When the Michigan state legislature passed House Bill 4052 (2015), nicknamed the “Death Star Bill,” it preempted local governments from implementing a range of policies that would benefit workers, including minimum wages, fair scheduling regulations, paid leave mandates, and prevailing wage laws. Fair scheduling laws would have benefited 38,702 retail and food service workers in Detroit, 77% of which are Black. Read more from Wolfe, J, Hickey, S, Kamper, D, Cooper, D. Preempting progress in the heartland: State lawmakers in the Midwest prevent shared prosperity and racial, gender, and immigrant justice by interfering in local policymaking. Economic Policy Institute. October 2021. https://www.epi.org/publication/preemption-in-the-midwest/.

When the Missouri and Iowa state legislatures preempted minimum wage increases in Kansas City, St. Louis, and various Iowa counties, they denied pay raises to hundreds of thousands of workers, a greater proportion of which are women or workers of color. Read more from Wolfe, J, Hickey, S, Kamper, D, Cooper, D. Preempting progress in the heartland: State lawmakers in the Midwest prevent shared prosperity and racial, gender, and immigrant justice by interfering in local policymaking. Economic Policy Institute. October 2021. https://www.epi.org/publication/preemption-in-the-midwest/.

The abuse of preemption that has suppressed communities of color in the Midwest has its roots in the segregation policies implemented in response to the Great Migration. Research shows that the abuse of state preemption in the Midwest is also widespread, second only to the South. State lawmakers in the Midwest, who are majority white and male, have used preemption to deny local governments the ability to improve job quality and housing stability through minimum wage increases, fair scheduling laws, and paid leave requirements. These preemptive laws disproportionately affect people of color, women, immigrants, and workers who are paid low wages. Read more from Wolfe, J, Hickey, S, Kamper, D, Cooper, D. Preempting progress in the heartland: State lawmakers in the Midwest prevent shared prosperity and racial, gender, and immigrant justice by interfering in local policymaking. Economic Policy Institute. October 2021. https://www.epi.org/publication/preemption-in-the-midwest/.