As summer ends, workers face rising costs, fewer jobs, and shrinking protections

Terry Gerton We just passed Labor Day, and so I want to start by getting your assessment of how American workers are doing right now. What is the general flavor out there?

Sharon Block Unfortunately, I think this was an incredibly difficult Labor Day for American workers. We are facing an economy, and the recent jobs numbers underscores this, of a labor market that is really softening, and that makes life more difficult for workers. It inhibits their ability to look for new jobs, to try to trade up to higher paying jobs, just to have the security that they will be able to get a paycheck that’s decent enough for them to be able feed their family, take care of basic needs. So I think for most working people, that’s the most significant sort of context for this Labor Day, is after a long period coming out of the pandemic, like once we got past that shock, we had a really tight labor market and what that means, it might sound sort of technical, but in a tight labor market, workers have some leverage because employers need them. And so they can optimize the job that they want to have to be able to take care of their families. We’re now seeing a significant softening of that labor market. And that feels to workers like, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to hold on to this job. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to find a new job. I’m sure I’m going to be able get a raise. And in a period of inflation, as there’s a lot of speculation that we are entering a period of increasing inflation, that insecurity about whether you’re going to be able to a find a job, keep a job or be able to get a raise, the anxiety that that can produce for workers is really magnified during a period of inflation. So I think it’s a tough labor market that American workers are facing on this Labor Day. Layer on top of that though, this administration’s, the Trump administration’s creation of an environment of hostility to American workers, I think just exacerbates that general feeling of insecurity. Because when workers feel insecure, what’s one way, a really key way, for decades in this country, of having some voice in your workplace, of having some feeling of being able to take care of yourself is to join with your other coworkers and to do that in a union. And this is an administration that is really waging a war on the labor movement. And I think, even for workers who are not in a union, have never been in a union, just to see an administration that is willing to deny collective rights, to take, not deny, to take away collective bargaining rights from a million federal workers, who doesn’t care enough about protecting the private sector workers’ rights to collective bargaining to have a functioning National Labor Relations Board, the agency responsible for protecting that right, I think that also adds to that general feeling of insecurity and anxiety for American workers this Labor Day.

Sharon Block I’m speaking with Sharon Block. She’s a professor of practice and the executive director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School. Sharon, I want to go back to your first comment about a softening labor market. We recently got the August job numbers and there were only 22,000 new jobs created, a net loss of jobs in June, those numbers were revised down. What other indicators are you looking at that confirm that softening market, and how should people be approaching that?

Sharon Block So I think there’s a fair amount of data out there. You want to look at wages. We had been in a period which over the past couple of decades was pretty unusual, but at the end of the Biden administration, we were really seeing an increase, again, coming out of that, the pandemic sort of crashed, we were seeing at the low-wage end of labor market, those wages going up. So, that’s definitely something to look at. But another more recent data is you look at each Thursday, we get the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics about people quitting and coming in and out of the labor market. And that number will really tell you about the dynamism of the economy. Are workers moving around? Are they able to go and find a new job because it has a higher wage, or do they feel stuck where they are? So that’s another key piece of data and that number has been suggesting that workers are not feeling like they can move around. And then you look at new unemployment claims, and of course another piece of that picture from the August jobs report was that the unemployment rate did go up to 4.3%. Now, that’s still generally low. So you’re looking for data that suggests where this economy is going. You put all of those pieces together and it is starting to look like a very challenging labor market. And in particular, you look at where that softening in the labor market was in the last jobs report. We saw manufacturing was down, retail was down. I mean, these key parts of the economy that this administration promised that they were going to focus on and do something about, to grow manufacturing jobs. We’re all going to have to put up with this higher inflation from these across-the-board, seemingly random tariffs because it was going to increase manufacturing in the U.S. Well, manufacturing jobs actually went down and are going down. So, I think that’s also going to add, we were talking about how does this economy feel for workers? That makes it feel like there’s not a plan here. I mean, let’s go back to the previous month’s jobs report which came out, which also showed a softening in the labor market. Now, did the Trump administration come out and say, we have a plan to help workers in a softening labor market? No. They fired the messenger. So there’s just, there’s no indication from this administration that they have an agenda that is putting the interests of working people who are feeling the softening in the labor market that’s putting their interests first. So I think that probably also adds to the anxiety at the moment.

