Workers’ rights and labor power have always filled a contentious role within capitalist systems. While labor has always played an inherent part in producing goods and services that generate profits, disparities between this value-creation by labor and resulting earnings by workers led to a series of labor conflicts nearly inseparable from American economic history. When workers in such conflicts became louder and more organized, they pushed for legislative and administrative protections of the rights to organize, earn a living wage, and achieve a more democratic work place. These hard-fought policies attempted to solidify the power of working class individuals and unions across the country; however, the power these worker protections once had has readily diminished. As labor markets changed with the rise of modern information technology and the formation of a truly globalist economy, worker power decreased, and the administrative enforcement mechanisms that once protected worker power deteriorated. The following essay will start by addressing a brief history of labor in America before considering the rise and fall of regulatory policies that resulted from that history. Following that, the essay will examine the declining labor regulation systems left in the modern day and what that may mean for the future of American economic society using labor history as a backdrop for such analysis.

 

Labor and the Birth of Capitalism in Early America

Labor issues have been ubiquitous in American history since before its founding.^[1] Our country was founded and built on the back of forced and indentured laborers that incorporated chattel slavery and racial economic divisions into the very creation of America.^[2] Indeed, the early American economy was built on raw goods production that required very little human capital other than sheer labor.^[3] Local economies were frequently built on the mass production of one of these labor-intensive raw products—such as “cash-crop” agricultural products like cotton and tobacco, mining products like iron and coal, or miscellaneous products produced by the lumber, fishing, trapping, and whaling—while more specialized sectors of manufactured goods existed in relatively small capacities by singular artisans and apprentices or small bands of specialists—such as in the blacksmithing, printing, weaving, tailoring, silversmithing, masonry, and shipbuilding trades.^[4] Some of these sectors continued to grow throughout the 19th century as coal, steel, oil, and lime demand skyrocketed; in contrast, many small-scale manufacturing trades were almost completely wiped out as the American economy was transformed by the Industrial Revolutions transforming individual workers’ relationships with their labor entirely.^[5]

As the Industrial Revolution spurred the growth of manufacturing capabilities, the American economy exploded as small artisanal shops gave way to factories, and urban centers experienced unprecedented population booms. From the early 19th through the early 20th centuries, a system of mass economic output by corporate entities began to develop in major cities. Highly stratified tiers of workers began to develop, with the bottom rung composed of predominantly unskilled laborers and higher rungs of managers and owners.^[6] This dramatic departure from earlier economic systems came to be called capitalism.^[7]

The young American capitalist economic system in the mid-19th century was characterized by a strictly unregulated laissez-faire framework and rapid wealth polarization through consolidation of wealth and economic power unlike anything the world had seen outside of feudal structures.^[8] Led in part by economic elites—often unflatteringly known as “robber barons”—corporations began creating monopolies by buying out and undercutting competition, strictly controlling production of raw materials, and amassing huge amounts of capital selling  cheaply manufactured consumer goods. A key part of corporations strategies during this time was an economic “race to the bottom” in which corporations, in order to compete among themselves, cut costs wherever possible. Namely, these cost-cutting strategies included hiring nearly-destitute working class individuals who became dependent on dangerous jobs with incredibly long hours and a low standard of pay, colloquially known at the time as “starvation wages.”^[9]

In this “Gilded Age,” undervalued, low-wage workers tried fighting back in any capacity they could. One of the most notable of these attempts was the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 in which over 100,000 workers across multiple rail companies in multiple states (the first strike to cross state boundaries) resulted in mass disruption and violent reactions from the state. The state response, including the use of National Guards, local militias, and even the United States Army, left approximately 100 workers dead by the end of the strike. While the strike’s effectiveness has been debated for over a century, it undoubtedly inspired a massive show of solidarity among working-class people in the Gilded Age that was harnessed by those attempting to form the first major trade unions.^[10]

