By Rachel Wilensky, Shira Small, and Stephanie Schmit
Beginning in the summer of 2025, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) engaged with the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) to support a workgroup of administrators of the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) Child Care program. CalWORKs Child Care is a critical supportive service associated with California’s Welfare-to-Work program. It is funded by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) dollars and the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), as well as supplemental state funding.
Since 1997, CalWORKs Child Care has had three stages designed to provide care and to facilitate paths to self-sufficiency for CalWORKs participants. Stage One is currently administered by county welfare departments, and Stages Two and Three shift the family’s child care from county social service and welfare offices to Alternative Payment Programs (APPs), contracted organizations that administer child care vouchers.
The focus of the workgroup was to solicit feedback on factors that would be important for the state to understand when considering consolidation of the existing program. The administrator workgroup was established to enable CDSS and the State to learn from the expertise and experience of the counties and child care contractors to create a program that is more supportive for families and easier to administer—giving administrators more time to focus on the families they serve. The workgroup aimed to elicit insights and ideas using various feedback strategies, with the goal of informing a consolidation proposal for CDSS.
This report, drafted by CLASP, reviews the context for how the workgroup was initiated, outlines the feedback that was elicited in the workgroup, offers considerations and insights from CLASP based on the workgroup’s feedback, and documents the work materials from the group.
>Learn more information about the CalWORKS Child Child Consolidation Project.
Numerous and high-profile false narratives about immigrants’ reliance on public benefits, alleged fraud, and predisposition toward violent crime have enabled the Trump Administration and lawmakers to fund a mass immigrant detention agenda. Since January 2025, Congress and the administration have directed billions of dollars into recruiting more immigration agents, opening and staffing carceral facilities, and increasing the number of immigrant arrests and detentions.
The narratives used to support these actions and policies repackage the same stereotypes and tropes that have enabled divestment from, and the mass incarceration of, Black people in the U.S. As such, we can view these actions by the federal government, complicit local governments, and private corporations as a means to profit from fear and separation by boosting the population of individuals subject to the horrors of imprisonment and enslaved labor.
If the Trump Administration continues down their current path of targeting immigrants, private contractors stand to be among the principal beneficiaries, and the harms will ripple throughout families, communities, and the economy.
Economic Disruption and Forced Labor
Federal officials have called for arrest quotas to fill newly built detention centers, but not because there has been a sudden spike in crime. Indeed, the number of immigrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody with no criminal convictions has skyrocketed since January 2025. For the first time, this population outnumbers those who have convictions and pending charges. The vast majority of people who have been taken into ICE custody over the past 18 months face an alleged civil administrative violation, not a criminal charge.
More detainees means a larger captive labor force available for ICE’s “voluntary work program,” which supposedly offers opportunities for detainees to make money, stay out of trouble, and improve detention centers’ operations. However, labor programs within carceral facilities are inherently coercive, and reports indicate that immigrant ICE detainees are forced into intensive manual labor for as little as $0.13 an hour. This practice is aligned with the nation’s long history of economically exploiting incarcerated people.
While providing forced labor, immigrants lack many of the labor protections available to traditional employees and lack the resources to draw attention to the injustices they face. Detainees are also at risk of experiencing medical neglect, inadequate food, and overcrowded, filthy quarters. This abysmal situation has led to strikes at detention centers across the country.
Cracking down on immigrants is in direct opposition to Trump’s promise of a “golden age of America.” Ample research demonstrates that immigrants are less likely to commit crime; increase the size of the labor force and gross domestic production, which positively impacts the economy; and contribute more taxes than they receive in public benefits. But while immigrant workers are crucial to stabilizing the economy, increased enforcement is causing a decline in the labor market and will inevitably restrict local and national economies.
Taking a Page Out of the Mass Incarceration Playbook
What the Trump Administration and ICE are doing is not new. Increasing detention by targeting immigrant communities is part of a long history of unethically extracting profit from marginalized communities.
