The temporary staffing industry is a $186-billion industry, widely used across sectors from food processing to product creation. Temp staffing can be used to skirt liability, and staffing agencies and the companies that use them create a second-tiered workforce, says Lorraine Sands, legal organizer at GLOW: Grassroots Law and Organizing for Workers. To advance the process of bettering temp workers’ rights, this research highlighted how racial and gender discrimination is often pervasive in the temporary staffing sector. The report explores the national context but focuses particularly on Harris County, Texas, and Nashville, Tennessee.

Low-wage workers are less likely to submit a claim for unemployment insurance and more likely to have their claims appealed by their former employers than median-wage workers. New research shows that current UI policies may contribute to these disparities by incentivizing some businesses to appeal UI claims and prevent eligible workers from receiving needed income support, in part by potentially deterring them from applying at all.

Remote work can offer significant benefits for both workers and businesses and provides important opportunities for the meaningful inclusion of workers with disabilities. Employers, policymakers, workforce developers, and educational institutions all have an important role to play in reducing occupational segregation among disabled workers to open equitable pathways to remote work arrangements and career mobility.

The earnings gap in the US labor market between Black and white workers is a longstanding problem. New research shows that one way to help close that gap is for colleges and universities to help Black male students complete their college degrees.