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By Lulit Shewan

In the United States, the legacy of alternative and temporary work has served to create increasingly unstable jobs that make up a highly visible but often overlooked share of the American workforce. Temporary and staffing agencies are a high-traffic, high-profit industry meant to serve individuals seeking job training for further employment opportunities. These programs largely serve communities of color, low-income Black communities, individuals without postsecondary education, and those who face barriers to “traditional” work. But the temporary staffing industry reveals yet another blatant system of discrimination reminiscent of pre-Civil Rights policies. Temporary staffing agencies create a system of precarious employment that fails to support the work needs of vulnerable groups, while systematically creating vulnerability through poor job conditions, subpar wages, labor exploitation, and racist practices. These agencies are yet another example of how employers and corporations operate at the intersection of profit accumulation and discrimination.

Temp workers are more than twice as likely to be paid poverty wages compared to workers in all industries. These workers are often paid less than their direct-hire counterparts doing the same work. Staffing and temp agencies receive a cut of the hourly fee they charge host employers, which can range from 30 percent to more than 150 percent of the wages the worker receives. Namely, Black women are also overrepresented in occupations that have a disproportionate share of temporary agency workers and are less likely to work in occupations that have a high share of independent contractors or contract workers, as compared to their white counterparts.

An estimated 13 million to 16 million U.S. workers are hired through staffing agencies annually, according to industry estimates. Despite the volume of this industry, U.S. policy poorly enforces the regulation of temp work, and this lack of regulation leaves a wide gap for the largest employers in sectors like warehousing, manufacturing, and increasingly in retail, to use temporary agencies to squeeze more labor from workers. Such poorly regulated programs create new systems of discrimination in poor Black and brown communities, where efficacy and accessibility are deficient.

Among communities of need, employment agencies are also often known to exacerbate the precarity of job programs through misleading information, manipulation, and outright discrimination. The industry is rife with stories of agencies deceiving and often lying about the terms of employment surrounding hours, pay, safety, and the process of temp-to-permanent job trajectory. Many of these agencies operate without a license, send people to jobs that don’t exist, or place them in jobs that don’t pay minimum wage. Oftentimes, these agencies charge a fee to connect individuals to companies with little or poor return. A 2022 NELP study underscoring the systematic manipulation of agencies found that 24 percent of workers reported experiencing wage theft through a staffing agency, in which they were paid less than minimum wage, not paid overtime, or not paid the proper amount for hours they worked. Exaggerating the benefits, salary, or job security of a position is also commonplace across various agencies in several states. Such agencies have also normalized the farcical presentation of temp-to-perm positions, convincing people to work under substandard conditions under the pretense that something better is on the horizon. As of 2022, NELP found that 72 percent of surveyed workers have never been hired into a permanent position from a temp job.

The underbelly of this issue, as is true for all forms of systematic oppression, is racist discrimination. Across various localities and states, a rampant trend of bigotry in hiring serves to further disparage employment opportunities for Black people in need. Many agencies often rely on this discrimination at several points in the recruiting and enlistment process. Stories of this anti-Black discrimination have seen spikes since the inception of the pandemic staffing-agency boom; employers using coded language to request non-Black people for hire, eligibility requirements being illegally skewed, assigning Black applicants to ‘less desirable’ work, or the unmitigated presence of interpersonal racism on the job.

The significant rise of discrimination is a grave concern to the growing temporary workforce that often operates as a lifeline to a very vulnerable workforce, whose threshold for workplace conditions and self-advocacy are greatly skewed due to the precarious nature of this work. Oftentimes, Black workers who attempt to fight back against these discriminatory practices not only fail to see retribution but lose accessibility to this vital work as a whole. It is also important to note that formerly incarcerated individuals are overrepresented in this labor market. These agencies, operating in tandem with employer tax credits, impel workers with criminal records to accept such jobs with low wages and poor working conditions, creating a class of disproportionately Black workers whose desperation employers can exploit.

The poor management and regulation of temporary staffing agencies is yet another facet of a racist workforce system, one that often serves to replicate the poor material conditions that Black laborers, the backbone of this country, have faced since its inception. The truth is clear: these agencies work to serve companies, not workers.

While eliminating barriers in recruitment and hiring and combatting illegal job discrimination are two of six national priorities identified by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, it is glaringly evident that these values are seldom upheld and enforced in the temporary staffing industry.

