobs from having equal rights and fair pay. If migrant workers are filling true labor shortages in permanent, year-round jobs, then those workers should always get lawful permanent residence (i.e., green cards) that puts them on a path to citizenship.

If members of Congress want a reliable, healthy, and stable farm labor force that can continue to produce food domestically for Americans, they should pass legislation that legalizes undocumented farmworkers and reforms the H-2A program so that all migrant farmworkers have equal rights, fair wages, and a quick path to permanent residence and citizenship. That’s the only way to ensure that the workers who sustain the food supply chain will be treated with the dignity and respect they deserve and that honors their contributions to the U.S. economy.

{{1.}} 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 OEWS wages surveyed. Skill level 1 is the 17th percentile while skill level 2 is the median of wages surveyed, which is also the 50th percentile. For this calculation, I am only calculating 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.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act—passed in 1970 after decades of fierce advocacy by organized labor and its allies—mandates that workplaces be “free from recognized hazards that could cause death or serious physical harm to employees.” To implement this mandate, the Act created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to develop and enforce workplace health and safety standards. OSHA standards are designed to limit workers’ exposure to hazards; ensure access to adequate safety equipment; and require that employers monitor workplaces for hazards and report injuries and illnesses. OSHA also provides training and compliance assistance to workers and employers and gives workers the right to request workplace inspections. The OSH Act established the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the sole agency responsible for conducting research to inform OSHA policymaking with evidence-based assessments of injury and fatality risks, and providing actionable guidance for employers to improve safety. Since OSHA was created, fatalities and work-related injuries have dropped by 65%, even while the U.S. workforce has doubled in size.

Separately, following a century of lawmaking related to mine safety, the 1977 Federal Mine Safety and Health Act created the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), which is charged with enforcing mine safety rules with the goal of reducing deaths, injuries, and illnesses in U.S. mines.

The OSH Act establishes roles for both federal OSHA and states on occupational safety and health protection. The relationship between federal government and state OSH mandates is complicated. The OSH Act grants the federal government jurisdiction over worker health and safety law, but states have the option to establish their own state-level OSHA standards and enforcement systems (known as “state plans”) that are then monitored by federal OSHA. State OSHA plans must be approved by federal OSHA, be “at least as effective” as federal OSHA, and must cover state and local government employees at a minimum. Currently, federal OSHA can only cover private-sector workers. The cost of running a state plan is shared between the state and federal government. At present:

• 29 states are under federal OSHA jurisdiction (“federal OSHA” states). Federal OSHA covers all private businesses engaged in commerce and all federal agencies but does not cover state and local governments (see Figure A). Self-employed workers are excluded and employers with 10 or fewer employees are exempt from OSHA’s record-keeping requirements (though they are still required to comply with OSHA standards and to report serious injuries and fatalities).
• 21 states have OSHA-approved state plans that cover both private-sector and state and local government workers.{{1}}
• Six states have “hybrid” plans, where private-sector workers fall under federal OSHA jurisdiction, but public-sector employees are covered by a state plan.{{2}}

Figure A

What are the threats to federal workplace health and safety protections?

Threats to federal workplace health and safety protections include:

• Diminishing capacity to enforce or develop workplace safety standards: OSHA has long been understaffed and underfunded. Federal and state OSHAs collectively employ fewer than 2,000 inspectors to cover 161 million workers; it would take the agency 185 years to inspect every U.S. workplace just once. Trump administration actions have already significantly exacerbated OSHA’s existing capacity and enforcement constraints, by:
  • Attempting to close OSHA and MSHA offices, as well as attempting to eliminate NIOSH;
  • Issuing guidance allowing OSHA staff to reduce certain employer OSHA violation penalties by up to 70%; and
  • Announcing self-audit programs that carve out inspection exemptions for employers. These programs reduce the agency’s enforcement powers and create a system that relies on self-policing and individual companies’ voluntary adherence to the law.
• Restricting the General Duty clause: Trump’s Department of Labor has proposed carving out exemptions to this foundational OSHA protection, which ensures that employers have a basic obligation to protect workers from known and preventable dangers not covered by other OSHA regulations. This rule change would exempt certain industries from this obligation and has dangerous implications for the future of OSHA.
• Blocking or delaying long-overdue standards on serious hazards like silica dust or heat exposure: The Trump administration has already paused enforcement of a new mine safety rule on silica exposure that would prevent black lung disease and death from silicosis among coal miners. It is widely anticipated that the administration will block or weaken a proposed new OSHA standard to protect workers from extreme heat exposure.

