The @prospect.org just released new reporting citing our analysis on Operation Metro Surge. Toplines: • $18M/week in taxpayer costs • $80M/week in lost economic activity • Long-term damage to schools, healthcare, and housing •MN corporations need to be held accountable prospect.org/2026/01/28/m...

Yes, one underreported part of this is the economic loss for cities as the result of federal occupation. Talked to some great folks at North Star Policy Action about that, who said, "It’s an economic and social dead zone. It’s worse than the pandemic." prospect.org/2026/01/28/m...

Things we could do in MN with the $18 million a week it costs taxpayers to fund Operation Metro Surge: - Provide Medicaid coverage for 5,000 Minnesota children - Fund a full week of SNAP benefits for every eligible Minnesotan - Cover the annual salaries of 225 school mental health professionals

New Report: The Cost of Operation “Metro Surge” finds that federal enforcement in Minnesota is costing taxpayers at least $18 million per week — a conservative estimate of personnel, lodging, detention, and police overtime costs. Read the full report: northstarpolicy.org/metro-surge-...

“Corporate and political leaders are seriously underestimating how mad Minnesotans are about these ongoing federal attacks.” — North Star Policy Action

As ICE enforcement disrupts Minnesota’s workforce and economy, major corporations have refused to speak up. Our ED @jakeschwitzer.bsky.social breaks down what that silence is costing the state in @minnesotareformer.com ⬇️ minnesotareformer.com/2026/01/16/b...

NEW FACT SHEET: ICE enforcement is actively disrupting Minnesota’s economy. Read the full fact sheet here: northstarpolicy.org/business-imp...

We’re continuing to update our fact sheet as new evidence and developments emerge in the killing of Renee Nicole Good and the federal ICE surge in Minnesota. You can read the fact sheet here: northstarpolicy.org/ice-in-minne...

FACTS: Here's what we know about ICE in Minnesota and the tragic killing of Renee Nicole Good Read the full fact sheet: northstarpolicy.org/ice-in-minne...

Today we released a new fact sheet documenting the misinformation campaign that preceded and followed the tragic killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis: northstarpolicy.org/ice-in-minne...

Yesterday, North Star Policy Action Executive Director Jake Schwitzer testified before the Minnesota Senate on how tariffs, anti-immigrant policies, health care cuts, and worker protection rollbacks are creating uncertainty across Minnesota’s economy. Full clip: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ1A...

The Trump administration is failing to agree on whether to extend key ACA subsidies, subsidies that 22 million Americans rely on, including tens of thousands of Minnesotans. Without action, health insurance premiums will spike as early as next week. Here’s how it this would impact Minnesota:

The Minnesota Chamber’s new 2026 Business Benchmarks report offers a snapshot of the Minnesota economy but leaves out some major forces shaping what employers + workers are actually experiencing.

Last night, we were honored to receive the CTUL Ally Leadership Award from our partners at El Centro de los Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL). The award recognizes our shared work to end worker exploitation and wage theft in Minneapolis’s construction industry.

NEW REPORT: Minnesota has committed to 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040, but we’re not on track to get there. Our new report, Expanding Possibilities, shows how lifting Minnesota’s ban on new nuclear construction could change that. READ: northstarpolicy.org/expanding/

Yesterday we stood with labor allies and released our new report, A Roadmap to Compliance: Strengthening Worker Protections in Minneapolis Construction. We called on the city to take bold steps to eliminate wage theft, retaliation, sexual assault, and labor trafficking.

We love to brag when Minnesota is the best. This isn’t a list we want to be high on. Minnesota has the fourth largest teacher pay penalty in the country. Our teachers make 33% less than other workers with a college degree. Nationwide, the gap is the largest it’s ever been and growing.

Minnesota's Republican Members of Congress voting to hurt tens of thousands of their constituents, so they can send even more money to their billionaire supporters. This is the real class warfare, and Minnesotans are losing.

This is solidarity! ✊ THANK YOU to everyone in our pro-labor community who showed up and spoke up yesterday to protect prevailing wage for Bloomington workers. 🗣️ Together, we did it. 👉 We’ll keep showing up when pro-worker policies are up for debate. #WhenWeFightWeWin #BloomingtonMN #prevailingwage

Just wait until people find out their health care and food costs are skyrocketing, and their kids' childcare is closing all so that we could spend $170 billion more doing this unpopular stuff.

The Giant Nightmare bill moving through the Senate is bad. Really bad. Our @aaronrosenthal.bsky.social wrote about the growing threat to workers and consumers from AI, and why we needed Minnesota's members of Congress to strike this moratorium on regulations. www.startribune.com/big-beautifu...

📉Our State of Working Minnesota report finds a major shift: fewer Minnesotans are earning poverty wages. In 2024, the share of workers earning below poverty wages dropped by more than 12%. Recent gains have been particularly strong in communities of color. 🔗 northstarpolicy.org/sowmn-2025/

Health insurers are reporting 14-26% increase in health care costs in MN next year, driven by Trump and Congressional Republicans cutting people's health insurance. 🚨NO ONE IS SAFE FROM THIS DISASTROUS BILL. Even if you get to keep your insurance, your premiums are about to skyrocket!

Great rundown of labor legislation from @maxnesterak.bsky.social and @minnesotareformer.com. Lots of great pro-worker defense! Also happy to see our worker misclassification numbers cited and even happier to see that MN will be carrying out its own analysis thanks to @emmagreenman.bsky.social

As @mprnews.org points out, MN passed almost no new AI laws even as the federal gov't seeks to ban state AI regulation for 10 years. We found that 500,000 MN workers are at high risk of AI impact and highlighted ways to align AI innovation with worker welfare. The time for action is now!

