Heidi Shierholz
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hshierholz.bsky.social
Heidi Shierholz
@hshierholz.bsky.social
5.1K followers 790 following 200 posts
President, @EPI-org. Board member, EPI Action. Former Chief Economist, US Dept of Labor. Bike commuter, backyard beekeeper. Tweets my own. She/her.
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Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
ericagroshen.bsky.social
Wondering when you'll get your #BLS data?? The Friends of BLS have posted an FAQ about the impact of the shutdown on #BLSdata: www.friendsofbls.org/updates/2025...

#econsky @aaronsojourner.org @betseystevenson.bsky.social @justinwolfers.bsky.social @jasonfurman.bsky.social @jedkolko.bsky.social
2025 Government Shutdown FAQs on BLS Data — The Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics
The Friends of BLS  The 2025 Government Shutdown and BLS Data: Questions & Answers How will the government shutdown, which may be over by the time you read this, affect BLS data? F...
www.friendsofbls.org
November 12, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
sarahebond.bsky.social
November 14, 1152 BCE: the first recorded workers' strike occurred in ancient Egypt under Pharaoh Ramses III. Artisans and laborers working on the royal tombs at Deir el-Medina stopped working in protest of delayed and insufficient rations, a form of wages. collezioni.museoegizio.it/en-GB/materi...
The so-called “Strike Papyrus” written by Amunnakht The scribe Amennakht is the author of this papyrus in the hieratic script. It is a report concerning a strike held during the reign of King Ramesses III in the village of Deir el-Medina. The workers protested because they had not received their regular food rations, which constituted payment for their work in the Valley of the kings. “Year 29, secondo month of the Inundation, day 10. Today the work squadron passed the control post shouting “we are hungry!” It is 18 days this month that (the men) go and sit at the back of the funerary temple of Tuthmosis III”. Despite various attempt at conciliation, the protest lasted a number of days. To the officials who tried to persuade them to return to work, the workers replied: “We are here because of the famine and thirst. We are not accustomed to not having unguents, fish, and greens. Write to the pharaoh our perfect lord, take note of our words, and write to the vizier, our superior, because we are in need of our provisions”. Inv. no. : Cat. 1880 TPOP Material: Plant fiber / Papyurs Date: 1187–1157 BCE Period: New Kingdom Dynasty: Twentieth Dynasty Reign: Ramesses III Provenance: Egypt, Luxor / Thebes, Deir el-Medina Acquisition: Purchase Bernardino Drovetti, 1824 Museum location: Museum / Floor 1 / Room 06 DEM / Central wall Selected bibliography: Andreu, Guillemette (a cura di)-Andreu, Guillemette, Gli artisti del faraone: Deir el-Medina e le Valli dei Re e delle Regine, Milano 2003, p. 187. Cline, Eric H.-O'Connor, David (ed.)-Cline H., Eric-O'Connor, David, Ramesses III: the life and times of Egypt's last hero, Ann Arbor 2012, pp. 67, 112, 118, 120–122, 136, 141, 352. Edgerton, William F., “The strikes in Ramses III's twenty-ninth year”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 10 (1951), pp. 137–145. Gabler, Kathrin, “Methods of identification among the Deir el-Medina workmen and their service personnel: the use of names, titles, patronyms and identity marks in administrativ…
November 14, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
bencollins.bsky.social
“I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time.”

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time. Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is distraught, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning. A week later it happens again. An email arrives. Agents with guns have chased a teacher into the school where she works. They did not have a warrant. They dragged her away, ignoring her and her colleagues’ pleas to show proof of her documentation. That evening I stand a few feet from the parents of Rayito de Sol and listen to them describe, with anguish, how good Ms. Diana was to their children. What it is like to have strangers with guns traumatize your kids. For a teacher to hide a three-year-old child for fear they might be killed. How their relatives will no longer leave the house. I hear the pain and fury in their voices, and I wonder who will be next. Understand what it is to pray in Chicago.
November 9, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
epi.org
When federal data is suppressed EPI's @elisegould.bsky.social turns to state-level information for the latest read on jobs. See the latest →
November 6, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
benzipperer.org
There's private sector + state-reported data to give us a general idea of the labor market's trajectory ...

But the unemployment rate for Black workers, young people, women, immigrants? There is no replacement for government data.
aaronsojourner.org Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 9d
Every month for the last 77 years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has estimated Americans' unemployment rate

This streak dies tomorrow

Govt staff could not survey Americans about whether they're working or looking for work in Oct, the 1st time in 934 months

This blind spot will remain forever
aaronsojourner.org Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 9d
Here's the planned BLS data release schedule for Nov 2025.

On Tues, it couldn't release Sept job openings, hires, layoffs and firings data.

This morning, it couldn't release 2025Q3 business Productivity and Costs data.