How can states maintain and strengthen workplace health and safety protections?

State authority to enact and enforce health and safety standards depends on whether a state is a “federal OSHA” or “state plan” state, as follows:

• Federal OSHA states are preempted from enacting standards in areas already addressed by federal OSHA but can still enact policies covering areas of occupational health and safety not addressed by federal law.
• States with state OSHA plans have authority to enact standards that exceed the federal floor—for example, by strengthening existing standards or adopting standards in additional areas, as well as strengthening enforcement programs and imposing civil monetary penalties that exceed federal amounts.

Step I: Update state laws and standards to lock in current federal protections

In state plan states, OSHA standards and enforcement must be at least as strong as the floor set by federal OSHA. However, many state plan states have not achieved this basic standard. Meanwhile, federal OSHA states run the risk of leaving workers unprotected if federal OSHA standards are eliminated or enforcement is further weakened.

Federal OSHA states should:

1. • Ensure OSHA coverage for all public employees: Federal OSHA excludes millions of workers from its protections because it does not cover state and local government employees. Six federal OSHA states have passed protections covering all public employees, but 23 federal OSHA states and the District of Columbia have not yet taken necessary steps to extend protections to state and local government employees. All federal OSHA states should extend coverage to public-sector workers, as is currently under consideration in Pennsylvania. (Because state OSHA plans often struggle with underfunding and capacity constraints that limit their effectiveness, advocates should remain aware that extending coverage to public employees under this model is an important short-term solution, while a best-case long-term scenario would be an expanded federal OSHA that covers all private- and public-sector workers).
   • Pass worker health and safety trigger laws: Federal OSHA states cannot strengthen or adopt standards in areas already regulated by federal OSHA. However, states can safeguard against the possibility of existing federal standards being eliminated by passing legislation to automatically incorporate into state code any eliminated federal standards to ensure workers are not left unprotected. For example, a recently enacted Illinois law directs state agencies to ensure state wage and hour, occupational health and safety, and mine safety standards remain at least as protective as existing federal standards in the event that certain federal protective standards are eliminated.

State plan states should:

• • Ensure full adoption of all current federal standards: Too many state plan states have track records of failing to adopt required new federal standards in their OSHA plans. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the state of Arizona failed to adopt an emergency temporary standard (ETS) for health care workers and failed to align with federal OSHA’s new increase in penalties. After federal OSHA threatened to revoke Arizona’s state plan privilege, the state met its obligations to adopt these standards and penalty increases. Some states, like Kentucky, have failed to update their penalty policy to align with federal minimum standards.

