New 📰: Patrick Oakford explores how stronger labor standards are foundational to the economic security of working families—raising the federal minimum wage to $20/hr by 2030, establishing just cause protections, and strengthening enforcement against wage theft. 🧵

How high could policymakers set a national minimum wage? NEW report from @benzipperer.org proposes an evidence-backed benchmark that would lift pay for nearly 40 million workers without the job losses critics typically predict. 1/3

More from the we-hate-markets wing of US politics: the mandatory "intellectual freedom" enrollment edition

OK Policy's Carly Putnam will be speaking at this panel on Thursday (noon, CST) to talk about the work being done in Oklahoma to address raising the minimum wage. Register today! us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

US employers spend over $1.5 billion annually to fight their workers' unionization efforts www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

whomst among us hasn't used starch to heat up some starch

Do we have a spending problem? I argue no. Short 🧵 Here's a graph of all program spending EXCEPT Social Security and Medicare from 1950-present (with projections through 2056). It's already way below average, moving towards historic lows. So clearly that part of the govt isn't a "problem."

ooof, two absolutely beautiful goals:

Given what we know about the demographics of the administration's base, this is a remarkable finding from @elizabethacox.bsky.social and @chloeneast.bsky.social. www.nber.org/papers/w35129

When the labor market looks wobbly, people often look to subgroup unemployment rates (eg for non-white or young workers) for signs of what’s to come, but do they actually predict changes in the overall UR? I have a new short piece on this out today for @clevelandfed.bsky.social.

Here is a figure showing the various OECD countries minimum wages as a ratio of median. Average around 60%. But many at or above 2/3. Then there is an outlier, the US.

Staggered adoption breaks TWFE event studies. Already-treated units act as controls for later cohorts, so pre-trend violations outside the window leak into the lags, while the leads appear flat

This government's whole approach is to funnel public money to the private sector. Of course other administrations did too, but never on this level. Robbing the public to make oligarchs even richer.

this truly is the thing that makes the united states exceptional, and right wingers hate it so much they want to destroy it

One more reason why unemployment benefit take-up rates are so low, from the former head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

I filed for unemployment for the first time when I was fired last year, and never got past MD's broken identity-verification system. I was the most famous fired person in America at the time, and a 20-year career bureaucrat, but I found another job before I ever successfully filed a UI claim.

somewhere, an #rstats and linux-using ornithologist is having a very bad day

My op-ed in the Boston Globe today. Gifted link below:

shoutout to @hannahrecht.bsky.social for a fantastic R package. This is a great way to get US census data: github.com/hrecht/censu... #EconSky

so helpful

Remarkable that California's fast-food minimum wage had no effect on jobs Given its relatively high "bite" and partial coverage (large chains only), employers and consumers could have shifted toward lower-wage alternatives, but it appears they didn't

Year over year real hourly wages fell for the first time in three years. The CPI grew 3.8% in April, beating out nominal wage growth and leading to a 0.2% fall in real wages. Accelerating price inflation is the real culprit but decelerating nominal wage growth indicates a weakening labor market.

Thanks to Trump's war with Iran, real wages fell for two straight months and are now lower than they were a year ago

In Louisiana and likely Alabama, actual, cast votes are going to be tossed out as officials speed ahead with new (or previously enjoined) maps. This is such an extreme use case for the Purcell principle that the court ignoring it here signifies that it was always a made-up toy, not law.

Directed me to a pregnancy center in my area that discourages abortion, shames people who have gotten an abortion, and includes bible quotes. Did not list as options planned parenthood or any other clinic that performs abortion in my area.

De Las Souls

Aggressive immigration enforcement leads to more crime and fewer reports to police

Even if passed, this will do nothing to lower the price at the pump. Cutting taxes on a good whose supply can't expand just lets sellers pocket the savings. Demand is still chasing the same fixed supply.

GOOOOOOOOOD MORNING! It’s Period Poverty Awareness Week, can I have some money please? secure.givelively.org/donate/georg...

Aggressive immigration enforcement leads to more crime and fewer reports to police

the most anti free speech administration in this country’s history

very dirty martini

Has any single presidential action ever done more immediate damage to real wages?

Should've run; while you had the chance

shake shake shake your amaro

Bad news for US workers: with nominal wage growth slowing and oil prices rising, real wages all but guaranteed to decline.

This is a real problem which should concern many of you, if you put any weight on inequality. There are issues around measuring the labor share. One is the role of depreciation. The net-of-depreication labor share is higher. But it also shows sharp decline post 2000.

DC friends - don’t miss this!

New: Since DOGE cut the statistical arm of the Education Department, basic facts about American schools are no longer readily available. Some of these data points can be found elsewhere but are now harder to track down. Others simply don't exist anymore. www.chalkbeat.org/2026/05/07/e...

the rich are really not sending their best messenger

teacher appreciation platter

Unanticipated e-bike benefit: cycling through headwinds.

for the targets #rstats fans: highly recommend some targets-specific keybindings for Positron/VSCode

On average, in areas that experienced an extra 1,200 ICE arrests, there are 7,500 fewer undocumented immigrants working in that area. Much larger chilling effects than prior enforcement. And, for every lost 6 undocumented workers, there is a loss of 1 job for a US-born worker.

I've been saying we need a progressive DOGE that actually focuses on making government work well rather than undermining it. But we need a better name. So how about DOPE: the Department of Public Excellence.

So far Brazil's gender pay gap hasn't budged since the country began requiring large companies to publish their pay gaps by occupation

DC friends — mark your calendars. On 5/19, @groundwork.bsky.social and @epi.org are hosting a book talk & happy hour to celebrate the release of my new book, The Wage Standard: What's Wrong in the Labor Market and How to Fix It. Free book! Free drinks! RSVP now👇

I'd love to learn more about how y'all are using AI for data science, so I've set up some times where you can chat with me: scheduler.zoom.us/hadley-wickh.... I'm interested in it all, whether it's your struggles, your successes, or what you're still trying to get your head around. #rstats

New this morning: "Value of Reliable Statistics" from Bloom, Groshen, Hobbs and Strain. Kicker quote: "Our baseline estimate implies that preserving trust in the integrity and quality of official statistics generates economic benefits of about $25 for every $1 spent on the agency’s budget."