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.
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, 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.
To learn more about recent paid leave efforts in Virginia, please visit this CLASP resource. To learn more about the legislation passed in Tennessee, please refer to A Better Balance’s press statement.
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.
Onward and Upward documents the growth of paid family and medical leave advocacy and policy wins since the Build Back Better negotiations in 2020. The report argues that paid leave has reached a national tipping point: advocates have secured meaningful victories at the local, state, and federal levels across 42 states and the District of Columbia, even without a permanent national paid leave program.
These wins are evidence that paid leave is politically viable, broadly needed, and increasingly central to economic security, caregiving, public health, and gender and racial equity.
The report also emphasizes that state-level progress remains uneven, leaving many workers dependent on where they live, who they work for, and whether their employer offers benefits. While state campaigns and voluntary programs have expanded access, the report maintains that only a comprehensive federal guarantee can ensure all workers can care for themselves or loved ones without risking their jobs or paychecks. It positions the current moment as a launchpad for a coordinated 50-state strategy and renewed federal action.
By Christian Collins
Authoritarian war machines are fueled through the sacrifice of young adults in service of empire. Presently, that fuel is refined through policymakers purposefully destroying the national education system and economy. Last year’s widespread cuts to Medicaid and SNAP leave states responsible for covering $450 billion in lost federal benefits over the next ten years, which will slow down and potentially reverse recent expansion of state-level education funding across the country. Restricted state-level education funding directly reduces the ability of students with lower incomes to enroll in and complete postsecondary educational opportunities, which in turn limits their access to good jobs.
The U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) actions only exacerbates these funding issues with a rash of policies and decisions, including their ongoing rulemaking to reduce available financial aid for career fields with higher rates of enrollment from women and students of color; leaving large portions of the country’s 43 million student loan borrowers in limbo by laying off roughly half of the Federal Student Aid Office workforce; illegally moving student loan collection responsibilities to the Treasury Department to account for Secretary McMahon’s failures in managing the national student debt portfolio; and disruptions of existing federal education and workforce training programs via their illegal relocation from ED to the Department of Labor. These are all coordinated actions to cut vital economic lifelines and funnel people into military service.
This deliberate destruction of federal public services is concerning for both its impact on the national economy and its specific impact on men, the primary target for increased military enlistment. Though women are eligible to enlist, and their educational access is being threatened, the administration has specifically focused on increasing enlistment for men and actively discouraging enlistment from marginalized groups like transgender people. Over the last five months, adult men across all measured racial demographics have lost employment at a higher rate than the overall workforce. As unemployment rates are improving, this means more men are dropping out of the labor force altogether.
| Adult Male Employment Level by Race: December 2025 through April 2026 (U.S, Bureau of Labor Statistics) | |||||||
Demographic |
Dec. 2025 |
Jan. 2026 |
Feb. 2026 |
Mar. 2026 |
Apr. 2026 |
Total Change |
% Change |
All Adults |
163,992,000 |
163,097,000 |
162,912,000 |
162,848,000 |
162,622,000 |
-1,370,000 |
-0.8 |
>20 White Men |
64,411,000 |
61,734,000 |
61,574,000 |
61,684,000 |
61,199,000 |
–3,212,000 |
–5.0 |
>20 Black Men |
9,938,000 |
9,402,000 |
9,407,000 |
9,328,000 |
9,464,000 |
–474,000 |
–4.8 |
>20 Hispanic/Latino Men |
17,935,000 |
17,700,000 |
17,618,000 |
17,621,000 |
17,542,000 |
–393,000 |
-2.2 |
| Adult Male Unemployment Percentage by Race: December 2025 through April 2026 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) | ||||||
Demographic |
Dec. 2025 |
Jan. 2026 |
Feb. 2026 |
Mar. 2026 |
Apr. 2026 |
Total Change |
All Adults |
4.4 |
4.3 |
4.4 |
4.3 |
4.3 |
-0.1 |
>20 White Men |
3.4 |
3.3 |
3.4 |
3.2 |
3.5 |
0.1 |
>20 Black Men |
6.9 |
7.4 |
7.0 |
7.3 |
6.9 |
0.0 |
>20 Hispanic or Latino Men |
4.3 |
3.9 |
4.5 |
3.9 |
4.2 |
-0.1 |
Note: data for Hispanic or Latino men is taken from this link.
A national economy careening toward recession, potential global food insecurity, the intentional removal of affordable educational and training opportunities, and the loss of public benefits at the federal level forces young men to choose between the morality of participating in an illegal war or socioeconomic survival for themselves and their families.