Step II: Close critical gaps in workplace health and safety protections

• All states should adopt standards in key areas federal OSHA fails to cover: Federal OSHA lacks standards in several areas where workers face serious and ongoing workplace hazards, but intense industry opposition has blocked or stalled federal OSHA rulemaking. Fortunately, all states have latitude to adopt their own standards in these areas and can do so by drawing on existing, evidence-based proposals already developed (but not enacted) by federal OSHA, relying on recommendations from NIOSH, or replicating strong standards already implemented in other states.
  • Heat exposure: Heat is a serious and deadly hazard for many workers. There is currently no federal heat standard; it is unlikely that the proposed protection moving through the rulemaking process will be finalized. In the absence of a federal standard, several states have implemented their own state heat standards, which vary in strength and coverage. Lawmakers seeking model policies can look to states like California, Maryland, and Oregon, where strong heat standards apply to both indoor and outdoor workplaces and there are clear temperature thresholds for when protections kick in.
  • Wildfire smoke: Wildfires are becoming more frequent and severe, yet there is no federal OSHA standard requiring protection from wildfire smoke. States can follow the lead of California, Oregon, and Washington, which have all promulgated rules that require employers to follow protocols to protect many workers, not just responders. Outdoor and indoor workers need protection from wildfire smoke when airborne particulate matter reaches a certain concentration threshold.
  • Ergonomics: Ergonomic hazards like repetitive lifting, twisting, and forceful hand and wrist motions have long been a leading source of workplace injuries, especially in industries like warehouse work, meat processing, health care, and construction. A federal ergonomics standard was enacted in 2000 but then promptly repealed by Congress. A few states have passed rules to protect workers in certain industries from musculoskeletal disorders, such as hotel housekeepers in California and meatpacking workers in Minnesota. New York recently passed a warehouse worker protection act that includes specific protections against musculoskeletal disorders, among other workplace health and safety concerns.
  • Workplace violence: Workplace violence has worsened over the past five years and is now the third-leading cause of death on the job, yet federal efforts to implement a workplace violence standard have so far been unsuccessful. California, however, is in the process of developing a general standard for workplace violence protections after the state legislature passed SB 553 and mandated comprehensive protections. Cal/OSHA had already implemented a workplace violence prevention standard for employees in health care industries. Several other states proposed standards this year.
  • Infectious disease: In the absence of a federal OSHA standard on airborne or aerosolized infectious disease, U.S. workers—particularly health care workers, low-wage workers, and workers of color—continue to face high risk of workplace exposure during major infectious disease outbreaks. A 2021 OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard established to address COVID-19 in health care settings was withdrawn six months later and OSHA’s stated intent to develop a broader infectious disease rule for health care remains in limbo. During the pandemic, at least 14 states implemented temporary COVID-19 worker safety protections. Other states, such as New York, have adopted limited infectious disease standards. Unfortunately, no state has adopted a comprehensive, enforceable measure yet.
  • Right to refuse work under dangerous conditions—including during climate emergencies: While federal OSHA law has some retaliation protections for workers refusing to work under dangerous conditions, they are weak and largely unenforced. It is therefore urgent that states take steps to ensure that workers may refuse to work under dangerous conditions without being subject to retaliation—and that they continue to be paid so long as the dangerous workplace condition remains unremedied. The need for this protection is only increasing as the climate crisis causes more severe and more frequent emergencies. Some states—such as California and Oregon—and localities like Miami-Dade County, Florida, have enacted laws that prohibit employers from taking adverse action against non-essential workers who refuse to continue work when emergency conditions are present or imminent.
  • Mandate injury and illness prevention programs (IIPPs): Federal OSHA does not have a specific standard to require an IIPP but has issued formal recommendations that employers adopt comprehensive safety programs. Several states, including California, Minnesota, and Washington, have created regulations that require that employers implement an injury and illness prevention plan.
  • Strengthen anti-retaliation protections for workers that voice concerns about safety and health hazards: Though federal OSHA law contains some language on protecting workers from retaliation when exercising their rights under the law, the provisions are weak and the OSHA offices that enforce the provisions are critically understaffed. Providing workers with a private right of action so that they may go to court if they are retaliated against is critical for ensuring workers are protected. States with existing whistleblower laws should expand them to protect workers who notify fellow workers or the public about workplace hazards (not just workers who file complaints).
• State plan states should strengthen existing standards: State plan states should increase protections for workers by implementing stronger versions of existing weak or outdated federal standards. State plan agencies can look to states like California and Washington, whose OSH agencies regularly pass the nation’s most stringent standards, for guidance.

