Here's Why a Federal Paid Leave Program Would Be a Bad Deal for Many Workers
Studies show that support for mandated paid leave drops when employees find out what it costs them in take-home pay.
Employment
COVID Proves Andrew Yang's UBI Won't Work
Can the government really cut everyone a check without bankrupting the country and killing labor force participation?
Bad Jobs Numbers Raise More Questions About Unemployment Insurance
Is the problem government cash or have we entered a new paradigm?
Two Big New Ways the Biden Administration Plans To Overstep Its Pandemic Authority
Plus: The vaccine and abortion debates, a promising jobs report, and more...
When We Reject Immigrants, We Reject Trillions of Dollars in Wealth
Growing evidence confirms that barriers to immigration make us all worse off.
No, Police Officers Aren't Resigning in Droves
Compared to pandemic employment shifts in other fields, law enforcement numbers are fairly stable.
California Judge Overturns Voter Initiative That Said Gig Workers Aren't Always Employees
Plus: You can't FOIA politicians' browser histories, Pentagon compels commercial airlines to evacuate Afghan refugees, and more...
Kansas Wants This Experienced Eyebrow Entrepreneur To Get 1,000 More Hours of Training
Jigisha Modi can't hire her own mother-in-law—who has decades of eyebrow-threading experience—because of Kansas' occupational licensing rules. Now she's suing.
Supreme Court Won't Hear Case Challenging Massachusetts' Income Tax on Telecommuters Who Don't Live or Work in Massachusetts
The Court left increasingly urgent questions about taxing remote workers up in the air.
How an Equal Pay Law in Colorado Is Backfiring
Major companies tell Colorado workers they need not apply.
Insane Lumber Prices Show How Governments Break Economies
Lockdowns, tariffs, and other market interventions made wood an expensive commodity.
There Still Aren't Enough People Getting Back to Work
Using the process of elimination, the culprit seems clear.
Barely Legal Strippers Now Fully Illegal in Texas
The penalty for employing 18- to 20-year-olds to work nude, topless, or "in a sexually oriented commercial activity" is now 2 to 20 years in prison.
Employers Can Require Workers To Get COVID-19 Vaccine, Says EEOC
Plus: The best International Whores' Day writing, FIRE fights expansive interpretation of critical race theory law, and more...
States Hope Labor Shortage Will Shrink as They Ditch Federal Unemployment Benefits
Plus: Remembering "sexual-subculture pioneer" Pat Bond, debunking gender gap hyperbole around jobs, and more...
The Gender Gap in Pandemic Job Losses Has Been Wildly Exaggerated
Jobs data casts doubt on the idea that the COVID-19 pandemic is uniquely setting women back.
If Biden Truly Wanted To Create Jobs, He Wouldn't Support the PRO Act
Destroying the ability of freelancers to make a living is union protectionism, not economic opportunity.
How Economists Learned to Love Minimum Wage Hikes
Would raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour cost jobs?
Californians Rejected a Harsh Law That Destroyed Freelance Jobs. Congress Is Trying To Make It Federal Law.
The PRO Act would demolish the gig economy for the benefit of labor unions and would undermine right-to-work laws.
Instacart Fires 10 Workers Who Voted To Unionize and Around 1,990 Others
Plus: How the U.S. covered up the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington school district is suing to force its teachers back to the classroom, and more...
Remote Work Is Here to Stay and That's a Good Thing
Able to do our jobs from where we please, life for many of us will reflect a bit more of what we want rather than what we have to do to get by.
Should Remote Workers Pay a Tax for the 'Privilege' of Using Their Home as an Office?
Deutsche Bank has proposed a 5 percent income tax on people working from home, the revenue from which could be spent supplementing the lost wages of service workers.
Occupational Licensing Reform Is a Biden Policy We Can All Favor
Occupational licensing rules are more often arbitrary bureaucratic hurdles than they are protections for health or safety.
Americans Are Moving Where They Want. Will It Be a Win for Choice or Polarization?