The rise of unions as organizing tools for workers was perhaps the most important change in the history of American labor. Workers, realizing that they were far more powerful together than they were apart, started to form into collectives roughly divided by sector, corporation, or even individual factories. These early unions and their economic resistance efforts (most notably strikes to coerce collective bargaining) were completely unprotected under the law and were often targeted by violent and deadly resistance. Although they lacked legal rights, organized labor groups grew in power in the late 1800s and early 1900s, more consistently (though not without frequent physical, economic, or state resistance) making corporations and factory owners come to bargaining tables with threats of widespread strikes.^[11]

Directly following the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era was a time of increased worker coalitions and public support for economic changes. The name of this time period, particularly when it comes to labor regulations, is quite a misnomer: lasting governmental regulations on any sector of the workforce were rare and minimal. While major efforts to create child labor laws, regulate work hours, and enforce antitrust mechanisms existed—in large part pushed forward by investigative journalists known as muckrackers—these concerns were rarely enforced by statute.^[12] Even when such statutes were in place, they were routinely struck down by courts following the 1905 Supreme Court case Lochner v. New York which held New York’s maximum hour requirement for bakery employees as an unconstitutional infringement of the freedom to contract.^[13] Similar laws—including child labor bans, minimum wage efforts, and regulations across industrial sectors—that were initially enacted across federal and state governments were later overturned on “freedom to contract” grounds during the so-called “Lochner Era” of the Supreme Court.^[14] By the end of the Progressive Era, while unions continued to grow in membership and power—by some metrics, union workers made up approximately 11% of the population—the relationship between economic forces and the government were still largely laissez-faire in nature.^[15]

 

The Rise of Labor Protections

As unions became larger and more organized throughout the Progressive Era, fears of class warfare became rooted in American economic society, which only worsened due to the 1917 Russian Revolution.^[16] Such fears came near an all-time high after the 1929 Stock Market Crash triggered the beginning of the Great Depression. Wealth polarization increased, 25% of workers became unemployed, and working class anger at the laissez-faire economic system—already brewing during the Progressive Era—exploded. For almost four years after the crash, little governmental action to change the underlying economic regulatory system occurred as stocks continued to plummet, food insecurity was at an all-time high, and large numbers of people displaced by evictions or foreclosures lived in makeshift collectives known as “Hoovervilles”—ironically named after then-President Herbert Hoover whose laissez-faire policies were blamed by many for causing and deepening the Depression.^[17]

In 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt attempted to rework the American economic society. Motivated in part by keeping market systems alive and new economic theories by John Maynard Keynes, President Roosevelt pushed through Congress a sweeping system of government-wide economic reforms collectively known as the New Deal.^[18] Early New Deal legislation was frequently overruled by a skeptical Supreme Court that both feared an unprecedented collectivization of power within the Executive Branch and continuously upheld Lochner’s “freedom to contract” precedent. However, after a number of years initially resistant to Roosevelt’s proposals, the Supreme Court upheld one landmark piece of legislation that ushered in a sweeping reformation of American labor as it was known: the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).^[19]

Under the NLRA, for the first time unions had legal protections under the law. Workers could no longer be fired for their union status, a number of forms of “union-busting” became illegal, and good faith collective bargaining negotiations were mandated. Such protections were enforced and reviewed by the newly-established National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRA was viewed as a compromise between workers and corporations: workers could engage in democratic capitalism through collectivizing and bargain for their specific needs while corporations were spared from a highly-regulatory network of laws and administrative bodies that would functionally destroy their corporate independence.^[20]

The NLRA had incredibly broad success in protecting a collective rights framework through encouraging the growth of union membership; by 1945, only 12 years after the NLRA was passed, 34.2% of all workers were in unions. For the next 45 years, unions continued to grow, the standard of living for union members increased, wages kept up with productivity increases and inflation, and a firm middle class emerged.^[21] Collective rights under the NLRA fundamentally established modern labor law as we know it today.^[22]