Step III: Use proven strategies to increase effectiveness of enforcement, encourage compliance, and expand community awareness

• State plan states should implement targeted, more effective enforcement and penalty strategies. They should:
  • Increase agency resources and staff: Where possible, states should dedicate more resources to their state OSH agency. Like federal OSHA, state plans are plagued with staffing shortages that severely limit their ability to carry out regular, sufficient inspections. As of 2024, state plan states had an average ratio of one OSHA inspector per 84,937 employees.
  • Increase penalties to meaningful levels: Penalties are effective for deterring violations only if they’re substantial enough to compel employers to take notice and remove hazards. While state plans are required to maintain statutory maximum penalties that are at least equivalent to those of federal OSHA, Kentucky is one of several states that has failed to raise its penalties after Congress required OSHA to raise its penalties in 2016 and index them to inflation. There are also often significant disparities between the already low average penalties assessed by federal OSHA and the average penalties assessed by state plans, even among those that have adopted new maximums. In fiscal year 2024, the average penalty for a serious violation under federal OSHA was $4,083, compared with an average penalty under state OSHA plans of only $2,580. These penalties are far too low to serve as effective deterrents; state plan states should raise penalty rates substantially across the board. In addition, states should resist adopting the new federal OSHA penalty reduction policy that the Trump administration announced in July.
  • Implement instance-by-instance citations: States can use instance-by-instance citations to cite and fine employers for each individual iteration of a willful and serious violation. This strategy can have a significant impact by compounding OSHA’s otherwise low penalties. Washington’s Department of Labor & Industries, for example, fined a manufacturing company over $2 million after it found 31 willful serious, seven willful general, 94 serious, and more than 40 general violations across three of the corporation’s locations. 
  • Cite all involved employers for violations: It is often the case that companies do not directly employ many of the workers who perform tasks for them—work is often outsourced via other entities such as subcontractors, temporary agencies, and workers misclassified as independent contractors. Multiple employers may also operate at the same site. Federal OSHA has maintained a multiemployer policy since the 1970s, but it is underutilized and not regularly enforced. When workers’ safety rights are violated in situations that involve multiple employers, state plans should cast as wide a net of responsibility as is legally feasible and hold all involved companies that possess control over working conditions financially responsible.
  • Require workplace hazards to be addressed while citations are being contested: Federal OSHA and most state plans do not require employers to abate workplace hazards identified during an OSHA inspection while that violation is being contested. State plan states should require employers to address recognized hazards whether they appeal the violation or not, as is done in Washington.
• Monitor and expose routine violators: Federal OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program designates agency resources toward inspecting and monitoring employers that have “demonstrated indifference” to their OSH Act obligations. Severe violators are subject to additional inspections and are publicly listed on the Severe Violator Enforcement Program Log. This program has been found to be effective at deterring violations by peer employers. States can implement a state-level “wall of shame” like New Jersey’s Workplace Accountability in Labor List (WALL), a publicly accessible list of employers with outstanding wage/benefit theft or tax liabilities, and can issue press releases publicizing serious and willful violations by employers.
• Provide or require workers’ rights education: States can mandate that both youth and adults receive education on workplace health and safety and their rights under OSHA. For high school students, “workplace readiness” curricula—like the one implemented in California and those proposed in other states—can include education on workplace rights including health and safety protections. States can implement use of NIOSH’s “Youth@Work—Talking Safety” curriculum in schools and develop state-level versions of programs like the federal Susan Harwood Training Grants Program, which provides funding to nonprofit organizations to provide workplace health and safety training—particularly to marginalized workers in high-hazard industries.

Where to go next

This document is designed to be a primer on OSHA, as well as to provide insight into the complex relationship between the federal OSHA and state plan states. It is a first step for those interested in improving worker health and safety conditions in their state. It does not provide enough details to guide drafting of laws or regulations for your state. If you are interested in advocating for specific policies mentioned in this brief, please contact us at earn@epi.org. We will be happy to connect you with relevant health and safety experts and organizations for further technical assistance.