Tomorrow, it can't release Oct 2025 #JobsReport
www.bls.gov/schedule/202...
November 7, 2025 at 2:59 AM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
rbreich.bsky.social
SNAP has existed for 60 years. Benefits have gone out every single month over those six decades, including during government shutdowns. Until now.

Make no mistake: The money is available to fund SNAP during this shutdown. Trump is making a choice to withhold it.

Don’t forget this.
November 6, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
mrsethharris.bsky.social
Disturbing @merylkornfield.bsky.social @washingtonpostt.bsky.social story about U.S. DOL's all-White social media campaigns. My quote: "By purveying this image of an all-White workforce, they are choosing racism over economic growth. . . ." Read: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202... (paywall).
Labor Department social media campaign depicts a White male workforce
The campaign has drawn scrutiny, with critics saying it is not realistically portraying the country’s diversity and is sending messages that feel exclusionary.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 7, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
aaronsojourner.org
It's a sad #JobsDay

At 8:30 am ET, BLS was scheduled to deliver one of the most-important signals abt how economy is changing.

Prior government shutdowns never prevented a month's household data collection. This one has.
#EconSky #NumbersDay #JobsDay
aaronsojourner.org Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 9d
Every month for the last 77 years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has estimated Americans' unemployment rate

This streak dies tomorrow

Govt staff could not survey Americans about whether they're working or looking for work in Oct, the 1st time in 934 months

This blind spot will remain forever
aaronsojourner.org Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 9d
Here's the planned BLS data release schedule for Nov 2025.

On Tues, it couldn't release Sept job openings, hires, layoffs and firings data.

This morning, it couldn't release 2025Q3 business Productivity and Costs data.

Tomorrow, it can't release Oct 2025 #JobsReport
www.bls.gov/schedule/202...
November 7, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
elisegould.bsky.social
Tomorrow marks the first time the federal government has failed to release a jobs report two months in a row. Without these data, unemployment insurance claims provide the most up-to-date read on the labor market. As the shutdown drags on, continued UI claims by federal workers hits 30k.
#EconSky
November 6, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
paulisci.bsky.social
A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women

🧵
November 6, 2025 at 8:43 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
aaronsojourner.org
Every month for the last 77 years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has estimated Americans' unemployment rate

This streak dies tomorrow

Govt staff could not survey Americans about whether they're working or looking for work in Oct, the 1st time in 934 months

This blind spot will remain forever
aaronsojourner.org Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 9d
Here's the planned BLS data release schedule for Nov 2025.

On Tues, it couldn't release Sept job openings, hires, layoffs and firings data.

This morning, it couldn't release 2025Q3 business Productivity and Costs data.

Tomorrow, it can't release Oct 2025 #JobsReport
www.bls.gov/schedule/202...
November 6, 2025 at 2:34 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
benzipperer.org
previous increases in immigration enforcement caused child care centers to simply shut down
screenshot of the highlights and abstract of the article by Umair Ali, Jessica H Brown, and Chris M Herbst titled "Secure communities as immigration enforcement: How secure is the child care market?". Highlights • We study the impact of Secure Communities immigration enforcement on child care • Equilibrium wages and employment in child care fall for both immigrants and natives • Number of child care centers falls, as does children’s participation in care • Effect larger for higher SES children and in areas with more undocumented individuals Abstract Immigrants comprise nearly 20% of the child care workforce in the U.S. This paper studies the impact of a major immigration enforcement policy, Secure Communities (SC), on the structure and functioning of the child care market. Relying on the staggered introduction of SC across counties between 2008 and 2014, we find that the program reduced children’s participation in center-based child care programs. The estimated reductions are substantially larger among advantaged children and in jurisdictions with a greater fraction of undocumented individuals. We also find that SC reduced the equilibrium supply and wages of immigrant and native workers in the center-based sector as well as the number of center-based facilities. There is no compensating increase in the home-based or private household sectors. Our findings suggest that immigrants and natives are likely to be complements in child care service production.
November 5, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
volts.wtf
Republicans are currently starving millions of people in order to force Democrats to cooperate in cutting health care for millions of people.

We've gotten so inured to this shit. It's just monstrous, horrific behavior.
November 4, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
aaronsojourner.org
How does employer access to prisoners’ labor through work release impact the well-being of those workers & of free workers?