Parallel to collective labor rights, during and following the New Deal, federal protections for individual employee rights began to emerge through bills like 1938’s Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) protecting federal minimum wages and overtime pay, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protecting against racial and sex employment discrimination, 1970’s Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) forming the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), 1972’s the Equal Employment Opportunity Act (EEO) forming the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforcing prohibitions of employment discrimination based on protected characteristics such as race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, and genetic information, and 1990’s Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibiting employment discrimination against people with disabilities and requiring reasonable accommodations. This body of laws, including numerous state laws, typically considered in collection “employment law,” is enforced most commonly through private rights of action or administrative enforcement by the appropriate federal or state agencies (e.g., the EEOC, OSHA).^[23]

 

Declining Labor Protections in the Modern Era

As the 20th century progressed, union membership skyrocketed before dropping dramatically due in part to increasing economic globalization characterized by rapid outsourcing of manufacturing to foreign workforces, increases in automation technology, and an economic shift to a broadly service-based economy with the rise of major health, technology, and retail sectors. The manufacturing model of economic relations on which the NLRA was developed was quickly disintegrating and so too were the collective models it had encouraged.^[24] Union membership further declined during Ronald Reagan’s presidency when the administration notoriously fired striking members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) which caused many labor activists to label President Reagan the largest “union-buster” of all time.^[25] The Reagan administration’s NLRB also rolled back a large number of rules and reversed many of its decision-making precedents, while large parts of federal labor enforcement bodies (such as the Department of Labor, OSHA, and the EEOC) were let go due to administrative hostility, deregulation efforts, and budget cuts.^[26]

Since the Reagan-era hostility towards organized labor protections, unions and working class economic power have continued to decline.^[27] Although American support for unions is near an all-time high, the sectors of the American economy that have organized labor remain low.^[28] Since the start of Trump’s second presidency, we have seen a wide rollback of many of the already-limited protections for workers. Administrative agencies, already greatly under-resourced to meet their wide mandate of employment law enforcement, have faced additional budgetary challenges and mass layoffs of their employees while political appointees in these agencies have made sweeping changes under the support of executive orders and rule-making powers.^[29] Since January, the EEOC is no longer seeking damages on claims based on disparate impacts^[30] and has instead shifted to trying to prosecute “illegal DEI initiatives;”^[31] the Department of Labor has shied away from seeking liquidated, or “double-,” damages in pursuing back pay claims under the FLSA^[32] and has announced the rollback of enforcement of a variety of labor provisions while establishing more employer-friendly rules;^[33] and the FTC has given up its litigation efforts against challenges to its proposed non-compete covenant rules.^[34]

In addition to these, the NLRB has been unable to reach the quorum required to initiate new precedential decisions and rulemaking initiatives after the controversial firing of NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox (a decision that was originally held to be illegal with Wilcox to be reinstated, though this was overturned by an emergency stay by the Supreme Court earlier this year in Trump v. Wilcox).^[35] Additionally, in August, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with arguments presented by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, along with Amazon, Trader Joe’s, and Starbucks who were co-parties in the case, that the NLRB’s structure is likely unconstitutional due to its “for cause” removal provision of board members. The ruling functionally freezes all NLRA enforcement by the Board until the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case on appeal.^[36]

 

The Economic Fallout of the Regulatory Crisis and the “Second Gilded Age”

While the exact impacts of the Trump Administration’s attack on regulatory bodies remains unclear, what is clear is that violations of preestablished labor and employment laws will inevitably increase without enforcement. These administrative rollbacks in enforcing these laws are particularly troubling as protections under individual employment provisions often do not result in damage awards attractive enough to sway hesitant plaintiffs’ attorneys working on contingency rates, particularly for low income plaintiffs.^[37] Unions are still facing illegal union busting, though with less legal recourse, and labor organizers are being targeted for their work in unionizing efforts, both politically and economically, often facing unlawful termination.^[38] Simultaneously, the economic power held by workers is dwindling. Union membership is at an all time low^[39] and wage stagnation is at a landmark high as real wages are unable to keep up with inflation and the consumer price index.^[40] The fall of unions in the modern economy has also been backdropped by the continued effects of the 2008 recession,^[41] the effects following the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,^[42] increased wealth polarization,^[43] further monopolization of technology and resources,^[44] deregulation of businesses,^[45] and weakening oversight of workplaces.^[46] Today in America, the federal minimum wage is at starvation wage levels.^[47] Together, these factors show a crisis of economic power for the working class affecting consumer spending, consumptive behaviors, and quite possibly our entire service based economy as we know it. In viewing our moment in time through a historical lens, analogues between today and the late 19th century have become so evident that many economists have named our current economic society as “The Second Gilded Age.”^[48]