We can increasingly live where we please while working jobs of our choice. What we do with that bonanza is up to us.
California's Job-Killing A.B. 5 Scaled Back, but Only for Some Professions
Rideshare drivers and delivery people are still going to have to beg voters to let them work.
Lyft, Uber Get Last-Minute Reprieve Before They Would Have Canceled Services in California
Lawmakers and courts are trying to force them to put drivers on their payrolls. They're threatening to take a freeway out of the state entirely.
Americans Are Growing Less Willing To Beg for Permission To Make a Living
Officials claim doing business is a revocable “privilege,” but many Americans see it as a right that they’ll exercise with or without licenses and permits.
Supreme Court Strengthens First Amendment Protections for Religious Employers
SCOTUS rules 7-2 in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru.
Twitter Is Shifting to Remote Work. Will Other Firms Follow?
Will changes to how many of us work outlast the pandemic?
Working From Home May Be a Permanent Feature of the Post-Pandemic World
That has interesting implications for where people will base themselves in the future.
Make Pandemic-Related Occupational License Reform Permanent
Pandemic patients get better care when medical professionals are free to work where they're needed. The same will undoubtedly be true of regular patients after COVID-19 has left our lives.
How Coronavirus Is Kickstarting the 21st Century
A global pandemic has done what 30 years of internet manifestoes never accomplished: a mass migration into our screens.
Unemployment Claims Hit 6.6 Million. It's Officially Worse Than the Great Recession.
Plus: The feds are still targeting Juul, Call of Duty wins First Amendment lawsuit, and more...
California's Gig Economy Is Under Attack
"Companies can simply blacklist California writers and work with writers in other states, and that's exactly what's happening."
In California, Protecting Workers Means Outlawing Their Jobs
Assembly Bill 5 was designed to constrain the growth of the so-called gig economy. In practice, it's closing off opportunities
E-Verify: Making Life Harder for Workers and Small Businesses, With Enthusiastic MAGA Support
E-Verify makes life harder on immigrants who want to work, but it doesn't make things better for anyone—-even those who want to see those immigrants leave.
Occupational Licensing Hurts the Little Guy
People who want to work should be allowed to work.
In a Win for the Gig Economy, California Judge Exempts Truckers From Problematic Assembly Bill 5
The new law seeks to reclassify contractors as employees.
California Law Unconstitutionally Discriminates Against Certain Workers, Argue Uber and Postmates
Gig workers and companies are suing over a California law, AB 5, that criminalizes their continued employment.
Meet the Grandmothers Who Rule Kenya's Legal Drug Markets
The East African khat trade is thriving, even as global prohibition creeps in around the edges.
An Incomplete Map of Uberland
In its eagerness to make the case against Uber, a new book makes a pretty good case for Uber.
California Freelancers Suffer From Totally Predictable 'Unintended Consequences' of Gig Worker Protection Bill
Plus: Is there anything the upcoming spending bill doesn't contain? And more...
New Jersey Takes a Swipe at the Gig Economy With New Independent Contractor Bill
Critics warn the state is threatening the flexible work arrangements preferred by many workers.
Is New York City Barreling Toward Its Own Housing Crisis?
A report from the city's Department of Planning finds that housing construction has not kept pace with job growth.
States Are Easing Arbitrary Licensing Barriers to Work for People With Criminal Records
This year, Mississippi and North Carolina both ditched a vague "good moral character" clause that kept occupational licensing out of reach for people with criminal records.
ThinkProgress Panics Over Unlicensed Cosmetologists
Plus: dangerous publishers, a history of slavery, and more...
Occupational Licensing Is Keeping Americans Stuck in Place
Licensing reform efforts cross partisan barriers. Unfortunately, so do efforts to cripple opportunity and prosperity.
House Passes $15 Minimum Wage Bill
Plus: Portland mulls an anti-mask law, solar companies hoard panels before tax credits expire, and 2020 candidates have some plans.