Additional recommended resources:

• AFL-CIO’s Death on the Job report
• AFL-CIO’s resources for workers
• Health & Safety resources from National Employment Law Project
• National Council for Occupational Safety and Health
• Workplace Justice Lab at Rutgers University

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Debbie Berkowitz and Rebecca Reindel for their expertise and guidance.

{{1.}} These states are Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. Puerto Rico also operates a state plan.

{{2.}} These states are Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. The Virgin Islands also operate a hybrid plan.

Discrimination in the workplace—either in employment, promotion, job assignments, pay, benefits, discipline, discharge, and layoffs—is illegal in the United States. Research shows that actions taken to reduce discrimination not only improve equity but also support economic growth. Federal law defines workplace discrimination on the basis of a worker’s membership in designated protected classes, with the rationale that disparate treatment violates the law when it would not have happened to an individual “but for” that aspect of their identity. These protected classes are enshrined by legislation and include the following:

• Race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), and national origin (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964)
• Age (Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967)
• Disability (Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990)
• Genetic information (Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008)

The extent to which these protected classes can be expanded is subject to legal interpretation. For example, over time, the definition of “sex discrimination” has been amended to explicitly include disparate treatment related to pregnancy and childbirth with the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, as well as sexual orientation and gender identity following Supreme Court decisions in 2020.

In addition to protection from unjust unequal treatment, federal law also protects workers from retaliation for filing discrimination claims or from beginning the process of filing a discrimination claim. These federal laws cover most employees whether they work full time or part time and irrespective of citizenship status. Employers with 20 or more employees are required to comply with all nondiscrimination laws at the federal level; employers with less than 20 employees are still subject to many nondiscrimination standards, though standards are less stringent.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is the independent federal agency responsible for investigating claims of employment discrimination at the federal level and for enforcing federal workplace nondiscrimination law. The EEOC does this both by fielding discrimination claims against employers and by requiring annual reports from employers on employment outcomes by protected class characteristics to assess potential patterns of discrimination.

What are the threats to federal workplace nondiscrimination protections?

Current threats to workplace nondiscrimination protections include:

• Executive actions constraining EEOC’s mission and functions: Since taking office, Trump has undermined or limited key functions of the EEOC by:
  • Illegally firing two of the three commissioners and the general counsel, leaving the Commission unable to alter policy or vote on rulemaking for several months. In October 2025, the Senate confirmed Brittany Panuccio as an EEOC commissioner, establishing a three-person quorum. With a quorum in place, the EEOC will likely rescind their 2024–2028 strategic enforcement plan, guidance on arrest and conviction records, and EEO-1 reporting requirements. Additionally, the agency will likely move forward with announced plans to significantly revise its Pregnant Workers’ Fairness Rule and Harassment Guidance.  
  • Imposing new limits on the collection of data necessary to accurately assess discriminatory impact by shortening annual reporting periods and removing nonbinary gender reporting entirely from forms used to collect demographic data from private employers and federal contractors.
  • Directing the EEOC to focus more on so-called “DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination and anti-American national origin bias and discrimination.”
• Politicizing the EEOC and constraining independent state and local agencies: EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas has repeatedly affirmed her commitment to restructuring the EEOC’s priorities toward those of the administration, rather than enforcing anti-discrimination law as an independent federal agency. In an effort to impose the administration’s agenda on state and local enforcement agencies, Lucas has proposed changes that would weaponize the funding relationship between those agencies and the EEOC. While state and local agencies operate independently, they receive funding from the EEOC in the form of reimbursements for jointly filed cases they take on behalf of the federal agency. With the exception of a few large states, such as New York or California, most states significantly rely on this funding to cover their operational costs. Since serving as acting chair, Lucas has reversed course on the EEOC’s enforcement of disparate impact and sex discrimination cases by:
  • Withholding funding for state and local Fair Employment Practice Agencies (FEPAs) that choose to take on cases concerning gender identity discrimination.
  • Threatening to decertify state and local FEPAs that draw conclusions on gender identity and disparate impact charges that differ from those of the EEOC.
  • Instructing the agency to close charges that solely concern disparate impact by September 30, 2025, without developing them for litigation or for conciliation.
• Diminished EEOC enforcement capacity: The extent to which workers are protected from workplace discrimination at the federal level is dependent on the EEOC’s capacity to monitor employment practices, investigate claims of workplace discrimination, and reliably enforce sanctions against employers who violate nondiscrimination law. But for decades, inadequate funding and staffing has limited the EEOC’s capacity to investigate and resolve charges in a timely manner. Actions of the second Trump administration further exacerbate these problems:
  • In March 2025, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced plans to close and consolidate EEOC field offices. Once the EEOC reestablishes a quorum, the agency may begin these closures, which threaten the job security of EEOC field staff and further constrain their enforcement capacity.
  • The EEOC plans to break up its data analytics office, signaling that robust data collection and analysis—critical tools for enforcement and assessing charges—will be less of a priority for the agency. Rolling back data collection is a step toward the Project 2025 prescribed goal of ending EEO-1 data collection.
• Executive actions attacking nondiscrimination law: The Trump administration has prohibited the consideration of disparate impact liability in discrimination claims, making it more difficult to hold employers accountable for unfair employment practices and outcomes without being able to prove that employers explicitly intended to discriminate (including efforts to hold companies accountable for AI-driven algorithmic bias).  