The decline in enforcement and resulting violations in labor and employment law are occurring in combination with federal economic policies, like broad tariffs causing inflationary effects across nearly all economic sectors, increasing housing and healthcare costs, rising unemployment rates, policies increasing immigration enforcement impacting both overall consumer spending and labor markets, and various other economic tolls. The weakening of protections for workers and stagnation of wages in combination with rising costs and economic uncertainty is contributing to less discretionary spending by broad swaths of working class people.^[49] While in the first Gilded Age, corporate entities, foreign countries, and upper-class individuals were able to perpetuate a nearly-continuous consumer-base, America’s modern service-oriented economy depends on spending from working class consumers. When discretionary spending falls by working class people, service-sector businesses often can’t make up their losses elsewhere by catering to different markets the same way that the Gilded Age’s manufacturing-dominant economy could.

The importance of the people who work within the service sectors as customers can lead to a feedback loop of lower consumption leading to loss of profits, layoffs and higher unemployment, resulting in further declines in consumption. This cycle is already happening. Service-sector businesses are trying to recalibrate as the discretionary income of an ever-shrinking middle-class no longer can be relied on to keep their American business models afloat. Some sectors have tried to respond by catering to a more upper-class base of customers in an ever-profitable luxury goods and services market, though many others do not have the same customer-base flexibility.^[50] As we look into the face of these problems that seem to be causing the American economy to hurtle towards economic turmoil, one question nearly screams out: what can be done?

 

What Can Be Done?

In many ways, the answer to how America can save its economy is simple: boost labor power. By boosting labor rights under the law, working-class people can organize unions more easily and, in doing so, secure better wages thereby stimulating consumer spending and increasing the entire country’s aggregate demand. Further consumer spending will continue to spur production of goods and services which—if unions and laborers can secure that power—can truly support workers’ wage increases creating a productive feedback loop. Currently, more corporate profits from goods and services are being retained by corporate executives, stockholders, and other investors. Unlike low income Americans whose money flows quickly back into the economy, as consumption increases when they make more money, wealthy individuals tend to accumulate wealth instead of spending it. A large share of corporate profits flowing to wealthy individuals instead of the working class means that that money does not trickle down to consumers. This pattern is unlikely to change without major regulatory shifts or labor forcing corporations to allocate a larger share of profits towards workers through bargaining and threats of strikes.^[51] If this reasoning seems familiar, it is because it is the same reasoning used by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his push to pass the NLRA. If the first Gilded Age created an unstable growth of corporations on the back of under-compensated workers of which ultimately contributed to the Great Depression, in the Second Gilded Age we need to learn from history to avoid repeating the same mistakes.^[52] If we adopt and adapt New Deal-esque reforms to fit our modern era, we can avoid the death loop of unregulated and unfettered extraction of labor.

Indeed, on the back of this same theory, efforts have been made by a number of states to address the decline in labor protections over the years, and especially since the federal government reduced its enforcement of federal labor provisions earlier this year. Many states, such as California, Oregon, and New York, already have far more protective provisions in their labor codes for workers, including higher minimum wages, higher occupational health and safety standards, and stricter punishments for violating their own labor codes.^[53] However, this creates a patchwork of enforcement that can’t address national economic problems as a whole. Additionally, most states that have attempted to foster the growth and protections of organized labor within their states have been invalidated by the Supreme Court under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. In these cases, the Court has held states’ attempts to protect union organization and provide organizing oversight, among others, as preempted by the NLRA.^[54] In many ways, the Court’s decisions in this area of federal implied preemption law hang over states in a spectre-like reminder of its Lochner Era jurisprudence.^[55]

As such, under the Supreme Court’s current jurisprudence, it is clear that most of the abilities to reform labor law rests solely in the hands of Congress.^[56] However, the current political makeup of Congress functionally makes any new laws enforcing labor or employment protections functionally dead on arrival in either chamber. Further, even when the political leanings of Congress changes, major questions come up about the political will for many legislators to push forth any major reforms to address these existential problems to the future of the American market economy.

