8 Ways the Biden Administration Is Improving the Lives of Service Workers
The Biden administration is raising pay, building power, and improving living standards for service workers across the economy—including fast-food cooks, call center workers, teachers, home care workers, and federal employees.
The Biden administration has received ongoing attention for its actions to improve the lives of
—from walking the picket line with striking autoworkers to ensuring that its signature investments in American industry create good jobs. Pundits and the press often point to actions to
and
standards in the construction and manufacturing sectors as central to the Biden administration’s economic agenda. Yet the administration has also taken numerous steps to boost the earnings and wealth of service sector workers, empower them to come together in unions, and hold accountable corporations that violate their rights.
Raising standards in the service sector affects workers across the economy—from baristas and call center workers to teachers and federal employees—and is essential to a strong middle class. Today, working-class Americans, defined as those without a four-year college degree, are
in service sector jobs. And
shows that policies to boost wages and benefits for service sector workers help narrow racial pay gaps, reduce turnover and support a well-qualified workforce.
1. Advocating for service workers on the picket line
During
wave of worker strikes and organizing actions, the Biden administration
with worker organizers from Starbucks, video game producer Sega, and other unions at the White House to celebrate workers’ organizing successes.
to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, President Joe Biden expressed his “belief that worker power is essential to growing the economy from the middle out and bottom up.” In addition, the Biden administration has voiced support for labor actions by
, as well as
worker organizing. Furthermore, Biden administration appointees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—the independent agency that oversees union elections and enforces protections for private sector workers organizing unions and collectively bargaining—have issued several
against well-known companies such as
to
illegal activities, including retaliatory firings, withholding increases to wages and benefits, and closing stores.
2. Rebuilding federal employee bargaining rights
Last spring, the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment
that among the
, the portion of employees in unions has grown by nearly 20 percent over the course of the administration. This tremendous growth was spurred by a
of actions that the administration has taken to ensure that federal employees
and to allow new hires to
with their union. Also, the administration
that weakened public sector unions’ ability to connect with workers, represent them in employment disputes, and prevent politically motivated firings and retaliation—and it is taking action to
these workers from being stripped of employment protections without their consent.
3. Giving fast-food and outsourced workers a stronger voice at the bargaining table
Biden administration NLRB appointees
protections that help workers in
—such as restaurant and hotel workers, janitorial positions and security officers, home care workers, farm laborers, and warehouse workers—as well as workers in other industries where multiple companies often control working conditions, exercise their bargaining rights and hold corporations accountable when they violate workers’ right to come together in unions. The new joint employer rule acknowledges that a company that signs a worker’s paycheck may not be the only company that
workplace conditions, and it upholds requirements that corporations bargain with unionized workers over the working conditions that they have the authority to control. Previously, former President Donald Trump’s NLRB appointees
rules that made it easier for large corporations to
for labor violations and avoid bargaining obligations by relying on smaller companies to supply their labor forces.
4. Preventing debt from derailing careers in public service
The Biden administration reformed the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program in order to
the contributions that public service employees make to their communities and help prevent unmanageable debt from derailing careers. While the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately
reforms to provide relief to teachers, nurses, firefighters, and other public servants, in March, the Biden administration relaunched an updated program. In total, the administration has
$62.5 billion in relief to more than 871,000 public servants. Prior to the Biden administration, only about
in total were approved for public service debt relief. In addition, the Biden administration has worked to
high-quality pathways into teaching and other public sector work through registered apprenticeships: This year, it announced $200 million in
targeting K-12 education occupations, public sector jobs, and other in-demand industries.
5. Raising pay and improving job quality for child care and long-term care workers
The Biden administration has adopted reforms to improve the earnings of and job quality for well-qualified child and long-term care providers so that they can stay in these skilled and labor-intensive fields. The American Rescue Plan Act
in state and local aid that could be used to provide premium pay to government employees and private sector service workers; it also provided more than $25 billion in funding to help expand and retain the well-qualified direct care workers who provide home care services—such as certified nursing assistants and home health aides—and
in child care stabilization funds, including $7.2 billion to raise pay for existing child care educators and $1.9 billion in additional earnings for new workers. For example, Washington state home care workers benefiting from American Rescue Plan funds
improved “housing and food security, access to healthcare, mental health, savings, and well-being—as well as their ability and willingness to take and stay in these critical jobs.” In addition, the Biden administration issued an
instructing agencies to use their grantmaking and regulatory authority to improve compensation and job quality for this sector while increasing access and affordability for families. In order to do so, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
its grantmaking to improve child care provider payment rates and practices and increase access; the U.S. Department of Labor
sample employment agreements for home care workers, nannies, and cleaners employed directly by families, who may not know their legal responsibilities; and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued critical new
to ensure that nursing homes have the staffing levels necessary for nurses and nurses’ aides to deliver safe, quality care for all residents.