While many threats are coming directly from the federal level, workplace nondiscrimination protections are also under threat in states that have chosen to follow the lead of the White House in passing anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) laws. Many states have already closed DEI-related offices and initiatives, cut funding to programs, and restricted the use of language and consideration of protected classes in higher education. While these actions do not remove existing workplace nondiscrimination laws, workers in those states could be left without recourse if legislative trends continue and federal nondiscrimination protections continue to deteriorate.

How can states maintain and strengthen workplace nondiscrimination protections?

States have legal authority to establish their own employment discrimination laws that provide more expansive coverage than federal law. States can provide legal protections for more traits or characteristics, lower the minimum employment threshold required to file a discrimination claim, and extend the window of time employees have to file a claim after the alleged discriminatory incident occurred.

Many states and local governments have Fair Employment Practices Agencies{{1}} that investigate workplace discrimination claims in accordance with state and local nondiscrimination law, often in concert with field offices of the federal EEOC. FEPAs may have authority to enforce state or local standards for nondiscrimination that exceed those laid out by the federal government. Workers who believe they have been discriminated against can file a claim with the EEOC and/or their state or local FEPA, depending on the standards being violated, the types of relief available to victims, the deadlines for filing charges, or other factors related to the claim. The Trump administration is actively working to undermine the independence of FEPAs by weaponizing their funding arrangement, particularly on enforcement of disparate impact and gender identity discrimination protections. For state agencies that rely on federal funding for a significant share of their operating budget, these changes present serious challenges to their ability to properly maintain and expand enforcement capacity.

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

Most states have passed state-level employment discrimination laws that codify employment discrimination protections for at least the same protected classes that are federally protected. Today, 24 states and Washington, D.C., have discrimination laws that cover a more expansive range of protected traits than federal law. However, 19 states, including Idaho, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, offer less protection than federal laws. Alabama’s employment discrimination law is by far the least comprehensive, as it only protects against age discrimination from 40 years of age.  

Other states have enacted certain discrimination laws that only protect public employees. For example, Georgia’s discrimination laws have mixed levels of protection based on the sector of employment. Protections for discrimination against race, color, religion, pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity are only extended to public-sector employees. Private-sector employees are provided protections for disability and equal pay discrimination. Similarly, Mississippi’s employment discrimination laws only apply to public employees.  