Our State of Working Minnesota report shows the state’s Black unemployment rate is the lowest in the Midwest after being the region’s highest during the Great Recession. The gap between Black and white unemployment is at its lowest level in decades. There’s more work to do, but progress matters.

📉Our State of Working Minnesota report finds a major shift: fewer Minnesotans are earning poverty wages. In 2024, the share of workers earning below poverty wages dropped by more than 12%. Recent gains have been particularly strong in communities of color. 🔗 northstarpolicy.org/sowmn-2025/

📈Minnesota just hit 3 million jobs for the first time in state history, as reported in our new State of Working Minnesota report. The biggest gains? Construction, education, and health care—sectors that fuel our economy and strengthen our communities. Read more: minnesotareformer.com/2025/06/05/m...

"We don’t have to choose between abundant housing and fair pay. In fact, the best way to build more homes quickly and sustainably is to restore the natural alliance between pro-housing advocates and the people who build housing." Our @aaronrosenthal.bsky.social together with @moreneighbors.org

Rep. Stauber likes to say he's "fighting for our way of life." Casting the deciding vote for the GOP budget shows he's fighting for Wall Street execs in NYC and tech billionaires in San Fran, not working families in MN's 8th Congressional District. www.duluthnewstribune.com/opinion/colu...

Last week, Rep. Fischbach cast the deciding vote for a budget bill that will hurt her constituents. They will lose health insurance, food assistance, jobs and more. It will send that money to the richest Americans, people who don’t live in Western MN. www.inforum.com/opinion/lett...

Last week, Rep. Fischbach cast the deciding vote for a budget bill that will hurt her constituents. They will lose health insurance, food assistance, jobs and more. It will send that money to the richest Americans, people who don’t live in Western MN. www.inforum.com/opinion/lett...

Rep. Stauber likes to say he's "fighting for our way of life." Casting the deciding vote for the GOP budget shows he's fighting for Wall Street execs in NYC and tech billionaires in San Fran, not working families in MN's 8th Congressional District. www.duluthnewstribune.com/opinion/colu...

Oh look, another way Trump's budget bill hurts the working class. Stealing jobs from working people and increasing energy costs to funnel even more money to the rich. www.cnn.com/2025/05/21/c...

In addition to stealing from the poor to give to the rich, and screwing over workers who will be hurt by AI, the bill also contains a $5 billion private school voucher program. Read here for our take on why vouchers are such a bad idea. www.minnpost.com/community-vo...

The GOP Congress is planning a massive bill that will give huge tax cuts to the rich while taking health care and food from the poor. And it has lots of other bad ideas, like prohibiting states from regulating AI. Our research shows why this is such a bad idea. northstarpolicy.org/progress-and...

Government services are good, actually.

In addition to stealing from the poor to give to the rich, and screwing over workers who will be hurt by AI, the bill also contains a $5 billion private school voucher program. Read here for our take on why vouchers are such a bad idea. www.minnpost.com/community-vo...

The GOP Congress is planning a massive bill that will give huge tax cuts to the rich while taking health care and food from the poor. And it has lots of other bad ideas, like prohibiting states from regulating AI. Our research shows why this is such a bad idea. northstarpolicy.org/progress-and...

Just as our report shows people of color would be disproportionately hurt by Medicaid cuts, this story in the @minnesotareformer.com shows Black and Latino doctors would also feel the pain. All so the rich can get richer. minnesotareformer.com/2025/04/28/m...

70% of Black children in Minnesota get their health care through Medicaid. 66% of American Indian/Alaska Native children do. Half of Latino children. More than a third of AAPI children. Almost a quarter of White children. This is who the GOP is stealing from so they can give that money to the rich.

This left graph showing tax breaks in terms of dollar amounts vs percentages illustrates how expensive it is to cut taxes for the wealthy. Meanwhile, the small breaks given to the poorest 40% are dwarfed by cuts to social programs.

Trump's Medicaid cuts will be especially devastating for rural Minnesota. Seniors, adults and children in rural Minnesota all depend on Medicaid at a higher rate than their urban counterparts, but the disparities among children are especially large. northstarpolicy.org/medical-assi...

The Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress are planning a Reverse Robin Hood: stealing health care from the working class to give tax cuts to the rich. Our policy brief shows what’s at risk, and how Minnesota should respond. northstarpolicy.org/medical-assi...

With the federal cuts to essential services in MN, it feels like we're in a bad movie. On the blog, we imagine the movie pitch: the richest man in the world cuts services to lower rich people's taxes. It's a terrible script. The reality is even worse. 🧵 northstarpolicy.org/unbelievable...

Quick reminder.

Quick reminder.

The author of this piece sits on our Research Advisory Committee. He just lost his job because of Elon Musks's cuts. But he's more concerned about all the workers who will be harmed on the job as programs like NIOSH are destroyed. www.startribune.com/heres-how-th...

Cases like this one are why we point to prevailing wage laws as a way to fight wage theft. On a prevailing wage project, contractors have to file certified payroll reports. This wage theft was discovered because the contractor falsified those docs. minnesotareformer.com/2025/04/10/p...

Today would be a good day for those who claim to represent the interests of businesses to fight back against the disastrous policies of the Trump Administration. Are they actually pro-business, or just anti-worker? northstarpolicy.org/misplaced-bu...