Recent narratives around immigrant fraud, inflated public benefit consumption, and criminality mobilized to justify the actions of ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and the Department of Homeland Security mirror racist tropes about the “welfare queen,” inner-city violence, and inherent criminality of Black people. Those and other stereotypes were used to both legitimize restrictions on federal assistance programs that most affected working Black families and justify building the carceral infrastructure needed to fulfill “tough on crime” policy agendas. Even the images of immigrant parents being kidnapped and children getting pepper sprayed or tear gassed that have become common over the last year bear a striking resemblance to the media coverage that surrounds police killings of Black people.
To make matters worse, the Supreme Court has given law enforcement the green light to racially profile immigrants, thus enabling an environment of fear and risk that normalizes armed agents harassing people based on how they look and speak, what they are wearing, and where they work. Findings from a CLASP study on how current immigration operations have harmed immigrant families and early education and child care providers corroborate the implementation of an immigration enforcement model based on discrimination and anti-Blackness. The study included interviews with immigrants and providers who compared the environment of heightened discrimination, risk, and fear they were navigating to the racism and police violence experienced by Black people in the U.S.
Far-Reaching Consequences
The Trump Administration’s decision to greatly expand immigrant detention does more than remove immigrant workers from their jobs and families. It transfers public resources to the agencies and contractors that confine people while creating a captive population available to perform labor for nominal compensation. Consequently, immigrant communities bear the brunt of lost wages, family separation, care disruptions, and economic instability, while detention operators receive public resources and reduced operating costs.
These impacts have spread far beyond industries predominantly occupied by immigrants. As of May 2026, over 668,000 jobs have been lost as a result of the chilling effects generated by anti-immigrant activities. The human cost is high as well. In addition to the thousands of lives that have been disrupted and hundreds of families separated, at least 52 people have died in ICE custody since January 2025.
Investing in the destruction of immigrant communities is not a strategy for national safety nor economic security. Rather than financing a system that removes workers from local economies and their families and extracts value from them in custody, policymakers should invest in the conditions that allow families and communities to thrive, such as programs that help everyone afford the daily costs of living, like child care, nutrition assistance, and health care. Policies that support immigrants support us all.
By Diane Harris
This report explores the difficult choices Southern workers often face when serious illness, caregiving, childbirth, or family loss occur. Based on interviews with 10 workers, Inaccessible and Costly finds that limited access to paid family and medical leave means too many workers fear retaliation, return to work too soon, lose wages, fall into debt, or are pushed out of jobs altogether.
The report argues that these harms deepen poverty and inequity, especially for women of color, and calls for worker-centered paid leave policies that include job protection, anti-retaliation measures, strong wage replacement, inclusive family definitions as well as paid sick days, and bereavement leave.
Since the report was originally published, Southern states have made important progress on paid family and medical leave. In March 2026, Virginia’s General Assembly passed a comprehensive paid family and medical leave policy, and Tennessee’s legislature expanded the state’s public-sector paid parental leave policy.
In July 2026, Inaccessible and Costly was updated to reflect these historic developments, including measures taken in Virginia following the passage of the state’s paid family and medical leave law earlier this year.
On June 4, Elyse Shaw spoke to Hill staffers as a part of the panel “Women, Work & AI Panel: Preparing Workers and Communities for the AI Economy,” which was organized by the Women Tech & Telecom Partnership and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
Note: This commentary originally appeared on Medium.
By Wendy Chun-Hoon and Isha Weerasinghe
A decade ago, our organization, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), was at the District of Columbia’s Wilson Building with advocates, local business owners, families, and workers from across the city, calling on D.C. City Council and Mayor Muriel Bowser to pass paid family and medical leave. As a national anti-poverty organization, CLASP knows how important access to paid leave is to families’ economic success.
As CLASP’s executive director and someone responsible for employing 40 staff, I’ve seen how essential D.C.’s paid leave program is to our own employees’ well-being, our business continuity, and our organization’s sustainability. By contributing modest and routine premiums on behalf of our workforce, we share the cost of this priceless benefit among all District employers. This means my staff can access this critical insurance program in times of emergency and when caring for a loved one, and we value all workers in D.C. being able to afford to take paid leave when they need to.
In fact, our regional economy benefits from workers having access to wage replacement when they need time away from work to address their own health needs or to care for a loved one. This is why Maryland and Virginia have followed D.C.’s lead in passing paid leave laws. Laws like these have helped to stabilize the region’s economy through the twin devastations of the pandemic and the Trump Administration’s recent mass federal layoffs.