However, male veterans’ increased access to higher education through the GI Bill and additional benefits like widespread tax exemptions have not protected their employment levels relative to nonveteran men. Along with not being immune from the administration’s cuts to public benefits, these are important factors to communicate to young men as they weigh participating in international war crimes as a socioeconomic lifeline.
| Adult Male Employment Level by Veteran Status: December 2025 through April 2026 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) | |||||||
Demographic |
Dec. 2025 |
Jan. 2026 |
Feb. 2026 |
Mar. 2026 |
Apr. 2026 |
Total Change |
% Change |
All Adults |
163,992,000 |
163,097,000 |
162,912,000 |
162,848,000 |
162,622,000 |
–1,370,000 |
–0.8 |
>18 Veteran Men |
6,883,000 |
6,739,000 |
6,743,000 |
6,735,000 |
6,727,000 |
–156,000 |
–2.3 |
>18 Nonveteran Men |
78,634,000 |
78,742,000 |
76,923,000 |
76,337,000 |
77,458,000 |
-1,176,000 |
–1.5 |
| Adult Male Unemployment Percentage by Veteran Status: December 2025 through April 2026 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) | ||||||
Demographic |
Dec. 2025 |
Jan. 2026 |
Feb. 2026 |
Mar. 2026 |
Apr. 2026 |
Total Change |
All Adults |
4.4 |
4.3 |
4.4 |
4.3 |
4.3 |
-0.1 |
>18 Veteran Men |
3.8 |
4.3 |
3.9 |
3.3 |
3.5 |
-0.3 |
>18 Nonveteran Men |
4.1 |
4.8 |
4.9 |
4.4 |
4.1 |
0.0 |
Policymakers shoulder the blame for this current system, but institutions have also made affordability pathways harder to navigate for students and families with lower incomes. For example, New America recently published research on how institutions have been working with enrollment management consultants to free up financial aid resources for wealthier students by pushing other families into taking Parent PLUS loans. These loans can go well beyond the $7,500 federal loan limit for dependent students, can’t be discharged in bankruptcy, and are subject to wage garnishment amongst other governmental debt collection methods. Colleges and universities are also using online education as a fundraising tool rather than a quality opportunity for an adaptable and less expensive on-ramp for students; treating housing as a profit-driven asset instead of a basic need; using consulting firms to identify programs to cut to hide other areas of financial mismanagement; and outsourcing the work of professors to artificial intelligence companies while closing departments and halting supportive services programs for students. These are factors for why public pushback from institutions against policymaker attacks is so rare, because some institutions have been willful participants.
The overall employment levels for young men regardless of race have remained relatively stable since December 2025 but with high variance between age groups, which means that policymakers should be especially concerned about young men entering adulthood. This data is also irrespective of the fact that less than 30 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds hold quality jobs that offer fair pay, growth opportunities, and are at safe and respectful workplaces, so job gains for other age groups do not excuse a lack of urgency in offsetting the deliberate cratering of the economy and postsecondary education.
| Total Young Adult Male Employment Level by Age: December 2025 through April 2026 (Federal Reserve of St. Louis) | |||||||
Demographic |
Dec. 2025 |
Jan. 2026 |
Feb. 2026 |
Mar. 2026 |
Apr. 2026 |
Total Change |
% Change |
All Adults |
163,992,000 |
163,097,000 |
162,912,000 |
162,848,000 |
162,622,000 |
–1,370,000 |
-0.8 |
16y-17y Men |
925,000 |
920,000 |
904,000 |
860,000 |
842,000 |
–83,000 |
–9.0 |
18y-19y Men |
1,689,000 |
1,650,000 |
1,740,000 |
1,707,000 |
1,829,000 |
140,000 |
8.3 |
20y-24y Men |
7,310,000 |
7,489,000 |
7,445,000 |
7,632,000 |
7,382,000 |
72,000 |
1.0 |
25y-34y Men |
19,307,000 |
19,398,000 |
19,291,000 |
19,171,000 |
19,431,000 |
124,000 |
0.6 |
State governments and institutions have a variety of policy tools at their disposal to meet the public’s demand for increased financial investments in postsecondary education and reduced financial barriers to educational opportunities. States that act would also disrupt the Trump Administration’s efforts to sacrifice young men in an unnecessary conflict. One top priority should be to remove the tuition barrier, which nearly 1,000 institutions across the country have already done. Additional policy tools include:
Postsecondary education is a pillar of American democracy, not a blunt tool to foster authoritarianism. Trump’s policy agenda has already been an abhorrent moral failure committed by policymakers and higher education leaders, a fatal domestic failure with the adaptation of these tactics for ICE recruitment, and now a tool fueling a global conflict and the destruction in Iran.
The Trump Administration is consciously creating a K-shaped war economy wealthy benefactors profit off the suffering of the lower and middle classes. This is all to support the president’s impulsive bombing of other nations, and the Trump Administration has even resorted to mocking those who have concerns about these actions. State policymakers cannot make the same mistakes as their federal counterparts. They cannot abandon the responsibilities of democratic leadership.