Therefore, as Congress lies dormant in addressing many of these issues, individual plaintiffs, unions, and labor organizers rather than government involvement still seem to remain the predominant path to build more economic power for working class individuals and avert catastrophic economic outcomes.^[57] While unable to provide swift economic change or any legal change, this front of change seems the most hopeful. Public favorability of unions are at an all-time high and several high profile attempts to create organized labor groups within major service industry corporations have been attempted are continued to be fought for such as for organizing attempts at multiple Amazon warehouses and Starbucks locations. However, even these attempts have stalled due to corporate pushback and the previously discussed lack of enforcement of legal rights by incapacitated administrative agencies.^[58]

 

Conclusion

The history of labor in this country is one of struggle. Looking back on these historical struggles today in America’s Second Gilded Age, their legal wins seem brief and underenforced while the considerable macroeconomic changes those wins once helped create have drifted away. Yet, despite current circumstances, America’s labor history is also story of hope and resistance, of workers standing up for their fellow laborers linking arm in arm despite facing dismissals, bullets, and bombs, of politicians who once saw the significance of working-class struggles, and of the importance of granting economic dignity to all those who labored day after day to earn a steady wage. The framework for addressing our current economic problems is certain: protecting our workers means protecting the economy. Failing to protect workers allows more inequities to fester, and the economy suffers. It is unclear where a solution will come from for the modern-day working class. However, with history comes hope for a better future—if workers fought tooth and nail against seemingly unstoppable forces for better economic conditions once before and won, it can surely happen again.

 

 

 

^[1] For a brief overview of historical labor events in America, see 200 Years of Labor History, Blackstone River Valley Nat’l Hist. Park (Feb. 20, 2025), https://www.nps.gov/blrv/learn/historyculture/200-labor-events.htm.

^[2] See Lukas Althoff & Hugo Reichardt, Jim Crow and Black Economic Progress after Slavery, 139 Q. J. Econ. 2279 (2024), https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjae023.

^[3] For an economic history of pre-industrial America, see Peter C. Mancall, Economic History of the United States: Precolonial and Colonial Periods, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics & Finance (2021), https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190625979.013.480.

^[4] See generally Jeremy Atack & Peter Passell, A New Economic View of American History: From Colonial Times to 1940 (2nd ed. 1994).

^[5] See generally Industrial Revolution, History.com (May 27, 2025), https://www.history.com/articles/industrial-revolution.

^[6] See Ian Stubbs, How the Industrial Revolution Shaped Modern Capitalism, Denny Ctr. for Democratic Capitalism (Jan. 10, 2023), https://www.law.georgetown.edu/denny-center/blog/industrial-revolution/.

^[7] See Pedro Schwartz, Capitalism and Its Names, Econlib (Nov. 7, 2016), https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2016/Schwartzcapitalism.html.

^[8] See Sven Beckert, How the West got rich and modern capitalism was born, PBS News (Feb. 13, 2015 11:57 AM), https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/west-got-rich-modern-capitalism-born.

^[9] For a further examination of starvation wages, income inequality, and monopolies in the Gilded Age, see generally Ken Miller, Stop romanticizing the Gilded Age: Real prosperity requires inclusion, Ky. Lantern (June 27, 2025, 5:45 AM), https://kentuckylantern.com/2025/06/27/stop-romanticizing-the-gilded-age-real-prosperity-requires-inclusion/; Progress and Poverty: Industrial Capitalism in the Gilded Age, 1877-1893, Who Built Am.?, https://www.whobuiltamerica.org/book/wba/part-i-monopoly-and-upheaval-1877-1914/progress-and-poverty-industrial-capitalism-in-the-gilded-age-1877-1893/ (last visited Nov. 10, 2025).