By Nat Baldino, Carmen McCoy, Kathy Tran, and Madison Trice

This first-of-its-kind report provides an in-depth case study analysis of young people from across the country and their paid leave needs. Conducted over 18 months, the report uses eleven detailed examples of youth ages 18 to 30 in seven states and Washington, D.C., including both localities that have access to paid leave laws and those that do not.

This report finds that youth in America, especially in regions like the South that have high populations of young Black and Brown people, desperately need policies that provide adequate and accessible paid leave from employment.

Our youth cannot thrive without robust paid leave policies that work for them whether that means taking time off to care for a sick younger sibling or a parent with a disability, dealing with a mental health issue without risking their economic security, or feeling confident applying to a job while pregnant knowing they will have leave to take care of a new infant.

>> Read the full report here

Trigger Warning: This page contains references to themes that some individuals may find distressing, including suicide and harassment. 

“The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.” – W. E. B. Du Bois

By Christian Collins

Black History Month’s national theme for 2025, “African Americans and Labor,” honors the symmetry between the history of Black Americans and the history of American labor. Whether paid or unpaid, voluntary or compulsory, essential or nonessential, Black labor has always been the cornerstone of the United States. The indispensable nature of Black labor has always been requisite to the development and wealth of the United States, to the point that it is valued more than the lives of the Black people performing the work. Chattel slavery of Black people was used to construct the racial capitalism that took the U.S. from British colony to global economic superpower and built the very halls that host our government. Yet within those walls resides a democracy that still views the lost lives of Black laborers as an insignificant inconvenience instead of the echoes of our founding genocidal tragedy.

Much like the current societal inequities that originate from Black people never being equally viewed as “people” by our government and society at large, the current socioeconomic inequities faced by Black workers originate in the fact that Black labor has never been viewed as “labor” but as an entitlement for American society.

Throughout American history, the word “labor” has had multiple definitions depending on the type of work performed and who is doing it. Nowhere is that more evident than in the history of labor performed by Black Americans. The slave trading network was a means in which enslaved Black people were developed into a profitable commodity. Even after chattel slavery was limited by Constitutional amendment from being applicable to all Black people to only those incarcerated by the government, Black lives were never valued as much as their labor. Black labor fueled child care, infrastructure construction, agricultural labor, artistry, and ironwork, among other essential forms of economic gain. The occupational segregation of Black workers to certain professions indicated what professions were undeserving of “fair” compensation or access to benefits, even as their work became more critical to the continued survival and growth of the United States. 

Misalignment between the value placed on Black labor versus on Black workers themselves, and the associated consequences, are still evident in the contemporary U.S.. Roughly half of all Black workers in the Southeast were agricultural wage laborers or domestic workers in the 1930s, leading to their specific exclusion from the labor rights protections administered through President Roosevelt and continued economic discrimination they experience. Black women in the United States were forced into careers as child care providers during slavery and into reconstruction. The occupational segregation of Black women continues to suppress wages of care providers even as the nation experiences a critical shortage of sector workers. Black men are overrepresented in the occupations most likely to be replaced via artificial intelligence (A.I.), such as factory labor and retail, while underrepresented in the occupations least likely to be replaced by A.I., like health and legal professionals. This trend continues a tradition of pursuing economic innovation from technological automation without regard to the human destruction it often causes. 

Black history is defined not just by the leaders who relentlessly pursued racial justice on behalf of Black communities but also by the collective loss of lives in that pursuit, and that is especially prevalent regarding Black labor. The following graphic honors the stories of Black workers who have lost their lives because of how their labor was undervalued. Their lives will live on not just in their families and communities, but also within CLASP as we continue to work toward the elimination of anti-Blackness within the labor force and broader American society.


Click the names below to interact and learn more:

Grant Conrad (1868-1887)

Echol Cole (1938-1968) and Robert Walker (1932-1968)

Adewale Ezekiel Ogunyemi (1979-2021)

Dr. Antoinette “Bonnie” Candia-Bailey (1974-2024)


The W. E. B. Du Bois quote that opened this blog came from his 1935 book Black Reconstruction in America. In this work, Du Bois argued that the Reconstruction period showcased how the autonomy and contributions of freed Black slaves were essential proof that a multiracial and working class-led democracy was possible in the United States after existing so long as a nation governed by racial hierarchies enforced through the economy and the law. The end of Reconstruction and subsequent violent terror of Jim Crow were in Du Bois’ eyes not a sign that widespread racial justice was impossible, but of the desperation of white supremacy to disrupt “the finest effort to achieve democracy for the working millions which this world had ever seen.”