New working paper by Sue Helper, Suresh Naidu, Akseli Palomaki, Adam Reich, + me provides evidence, focus on auto manufacturing in AL
#EconSky
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Coercion and Monopsony in Modern American Manufacturing: Evidence from Alabama Prison Labor Susan Helper Suresh Naidu Akseli Palomaki Adam Reich Aaron Sojourner We study coercion and monopsony in contemporary U.S. manufacturing labor markets. We combine administrative data from the Alabama Department of Corrections work release program with a unique survey of workers in the Alabama auto supply chain where workers report their work-release status. We first present descriptive patterns of work-release labor, finding that the use of incarcerated (i.e., work-release) labor is concentrated in the auto supply industry, especially in the Montgomery area, where Hyundai’s assembly plant is located. In the survey, the share of plant-level workers who are incarcerated is negatively correlated with non-incarcerated wages. The survey also enables estimation of hypothetical quit elasticities separately among incarcerated and non-incarcerated workers. Incarcerated workers are estimated to have quit elasticities less than half that of non-incarcerated workers. Because Alabama law requires employers to pay the same wage to incarcerated and non-incarcerated workers in the same jobs, the additional monopsony power introduced by employer access to incarcerated workers creates an incentive and ability for employers to reduce plant-level wages to, and employment of, non-incarcerated workers. We build a quantitative model of firm-specific labor supply that, for incarcerated workers, distinguishes the roles of coercion (the risk of physical harm in prison from not working), wage garnishment that blunts the consumption effect of higher wages, and monopsony (limited mobility across employers). Using it, we estimate effects on free and incarcerated workers’ welfare from i) reforming prison conditions to eliminate violence, ii) eliminating prison labor wage garnishment, iii) imposing a $15 minimum wage, &iv) abolishing prison labor. Free worker welfare goes up in all scenarios...
November 3, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
jedkolko.bsky.social
Thanks to the shutdown, we didn't get the first estimate of Q3 GDP today. And private-sector data offer no good substitute for official GDP.

The shutdown offers lots of lessons about what private sector data can and can't do.

New at @piie.com : www.piie.com/blogs/realti...
What the government shutdown teaches us about private sector data
The government shutdown provides an unexpected test case for an increasingly urgent question: What would happen if official economic statistics became less useful, whether through declining resources,...
www.piie.com
October 30, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
erikamcentarfer.bsky.social
A very nice rundown of what private data sources can and cannot tell you about the state of the economy right now.
jedkolko.bsky.social Jed Kolko @jedkolko.bsky.social · 16d
Thanks to the shutdown, we didn't get the first estimate of Q3 GDP today. And private-sector data offer no good substitute for official GDP.

The shutdown offers lots of lessons about what private sector data can and can't do.

New at @piie.com : www.piie.com/blogs/realti...
What the government shutdown teaches us about private sector data
The government shutdown provides an unexpected test case for an increasingly urgent question: What would happen if official economic statistics became less useful, whether through declining resources,...
www.piie.com
October 30, 2025 at 8:11 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
deanbaker13.bsky.social
Blaming baby boomers for the problems of younger generations is popular in elite media, but it is not serious analysis. The problem is the rich and the generational stuff is a distraction deanbaker22.substack.com/p/my-generat...
My Generation: Blame the Rich, not the Boomers
Blaming a generational grouping is a coverup, not serious reporting
deanbaker22.substack.com
October 20, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
indivisible.org
This is what democracy looks like. #NoKings
October 18, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
elisegould.bsky.social
Nothing replaces the comprehensive, trustworthy, and timely labor market data found in monthly jobs and JOLTS reports, but unemployment insurance claims—collected at the state level—offer a useful read on one key angle of the labor market.
#EconSky #NumbersDay
www.epi.org/blog/amid-th...
Amid the shutdown data blackout, state unemployment insurance claims continue to shed light on the labor market
On Friday, October 3, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) did not publish the September Employment Situation Summary report. The monthly “jobs report” provides policymakers, businesses, and the ...
www.epi.org
October 15, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
newyorkstateag.bsky.social
This is nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate weaponization of our justice system.

I am not fearful — I am fearless.

We will fight these baseless charges aggressively, and my office will continue to fiercely protect New Yorkers and their rights..
October 9, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
lizshuler.bsky.social
The Trump administration is creating even more pain and chaos during this government shutdown by moving to illegally fire federal workers.

We’ll see you in court. aflcio.org/press/releas...
October 10, 2025 at 9:49 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
aaronsojourner.org
The real value of the Bureau of Labor Statistics's budget has fallen for over a decade.

The president is proposing deep cuts alongside other attacks on the agency.

Progress requires Congress to re-establish BLS independence & support innovation & funding.
www.americanprogress.org/article/the-...
October 7, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
costasamaras.com
Thank you to the career federal employees, who show up to work every day and improve people's lives across the country.
October 1, 2025 at 3:47 AM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
zparolin.bsky.social
New WP: We study how minimum wage increases affect poverty and food hardship in the U.S from 1981-2019. Different from recent work, we study the Supplemental Poverty Measure + two measures of food hardship, factor in cost-of-living differences, and more. www.iza.org/publications...
September 29, 2025 at 12:34 PM
Reposted by Heidi Shierholz
justinwolfers.bsky.social
Critical part of the President's new $100,000 charge for H1-B visas: The Administration can also offer a $100,000 discount to any person, company, or industry that it wants. Replacing rules with arbitrary discretion.

Want visas? You know who to call and who to flatter.
September 20, 2025 at 1:40 PM