^[10] See Becky Little, The 1877 Strike That Brought US Railroads to a Standstill, History.com (May 28, 2025), https://www.history.com/articles/1877-railroad-strike-trains.

^[11] See generally Labor Movement, History.com (May 28, 2025), https://www.history.com/articles/labor.

^[12] See generally Daniel T. Rodgers, The Progressive Era to the New Era, 1900-1929, Gilder Lehrman Inst. of Am. Hist., https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/essays/progressive-era-new-era-1900-1929 (last visited Nov. 6, 2025).

^[13] Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).

^[14] See Lochner era, Legal Info. Inst. (June 2023), https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/lochner_era.

^[15] Paul D. Romero & Julie M. Whittaker, Cong. Rsch. Serv., R47596, A Brief Examination of Union Membership Data (2023), https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47596.

^[16] See Steven Mintz, Historical Context: The Post-World War I Red Scare, Gilder Lehrman Inst. of Am. Hist., https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teacher-resources/historical-context-post-world-war-i-red-scare  (last visited Nov. 6, 2025).

^[17] See generally Richard H. Pells, Great Depression, Britannica (Oct. 26, 2025), https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Depression.

^[18] See FDR: From Budget Balancer to Keynesian, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Libr. & Museum, https://www.fdrlibrary.org/budget (last visited Nov. 6, 2025).

^[19] See How FDR lost his brief war on the Supreme Court, Nat’l Const. Ctr.: Const. Daily Blog (Feb. 5, 2024), https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/how-fdr-lost-his-brief-war-on-the-supreme-court-2.

^[20] See National Labor Relations Act (1935), Nat’l Archives (Nov. 22, 2021), https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/national-labor-relations-act.

^[21] Congressional Research Service, supra note 14.

^[22] See The History of the National Labor Relations Act and the Future of Worker Power, Aspen Inst.: Blog Posts (Mar. 28, 2022), https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/the-history-of-the-national-labor-relations-act-and-the-future-of-worker-power/.

^[23] See generally Judson MacLaury, A Brief History: The U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Dept. of Lab., https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/dolhistoxford (last visited Nov. 6, 2025); EEOC History: The Law, U.S. Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm’n, https://www.eeoc.gov/history/eeoc-history-law (last visited Nov. 6, 2025).

^[24] Congressional Research Service, supra note 14.

^[25] See The 1981 PATCO Strike, UTA Librs. (Sept. 2, 2021), https://libraries.uta.edu/news/1981-patco-strike.

^[26] See Andrew Strom, Ronald Reagan Has Shaped U.S. Labor Law for Decades, OnLabor (Jan. 4, 2024), https://onlabor.org/ronald-reagan-has-shaped-u-s-labor-law-for-decades/.

^[27] Congressional Research Service, supra note 14.

^[28] See Megan Brenan, Labor Union Approval Relatively Steady at 68% in U.S., Gallup (Aug. 28, 2025), https://news.gallup.com/poll/694472/labor-union-approval-relatively-steady.aspx.

^[29] See Tracey I. Levy, Trump Administration Begins Rolling Back Federal Regulation of Workplaces, Levy Emp. L.: LEL Blog (Sept. 17, 2025), https://www.levyemploymentlaw.com/trump-administration-begins-rolling-back-federal-regulation-of-workplaces/.

^[30] See Jim Paretti, EEOC to Close Investigations of Disparate Impact Discrimination, Litter (Sept. 25, 2025), https://www.littler.com/news-analysis/asap/eeoc-close-investigations-disparate-impact-discrimination.

^[31] See What You Should Know About DEI-Related Discrimination at Work, U.S. Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm’n, https://www.eeoc.gov/wysk/what-you-should-know-about-dei-related-discrimination-work (last visited Nov. 6, 2025).

^[32] See Justin R. Barnes & Jeffrey W. Brecher, Employers Won’t Face Double Damages from DOL Wage and Hour Division’s Administrative Proceedings, Jackson Lewis (July 8, 2025), https://www.jacksonlewis.com/insights/employers-wont-face-double-damages-dol-wage-and-hour-divisions-administrative-proceedings.