The most effective weapon against racism, and therefore a governing system that embraces racial capitalism, is solidarity and collective action. Though the individuals highlighted above lost their lives due to the continued undervaluing of Black labor and the lives of Black workers, there are millions of people and communities across the country who hold similar stories of workers lost because society felt entitled only to their “labor,” not a recognition of their humanity. Black History Month is a time to celebrate the historical and current contributions of Black leaders in every aspect of American history, and to use the lessons of our past and present to build solidarity toward a true racially just democracy and economy.

“So often we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


If you or someone you know is struggling or in a crisis, help is available. You can call, text, or chat the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline to reach a trained crisis counselor who can provide support in a mental health, substance use, or suicide crisis

By James Wright Jr.

(EXCERPT)

In the North, African Americans faced legalized discrimination in employment and were restricted from joining many unions, according to an article “African American Workers Built America” by Asha Banerjee and Cameron Johnson, published by The Center for Law and Social Policy.

“Companies used Black workers as strike breakers to misdirect white workers’ anger and frustration,” Banerjee and Johnson wrote. “New Deal programs excluded Black agricultural and domestic workers. And 1930s ‘progressive’ public benefits legislation such as the Social Security Act was pro-white legislation that neglects Black workers, especially women.”

>> Read the full article here

By Christian Collins

Throughout the 2024 campaign cycle, post-election messaging, and proposed administrative appointments, the incoming Trump Administration has sent a clear message that undermining educational access for marginalized populations will be a priority. These pledges include loosening protections placed by the outgoing Biden Administration against sex and gender identity discrimination at federally funded schools, weakening educational accessibility for immigrant students, and decreasing the racial diversity of the postsecondary system. The most direct threat has been the repeated promise of closing the federal Department of Education (ED) in its entirety, a move that has been attempted multiple times since the department was founded in 1979 but that has failed in every instance.

This brief details the threat that the new administration poses to ED and its impact on post-secondary institutions. It analyzes how there is little political will to close ED, but significant federal education funding cuts are a possibility. Next, the brief outlines how postsecondary institutions are looking to private equity firms to cover potential financial shortfalls and provides policy recommendations for institutions, policymakers, and advocates on pathways to fiscally protect the postsecondary system.

>> Read the brief here

The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) strongly supports the Department of Labor’s proposed rule to phase out Section 14(c) certificates under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which currently allow employers to pay disabled workers subminimum wages. This practice perpetuates occupational segregation, economic inequality, and systemic barriers for disabled individuals. Nearly half of workers under these certificates earn $3.50 an hour or less, often in sheltered workshops that isolate them from the broader workforce. Ending subminimum wages will create a more inclusive and equitable workforce, empowering workers of all abilities to thrive.

>>Download

This announcement is from David Hansell, Chair, CLASP Board of Trustees

On behalf of the Board of Trustees at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), I’m pleased to share an update on our leadership transition. Our Board’s Search Committee has engaged LeaderFit—a women-owned, women-led executive recruitment firm—to help identify our next President/Executive Director. The firm is actively recruiting candidates for the role, which is described here. We encourage you to share this opportunity with your networks so we can find CLASP’s next leader who will play a pivotal role in our shared fight to advance economic, social, and racial justice.

You may recall that the plans for our leadership transition also included former Executive Director Olivia Golden’s return to serve as Interim Executive Director. She has done a remarkable job, working closely with the staff and Board to enhance the organization’s capacity to meet the challenges that lie ahead in 2025 and beyond.  Olivia will wrap up her engagement on January 24, and we simply cannot thank her enough for her leadership in this critical time.

I’m pleased to announce that we have recruited Cemeré James to serve as the next Interim Executive Director until our permanent President/Executive Director is in place within the next few months. Cemeré, who will overlap with Olivia before her departure, is a CLASP alum who directed a CLASP-led multi-organization initiative known as Work Support Strategies. In addition, Cemeré led another national organization in an interim role, having served as Interim President and CEO at the National Black Child Development Institute. She also held senior roles at the Children’s Defense Fund and in the Illinois Department of Human Services. We are confident that Cemeré is the right person to assume the interim leadership mantle from Olivia, and we’re delighted she’s rejoining CLASP.

We look forward to your help in identifying our next leader and would appreciate your ongoing support in so many other ways. Thanks to your partnership and our passionate and dedicated staff, CLASP is ready to respond to all this year will bring.

