EARN Notice October 2025

Greetings EARNers, 
 

EARNCon is just around the corner! I can’t wait to see many of you in New Orleans next month. Our team is hard at work creating a conference that’s engaging, energizing, and filled with opportunities to strengthen our state policy community. If you’re still on the fence about attending, there’s still time to register! 

As always, we’re not skimping on the programming! I’ve been developing several exciting sessions, including our new “State of Working X Data Bootcamp” (November 12, 1:00–4:00 p.m.), a hands-on workshop where researchers from across the network can connect and learn strategies to make these annual reports even more impactful. 

I’m also thrilled about “Building Living Wages One Block at a Time: Industry-Level Strategies for Increasing Wage Floors” (November 13, 2:15–3:30 p.m.). This session will highlight ambitious living wage campaigns from around the country and spotlight key wins in states that must contend with preemption. 

And finally, don’t miss “Community Benefits Agreements and Community-Labor Coalitions: How to Create Virtuous Cycles for Workers and Families Through Local Economic Development” (November 14, 10:00–11:15 a.m.). Labor-community partnerships are essential to reversing the extractive economic development models that dominate many of our states. Our network has built deep expertise in CBAs and other community-benefit approaches, and I’m excited to share some of that work with you. 

In other news, the ongoing government shutdown has paused the release of state employment data this week. In the meantime, EPI researchers Elise Gould and Joe Fast are tracking state unemployment insurance trends. The EARN team distributed the underlying state data to those on the Jobwatch listserv earlier this week – sign up to get future updates. We’ve also put together an FAQ to help answer common questions about the state employment and unemployment data. Let us know if there are other ways you’re trying to track your state economy while the BLS is offline.  

Best, 

Sebastian Martinez Hickey 
State Economic Analyst 

New Publications

Upcoming EARN Events 

EARNCon 2025: There is still time to register!
Join us for EARNCon 2025 in New Orleans, LA from November 12–14, 2025. This year’s conference will center around the theme “Community, Solidarity, Resistance: Building multi-racial worker power in the states." Additional information, including the conference agenda, can be found on our conference website. 

ICYMI: Recent Publications from EPI

Holding the Line: State solutions to the U.S. worker rights crisis: This series of briefs provides short, accessible guidance for state policymakers on how to address current threats to U.S. worker rights and protections. It includes recommendations for maintaining core protections when federal standards are weakened, and how to address long-standing gaps in labor protections. Three new briefs released this month focus on these key labor standards:

• Unemployment insurance
• Workplace nondiscrimination protections
• Workplace health and safety standards

What We're Reading

• The American Job Quality Study: 2025 State of the U.S. Labor Force. Published by Jobs for the Future in collaboration with Gallup, the Families & Workers Fund, and W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.