Which is why, despite the Council restoring some of the cuts originally proposed by Mayor Bowser, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson’s budget still flies in the face of good business sense. The fund’s solvency shows that D.C.’s employers are committed to a program proven to deliver a return on investment in our city’s resilience and our employees’ well-being. But Chairman Mendelson’s budget still lacks investment in D.C.’s working families and small businesses. While the new budget prevents a fiscal year 2027 benefit freeze, it still cuts both the number of weeks of family and medical leave and the benefit amount. This is contrary to the District’s best interests and makes D.C. the first and only jurisdiction to reduce benefits after implementing a paid leave program.
To date, eight CLASP employees have benefitted from D.C. Paid Family Leave, Isha Weerasinghe being one of them. D.C.’s program made it possible for Isha and her husband to continue to live and work in the District when they decided to become parents.
They chose to expand their family in D.C. because they loved the city and its progressive and inclusive policies. They were heartened when D.C.’s paid leave policy became law, giving them the opportunity to have paid time off to spend with their newborn. And that time was particularly crucial, as their child was born during the COVID-19 pandemic, when they couldn’t rely on their usual networks for support. D.C.’s policies to support families were always a reason for Isha and her husband to stay in the city and, in turn, they have given back — not just as taxpayers, but through local activism, volunteering, and her husband’s position on the Advisory Neighborhood Commission.
Thanks to D.C.’s Paid Family Leave program, thousands of workers have been able to welcome a child, take care of an ill family member, or navigate their own health crisis secure in the knowledge that the essential work of caregiving would not leave them destitute. At CLASP, we’ve long known that when paid leave goes away, people experiencing health crises return to work before they’re ready, delay treatment, or leave the workforce entirely. As the Trump Administration and Congress have torn our country’s safety net apart, programs like D.C.’s Paid Family Leave are the line between economic security and poverty.
Since 2017, D.C. employers and workers alike have benefited from a program that protects businesses, employees, families, and our regional economy. Now it’s time for the D.C. Council to protect all of us and fully restore the Paid Family Leave program.
Wendy Chun-Hoon is the executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy, in Washington, D.C. Isha Weerasinghe is CLASP’s director of Public Benefits Justice. Both are moms raising young kids in the DMV and are grateful to have paid family medical leave.
On June 15, Diane Harris spoke at the EARN in the South Paid Leave Working Group about her report “Inaccessible and Costly: Southern Workers’ Experiences with Paid Leave.”
By Lulit Shewan
Extreme heat is rapidly becoming one of the most dangerous workplace hazards in the United States, yet millions of workers still lack even the most basic heat protections.
Across agriculture, construction, warehousing, manufacturing, sanitation, food delivery, landscaping, and food service, workers continue laboring through dangerous temperatures without guaranteed access to water, rest, shade, cooling, or emergency response measures. The inadequacy and recission of workplace health and safety policies are dangerous and a broader deregulatory environment that has weakened workplace protections overall while treating labor standards as obstacles to business operations rather than public health necessities.
Federal standards to offer workers sweeping protections in dangerous temperatures have been proposed in the past. Most recently, the Trump Administration has stalled the regulatory process for a Biden-era proposed rule that would have established the country’s first federal heat protective standard, including rights to water and shelter breaks. OSHA, backed by the administration, has also to overhaul or weaken the initial proposal. Following a “business-friendly” approach, the ongoing efforts to limit the authority of administrative agencies, reduce enforcement capacity, and narrow the scope of workplace regulations have left workers increasingly exposed to preventable harm. One result is that heat protections have become another casualty of a political environment that routinely shifts the burden of risk from employers onto workers themselves.
The human consequences are already visible. Extreme heat contributes to tens of thousands of workplace injuries every year. Longterm heat exposure increases the risk of dehydration, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, kidney damage, cardiovascular strain, and death. It also increases the likelihood of secondary injuries by impairing concentration, slowing reaction time, and intensifying fatigue. Workers operating machinery, driving vehicles, climbing ladders, carrying heavy materials, or performing repetitive physical labor in hot environments face heightened danger even when heat is not formally identified as the cause of injury.