By Diane Harris

CLASP comments in support of the Family Care Act. The Family Care Act would establish a paid family and medical leave program in Pennsylvania, a historic feat that would significantly improve the health and well-being of workers and their families while driving economic growth and cost savings for employers. and promote GDP growth and cost savings for employers. This program would enable workers to navigate major life events, such as welcoming a new child, recovering from a serious illness or injury, or caring for a loved one, without jeopardizing their employment, financial security, or their loved ones’ health and safety.

Read the comment here.

By Molly Weston Williamson, Nat Baldino, and Marianne Bellesorte

Fourteen states (including Washington, D.C.) have passed paid family and medical leave laws. These state paid leave programs have collectively enabled millions of workers to take the time needed for their health and family without compromising their economic security. As efforts toward passing a national, comprehensive paid leave policy continue, more states look to create their own paid leave laws, building on the strong foundation laid by these nation-leading states.

In June 2024, Family Values @ Work (FV@W) and the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) brought together more than 100 paid leave stakeholders from across the country, including state program administrators, state and national paid leave advocates, Congressional staff, and other partners for the Paid Family and Medical Leave Collaborators Convening. The event included representatives from 18 states, including D.C., ranging from states that have provided paid leave benefits for decades to those working to pass programs. This report reflects critical themes and lessons learned from the convening.

>> Read the full report here

by Lulit Shewan

An incoming Trump Administration, with its pro-business agenda, has grim plans to disrupt the labor movement’s fight for fair wages, paid family leave, and stronger workplace protections. This means that workers will not only be navigating entrenched corporate structures but also a political system that has long prioritized profitability over people. Workers in essential sectors like agriculture, food service, health care, and the gig economy continue to face stagnant wages, inadequate benefits, and precarious employment conditions. The passage of pro-worker policies in several states on Election Day speaks volumes: workers are calling for safer workplaces, livable wages, and the dignity that comes with stable and secure jobs. These victories reflect a groundswell of determination to reshape working conditions, even as policies that have been stalled or attacked now face heightened threats of rollback or further inaction. Localized victories, like raising minimum wages and passing paid leave policies, demonstrate the power of grassroots movements to drive change where federal action has stalled.

Grassroots organizations like Missouri Jobs with Justice, which mobilized to secure a minimum wage increase, and the Alaska Food Coalition, which has long advocated for economic stability, highlight how community-led efforts are advancing worker-centered policies. These successes underscore the potential of localized solutions to address entrenched issues such as stagnant wages, inadequate benefits, and precarious employment conditions—challenges exacerbated by federal inaction. 

As federal policies like the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act and Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) languish in legislative purgatory, local and state initiatives have stepped in to fill the gap. The failure to raise the federal minimum wage or eliminate the subminimum wage for tipped workers has deepened financial insecurity, disproportionately affecting Black, Indigenous, and other workers of color. Grassroots action offers a pathway to address these inequities and create tangible improvements in workers’ lives. 

Pushing for Localized Labor Solutions Informed by Grassroots Work  

Recent wins at the state and municipal levels underscore the importance of the labor movement focusing on these areas. These victories didn’t happen in isolation; they resulted from years of grassroots organizing and community-led efforts to push for change. Organizations like Missouri Jobs with Justice and Alaska Food Coalition, exemplify the power of community-led movements in achieving worker-centered policies. To amplify such efforts and achieve lasting change, progressive local governments must implement policies that address the unique needs of workers earning low wages and Black workers in particular: 

Federal Inaction and the Need for Grassroots Momentum 

Federal inaction remains a barrier to broader systemic change. The PRO Act and PFML are prime examples of federal policies that could transform labor conditions but have been stalled due to relentless corporate lobbying and political opposition. These policies aim to: 

Historically, labor reforms like the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) have faced similar fates. Despite promises from political leaders, the EFCA, which sought to simplify union organizing and enhance penalties for labor law violations, never materialized. This persistent pattern of federal inaction has eroded trust among workers, emphasizing the urgency of grassroots and local approaches to advance the labor movement. 

The victories of grassroots movements reflect the resilience and determination of workers who have long fought for fair wages, safe workplaces, and economic dignity. By prioritizing localized solutions and building on the momentum of recent state and municipal wins, the labor movement can continue to make meaningful strides. While federal policies remain essential for widespread reform, the power of community-led efforts demonstrates that change is possible—one city, state, and coalition at a time.