States typically have a commission or division dedicated to enforcing state nondiscrimination laws. Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi do not have their own state agency and solely rely on the EEOC for anti-discrimination enforcement. Additionally, North Carolina does not have an agency where private employees can file discrimination claims.

As the Trump administration makes it easier for employers to discriminate by weakening the federal EEOC, failure to cover private employers under state law and a lack of state level enforcement capacity will leave even more workers in those states without recourse. States can—and should—act to plug these gaps by, at a minimum:

• Ensuring their state code includes at least all the protected classes covered in federal nondiscrimination law;
• Ensuring state nondiscrimination laws cover all workers (in both public and private sectors) and mirror federal employment minimum thresholds for coverage; and
• Establishing and adequately funding a state commission or division with enforcement authority that, at minimum, mirrors federal policies for filing deadlines.

Step II: Include additional protections already implemented in other states 

• Extend protections to additional traits: Most states have extended protections for marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. While states may be financially disincentivized to pursue cases concerning gender identity discrimination, there is currently no threat to simply extending legal protections. Some states have also incorporated additional traits such as reproductive health decision-making, medical conditions, status as a victim of domestic violence, housing status, arrest/court/conviction record, and military or veteran status as protected traits (see Figure A). Additionally, several states including New York and Oregon and D.C. have lowered the age limit to be considered for age discrimination.  
• Codify inclusive definitions for protected traits to fortify employment nondiscrimination protections: Many states include definitions of protected traits that better encompass the types of discrimination employees may face. For example, since 2019, the CROWN Act has been adopted by states across the nation to include hair discrimination as a form of racial discrimination. More than half of U.S. states have passed the CROWN Act and eight states have defined race-based discrimination to include discrimination based on traits associated with race in their state code. 

Figure A

Step III: Modernize nondiscrimination policies by extending and locking in coverage across classes of workers and collecting comprehensive data

• Extend coverage to contract workers: Independent contractors are not considered employees, so they may not be inherently covered by employment discrimination laws. As of 2019, only four states (Maryland, Minnesota, New York, and Rhode Island) protect independent contractors from discrimination protection, while 24 states and D.C. explicitly exclude them. Extending discrimination protections to independent contractors is important as they have significantly less labor protections than employees. Additionally, states could explicitly enforce anti-discrimination and equal employment opportunity laws for state contract workers to ensure fair employment practices among private employers that conduct business with the state. In a climate with increased hostility against those who are not white, male, heterosexual, and cisgender, it is imperative that the classification of a worker does not dictate the rights they have to protect themselves from discrimination.
• Emphasize protections for workers regardless of their citizenship and immigration status: Federal law prohibits discrimination on the basis of national origin, and employees are protected by Equal Employment Opportunity statutes regardless of citizenship or immigration status. Given changing federal treatment of immigrants, states should emphasize and enforce fair treatment regardless of documentation status to ensure workers remain protected. They should also strengthen anti-retaliation protections and practices.  
• Collect employment and pay data at the state level: Federally, the EEOC requires employers with more than 100 employees to submit an annual report (the EEO-1 form) providing critical workforce demographic data. With the future of federal data collection at risk, states should seek to collect their own equal employment data, including pay data, to support anti-discrimination enforcement mechanisms. Currently, only three (California, Illinois, Massachusetts) states require employers to submit this data.

Additional recommended resources 

• Trump is making it easier for employers to discriminate. This stifles equity and hurts economic growth. (Economic Policy Institute) 

• Trump-led attacks on equity are setting the stage for our next public health crisis (Economic Policy Institute) 
• Trump’s assault on independent agencies endangers us all (Economic Policy Institute and The Century Foundation) 

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

{{1.}} These agencies are often referred to as commissions on civil rights, human rights, human relations, etc. See a list of agencies here: University of Minnesota Human Rights Library.