The State of Working America Podcast

The U.S. manufacturing has been shrinking sharply in recent decades, but it’s not an accident or a historical inevitability. In Episode 4 of the State of Working America Podcast, host Pedro da Costa talks to Mickey Ray Williams, a Firestone plant worker in Gadsden, Alabama, about his experience of over two decades in the sector. The second portion of the show is an interview with Rob Scott, EPI’s director of trade policy.

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The State of Working America Podcast is part of EPI’s effort to raise workers’ voices to ensure they are heard in the economic policy debate. Hosted by Pedro da Costa.

Core topics include workers' rights, inequality, race, gender, labor markets, education and immigration, but we're interested in all things related to social justice.

Economic Policy Institute

EPI Policy Director Heidi Shierholz highlights all the ways that labor laws have been employed against workers over the years to curb their power and influence in the labor market. We talk about the fresh wave of strikes around the nation and the renewed excitement around labor organizing, as well as new legislation aimed at restoring some of the worker power that corporations have gradually chipped away.

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The State of Working America Podcast is part of EPI’s effort to raise workers’ voices to ensure they are heard in the economic policy debate. Hosted by Pedro da Costa.

Core topics include workers' rights, inequality, race, gender, labor markets, education and immigration, but we're interested in all things related to social justice.

Economic Policy Institute

President Barack Obama’s former deputy labor secretary Chris Lu joins the State of Working America Podcast in Episode 2, which explores the decline of worker power in recent decades, changing workforce demographics and Donald Trump’s destructive anti-worker agenda.

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The State of Working America Podcast is part of EPI’s effort to raise workers’ voices to ensure they are heard in the economic policy debate. Hosted by Pedro da Costa.

Core topics include workers' rights, inequality, race, gender, labor markets, education and immigration, but we're interested in all things related to social justice.

Economic Policy Institute

The State of Working America Podcast’s debut episode features economist Valerie Wilson, from the Economic Policy Institute, discussing the central role race in the American economy.

Wilson debunks the widely-held myth that education is an easy way to narrow the racial wage and wealth gap, explaining that structural racism runs much deeper, defining U.S. economic relations to their core.

The State of Working America Podcast is part of EPI’s effort to raise workers’ voices to ensure they are heard in the economic policy debate. Hosted by Pedro da Costa.

Core topics include workers' rights, inequality, race, gender, labor markets, education and immigration, but we're interested in all things related to social justice.

Related links:

Track the data: State unemployment by race and ethnicity

Analysis: 10 years after the start of the Great Recession, black and Asian households have yet to recover lost income

Analysis: Racial and ethnic income gaps persist amid uneven growth in household incomes

Economic Policy Institute

The State of Working America Podcast, by the Economic Policy Institute, is aimed at elevating workers’ voices in the economic debate. Communications Director Pedro da Costa breaks down what you can expect—and how to subscribe.

Economic Policy Institute