^[33] See Justin R. Barnes & Jeffrey W. Brecher, DOL Regulatory Roundup: What Employers Need to Know, Jackson Lewis (Aug. 26, 2025), https://www.jacksonlewis.com/insights/dol-regulatory-roundup-what-employers-need-know.

^[34] See Tal Marnin et al., Update: FTC abandons Non-Compete Rule and simultaneously initiates targeted FTC noncompete enforcement action, White & Case (Sept. 5, 2025), https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/update-ftc-abandons-non-compete-rule-and-simultaneously-initiates-targeted-ftc.

^[35] See Matthew Netti et al., Supreme Court Decides Against Reinstating Wilcox to NLRB as They Rule on Her Termination – NLRB Remains Without a Quorum, Sheppard Mullin: Lab. & Emp. L. Blog (May 23, 2025), https://www.laboremploymentlawblog.com/2025/05/articles/labor-and-employment/supreme-court-decides-against-reinstating-wilcox-to-nlrb-as-they-rule-on-her-termination-nlrb-remains-without-a-quorum/.

^[36] See Chris S. Edwards & Avery J. Locklear, Federal Appellate Court Enjoins NLRB Proceedings, Concluding the NLRB’s Structure Is Likely Unconstitutional, Nat’l L. Rev. (Aug. 23, 2025), https://natlawreview.com/article/federal-appellate-court-enjoins-nlrb-proceedings-concluding-nlrbs-structure-likely.

^[37] See Celine McNicholas et al., Civil monetary penalties for labor violations are woefully insufficient to protect workers, Econ. Pol’y Inst.: Working Econ. Blog (July 15, 2021, 12:56 PM), https://www.epi.org/blog/civil-monetary-penalties-for-labor-violations-are-woefully-insufficient-to-protect-workers/.

^[38] See Lynn Rhinehart & Celine McNicholas, What’s behind the corporate effort to kneecap the National Labor Relations Board?: SpaceX, Amazon, Trader Joe’s, and Starbucks are trying to have the NLRB declared unconstitutional—after collectively being charged with hundreds of violations of workers’ organizing rights, Econ. Pol’y Inst.: Working Econ. Blog (Mar. 7, 2024, 9:43 AM), https://www.epi.org/blog/whats-behind-the-corporate-effort-to-kneecap-the-national-labor-relations-board-spacex-amazon-trader-joes-and-starbucks-are-trying-to-have-the-nlrb-declared-unconstitutional/.

^[39] See Michael S. Derby, US labor union membership slips in 2024 to record low, Reuters (Jan. 28, 2025), https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-labor-union-membership-little-changed-2024-government-says-2025-01-28/.

^[40] See Bryan Robinson, The Wage Crisis of 2025: 73% of Workers Struggling Financially, Forbes (Jan. 24, 2025), https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2025/01/24/the-wage-crisis-of-2025-73-of-workers-struggling/.

^[41] See Wenjie Chen et al., Lasting Effects: The Global Economic Recovery 10 Years After the Crisis, IMF Blog (Oct. 3, 2018), https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2018/10/03/blog-lasting-effects-the-global-economic-recovery-10-years-after-the-crisis.

^[42] See Oriane Casale & Luke Greiner, Post-Pandemic Recession Wage and Inflation Growth: Comparisons across Industries and States, Minn. Econ. Trends, Dec. 2022,  https://mn.gov/deed/newscenter/publications/trends/december-2022/post-pandemic.jsp.

^[43] See Distribution of Household Wealth in the U.S. since 1989, Fed. Rsrv. (Sept. 19, 2025), https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/.

^[44] See Ben Norton, How US Big Tech monopolies colonized the world: Welcome to neo-feudalism, Geopolitical Econ. Rep. (Aug. 19, 2024), https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/08/19/us-big-tech-monopolies-neo-feudalism/.

^[45] See Susan Dudley, A Brief History of Regulation and Deregulation, Regul. Rev. (Mar. 11, 2019), https://www.theregreview.org/2019/03/11/dudley-brief-history-regulation-deregulation/.