Terry Gerton The Trump administration did, last month, put out the American Talent Strategy, Equipping American Workforce for the Golden Age, sort of a workforce strategy memo that talks about registered apprenticeships, it talks about the trades, it talks about AI. What’s your sense of the ability to deliver on the words that are on those pieces of paper?

Sharon Block This administration puts out a lot of executive orders. Construction jobs were also down in the last, in the most recent jobs report. So I don’t know how they’re going, they plan to deliver on that promise either, in addition to not delivering on the promise to increase manufacturing jobs. I mean the reality is, we were increasing— I served in the Biden administration, so I just want to be transparent about that, in the White House, in addition to serving in the Obama administration. But, I think it’s a fact in the Biden administration, we, through the Inflation Reduction Act, that was funding actual jobs to build things that this country needs for the future. This administration has now pulled that money back. I mean, forget about how you feel about dealing with the climate crisis. That money in the Inflation Reduction Act was going across this country to help build the things that we need to change the energy mix in this country. Those were good paying jobs and this administration pulled that money. So there’s a lot of saying one thing, but doing another thing. This administration also has a history of, in the apprenticeship area, which was something that was very important to us also in the Biden administration, but what was important to use were good quality, fair paying, fairly administered apprenticeship programs. Again, the labor movement has a long history of delivering really high quality apprenticeship programs. What this administration did in the first Trump administration was to really pull the rug out from under those standards that make sure that apprenticeship programs are high quality. So again, there are things that are said on paper in this administration that are actually hostile to American workers, like all these executive orders denying collective bargaining rights to federal employees under the most disingenuous of justifications. Then there are things like this executive order that you just mentioned that maybe sound good, but it’s the actions on which this administration should be judged. And I don’t see where the actions match up with the rhetoric in that executive order.

Terry Gerton We are coming into the maybe tail end of the 2026 appropriations process on the Hill, where we might get some bills through. Are there actions that you think that you’re seeing Congress consider or that you’d like to see Congress consider that would help American workers?

Sharon Block Absolutely. Although, I mean, again, I hate to sound so downbeat, but I think we really have to put a question mark around, are we coming into an appropriations process? I mean, there are actions that this administration has taken that, I can’t believe I have to say these words, but actually lead you to question whether there will be any appropriations process. The recisions, the way that this administration has aggressively pushed for recisions including pocket recisions just really breaks away the the edifice of bipartisan commitment to a rational appropriation process. I mean, that has taken a hit over the last few years because we’ve been in the cycle of continuing resolutions and brinks of shutdown. So the edifice was shaky to begin with. But the hit that the trust between appropriators from the two parties has taken as a result of this administration’s actions, I think, is really important. Again, might sound very like inside baseball, but it’s important to the American people because the government delivers services that the American people rely on. And if we can’t have an appropriations process that funds the government at the most basic level because the whole structure by which we figure that out has been destroyed by this administration, the American people are the ones who are going to pay the price for that. If they can get to an appropriations process and get bills out and get important government services funded, I mean, what I would like to see at the very least is just appropriations levels at agencies like the Department of Labor, like the National Labor Relations Board, to just provide basic protections for American workers. Right now with the decimation of the federal workforce, there’s a real question as to whether agencies like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, Wage and Hour Division, which makes sure that workers get paid what they are owed, whether those agencies are staffed well enough even to provide those basic protections. So that’s at least where I would start. Let’s do the basics that American workers need to ensure that they are safe and paid fairly.