Don’t forget, there’s more than 800 000 imprisoned people working for the US economy as well. They get paid an average of between “13 and 52 cents an hour”, according to reporting by the Guardian and the ACLU from June 2022.

“Seven states – Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas – pay nothing for the vast majority of prison work.”

Update

The latest report from the Human Rights Research Center on this came out on Tuesday, 2 June 2026.

Kaitlyn Andres, “Modern Day Slavery in the United States: Exploring Forced Labor for Prison Inmates”, Human Rights Research Center, June 2, 2026

“Most incarcerated workers (~80%) work in jobs that maintain their facilities including janitorial duties, groundskeeping, food preparation, and laundry.3 For this type of labor, inmates at federal prisons can earn between $0.12 and $0.40 per hour.” (Andres, 2026)

So much for keeping up with inflation.

In January 2025, an insightful report from the Economic Policy Institute states,

" from fighting wildfires to toiling in the kitchens of some of the country’s most popular food franchises, incarcerated workers perform vital functions across the United States and produce billions of dollars in value… Incarcerated labor is rooted in slavery and bears an especially striking resemblance in the South." (Mast, 2025)

Now add the 60 000 immigrants, migrants, and refugees kidnapped and imprisoned by ICE since 2025.

“Tens of thousands of detainees participate in the VWP because it is their only available source of income while in detention and they are often coerced into participating or threatened with retaliation if they refuse to participate.”

“for-profit companies running America’s immigration centers are permitted to put immigrant detainees to work for just $1 a day, based on a 1950s era law.” (Pasternak, 2026)

So, basically, this horseshit tariff is pretty rich coming out of anyone in this administration.