The official numbers likely capture only a fraction of the crisis. Heat-related illness and death are consistently undercounted because many workplace injuries linked to extreme temperatures are often categorized differently. Workers can collapse from cardiac events, falls, or have equipment accidents after prolonged heat exposure without those incidents being recorded as related to heat related. Workers paid by quota or productivity metrics often continue working through symptoms of heat exhaustion or stress because stopping can mean lost income, retaliation, or termination.
Recent workplace deaths have made the stakes impossible to ignore. Farmworkers have died harvesting crops during extreme heat waves. Postal workers have collapsed while delivering mail in triple-digit temperatures. Construction workers and delivery drivers have died after prolonged outdoor exposure with insufficient access to cooling and recovery time. Investigations into these deaths repeatedly reveal the same conditions: inadequate training, missing emergency procedures, insufficient water access, pressure to maintain productivity, and employers failing to recognize or respond to clear signs of heat distress. The growing affordability crisis will only further intensify these dangers. Workers in physically demanding, low-paying jobs are often among those most likely to struggle with rising energy and housing costs, making it harder to keep their homes safely cooled during periods of extreme heat. Without adequate recovery in cooler environments between shifts, heat exposure becomes cumulative, increasing the likelihood of illness, injury, and long-term health consequences.
Despite this, the federal government still lacks a permanent occupational heat standard. Existing enforcement largely relies on general workplace safety obligations that have proven insufficient for addressing escalating climate-related hazards. Workers’ safety should not depend on whether federal inspectors intervene after an injury has already occurred.
States have increasingly been forced to fill the vacuum left by federal inaction. Some have developed models that demonstrate what meaningful heat protections can look like.
California established the nation’s first outdoor workplace heat standard and later expanded protections for indoor workers. Employers are required to provide accessible drinking water, shaded recovery areas, paid cool-down periods, heat illness prevention training, and emergency response procedures. Additional safeguards are activated during periods of especially high heat, including closer worker monitoring and mandatory communication systems. California also recognized that indoor workplaces such as warehouses, factories, and commercial kitchens can become dangerously hot environments even without direct sun exposure.
Other states have implemented key standards that mitigate heat related injury:
These state models offer a clear roadmap for federal policy. Strong national standards should include guaranteed access to cool drinking water, mandatory shaded or cooled recovery spaces, paid preventative rest breaks, acclimatization requirements, indoor heat protections, emergency medical response plans, worker participation in safety planning, and strong anti-retaliation protections for workers who report unsafe conditions. Standards should also account for humidity, workload intensity, duration of exposure, and protective equipment that can intensify heat stress.
None of these policies are radical. Water, rest, cooling, training, and emergency planning are basic workplace safety measures that every single worker deserves. The continued failure to guarantee them reflects political choices about whose health and safety are treated as expendable.
The current patchwork system leaves millions of workers dependent on geography for protections that should exist nationwide. Workers in states without strong heat standards often must rely on employer discretion while facing rising temperatures year after year. Workers earning low wages, immigrant workers, and workers concentrated in physically demanding industries bear the brunt of this failure. Extreme heat is a grave occupational safety issue. It is a structural workplace hazard intensified by climate change and compounded by weakened labor protections. The question is no longer whether stronger standards are necessary, but how many more workers will be injured or killed before comprehensive protections are finally treated as a baseline labor obligation.
On June 4, Elyse Shaw spoke to Hill staffers on a panel discussion organized by the Women Tech & Telecom Partnership and the Joint Center titled, “Women, Work & AI Panel: Preparing Workers and Communities for the AI Economy.”
By Lorena Roque
CLASP submitted these comments on proposed changes to California OSHA’s workplace violence prevention regulations. CLASP recommends the inclusion of gender-based violence and harassment as a form of workplace violence. Gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) is about “power over” in the workplace, not sexual desire or attraction. GBVH is a pervasive form of violence and harassment rooted in unequal power relations between (and among) women and men, and it both reflects and reinforces the subordinate status of women in many societies. California has the opportunity to be the first state in this nation to robustly implement GBVH prevention to protect workers from violence and harassment in the world of work.
Excerpt:
Nearly 1.2 million private-sector workers in Virginia, or about 41% of the state’s workforce, lacked paid sick leave in 2021, according to a report from the Center for Law and Social Policy.