^[46] See Cathy Bussewitz, Trump’s Labor Department proposes more than 60 rule changes in a push to deregulate workplaces, Associated Press (July 22, 2025), https://apnews.com/article/labor-department-deregulation-worker-safety-wages-223309692fecb3721ef377154e7689ed.

^[47] See supra note 9 and accompanying text; Sebastian Martinez Hickey & Ismael Cid-Martinez, The federal minimum wage is officially a poverty wage in 2025, Econ. Pol’y Inst. (Apr. 28, 2025), https://www.epi.org/blog/the-federal-minimum-wage-is-officially-a-poverty-wage-in-2025/.

^[48] See Brianti Downing et al., We are in a second Gilded Age, some experts say, ABC News (Oct. 25, 2024, 6:08 AM), https://abcnews.go.com/US/experts-gilded-age/story?id=115067246.

^[49]See Ksenia Bushmeneva, U.S. Consumer Spending Loses Altitude as Policy Turbulence Spikes, TD Econ. (Sept. 16, 2025), https://economics.td.com/us-consumer-spending-loses-altitude; Corey Husak, New Trump Administration Policies Will Decrease Average Incomes for All Americans Except the Top 1 Percent, Ctr. for Am. Progress (Sept. 10, 2025), https://www.americanprogress.org/article/new-trump-administration-policies-will-decrease-average-incomes-for-all-americans-except-the-top-1-percent/.

^[50] See Jaclyn Peiser, Low-income Americans slash spending, a worrying sign for the economy, Wash. Post (Sept. 20, 2025), https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/09/20/low-income-spending-economy/.

^[51] See Unions help reduce disparities and strengthen our democracy, Econ. Pol’y Inst. (Apr. 23, 2021), https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-help-reduce-disparities-and-strengthen-our-democracy/.

^[52] See Kevin Kelleher, Gilded Age 2.0: U.S. Income Inequality Increases to Pre-Great Depression Levels, Fortune (Feb. 13, 2019), https://fortune.com/2019/02/13/us-income-inequality-bad-great-depression/.

^[53] See generally Best States to Work in the US 2025, Oxfam Am. (Aug. 28, 2025), https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/issues/economic-justice/workers-rights/best-states-to-work/.

^[54] See CLJE:Lab, Building Worker Power in Cities & States: Workers Excluded from the NLRA, Ctr. for Lab. & a Just Econ. (Sept. 1, 2024), https://clje.law.harvard.edu/publication/building-worker-power-in-cities-states/workers-excluded-from-the-nlra/; Lauren Herz, States Move To Address NLRB’s Inability To Act, But Legal Challenges Are To Come (US), Squire Patton Boggs: Emp. L. Worldview Blog (Sept. 15, 2025 4:00 PM), https://www.employmentlawworldview.com/states-move-to-address-nlrbs-inability-to-act-but-legal-challenges-are-to-come-us/.

^[55] See Samuel Bagenstos, Lochner presumption of equal power lives in labor law and undermines constitutional, statutory, and common law workplace protections, Econ. Pol’y Inst. (Oct. 7, 2020), https://www.epi.org/unequalpower/publications/lochner-undermines-constitution-law-workplace-protections/.

^[56] See Samuel Estreicher, Towards Sustainable Labor Law Reform, 38 A.B.A. J. Lab. & Emp. L. 327 (2025), https://www.americanbar.org/groups/labor_law/resources/journal/38-3/towards-sustainable-labor-reform/.

^[57] See Jimmy Williams, To Build a Stronger Labor Movement, Go to the Members, Am. Prospect (Oct. 30, 2025), https://prospect.org/2025/10/30/to-build-stronger-labor-movement-go-to-members/.

^[58] See John Logan, Corporate union busting in plain sight: How Amazon, Starbucks, and Trader Joe’s crushed dynamic grassroots worker organizing campaigns, Econ. Pol’y Inst. (Jan. 28, 2025), https://www.epi.org/publication/corporate-union-busting/.