Workspan Daily News Bytes for March 27, 2026

More U.S. Workers Say They’re Struggling Than Thriving

For the first time since Gallup began measuring the life evaluation of the American workforce in 2008, more U.S. workers are struggling in their lives (49%) than thriving (46%). New data from the analytics and advisory firm noted many workers who want to leave their jobs cited economic constraints — from pay and benefits to the difficulty of finding a comparable role — as the primary barriers to making a move.

Some workers are feeling the strain more acutely than others:

The “life thriving rate” of federal workers has decreased 12 percentage points on average since 2022.
For the first time in the past three years, college-educated workers are the most pessimistic about the job market, and younger workers are more likely than older ones to say it’s a bad time to find a good quality job.

Among workers who are actively looking or watching for opportunities:

69% are looking for better pay and benefits.
56% are hoping to find something better or different.
44% are dissatisfied with some elements of their current job.
27% say leadership or management is a top-three problem in their current role.

However, nearly 30% of all American workers agree or strongly agree that they “feel stuck” in their current job. Their reasons included:

Their inability to afford to lose their current pay or benefits (69%).
It would be hard to find a comparable job (51%).
It would be too difficult or costly to leave (43%).
They depend on their current schedule or flexibility arrangements (36%).

Mismatch: Leadership Expectations Outpacing Organizational Support

Leadership expectations are evolving faster than organizational systems designed to support them, according to a new report by professional development services provider American Management Association (AMA).

Drawing on responses from more than 1,200 professionals worldwide, the report found:

71% of leaders report performing work outside their formal role, with nearly 60% stating it limits their ability to focus on strategic priorities.
69% of leaders spend at least half their time influencing others without direct authority, highlighting a critical shift away from hierarchical management.
44% of leaders feel fully prepared for future role expectations, signaling a failure in current leadership development and succession planning.

Additionally, leaders ranked communication, decision making and strategic thinking as most critical for success. Artificial intelligence (AI) and technology are viewed primarily as tools that accelerate execution, not as substitutes for core leadership capabilities.

“Leaders are expected to be strategic, yet tactical work increasingly pulls them away from that role. It isn’t a failure of leadership; it’s a signal to improve organizational design,” said AMA president and CEO Manny Avramidis. “Leaders best accomplish their goals when they limit the amount of time spent on tasks that can be accomplished by direct reports.”

Florida AG Pushing NFL to End Diversity-Focused Rule

The attorney general for the state of Florida on Wednesday, March 25, threatened “enforcement actions” against the National Football League if it does not suspend its so-called “Rooney Rule,” which seeks to increase diversity representative in league leadership positions.

“The NFL’s use of the Rooney Rule violates Florida law by requiring race-based considerations in hiring,” Uthmeier said in a video posted on social media platform X. “Florida law is clear: Hiring decisions cannot be based on race, and the Rooney Rule mandates race-based interviews and incentivizes race-based decisions.”

Established in 2003 and named after former Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney, the league policy requires teams to interview at least two external minority and/or female candidates for head coach, general manager and coordinator positions.

Proponents of the rule state it has the increased the number of minority candidates interviewed for top positions. Critics, though, point out that it hasn’t significantly increased the hiring rate of Black head coaches. There are currently three Black head coaches in the NFL, the same number as in 2003.

Most Workers Are Ill-Equipped for a Pricy Emergency Medical Bill

Only 15% of surveyed U.S. workers feel prepared for a $6,000 emergency medical bill, according to a new report by benefits and HR technology company Businessolver. The report analyzed national benefits data from 19 million participants across the 2025 plan year.

The report revealed widespread financial vulnerability across today’s workforce, particularly among Generation X workers, who reported the lowest self-rated health, the highest rates of multi-prescription use and the greatest likelihood of planning a surgery in the coming year — potential indicators of rising cost and care complexity for employers.

The report also found benefits understanding and financial readiness vary significantly by industry and income level, increasing the risk of plan mis-selections, delayed care, and avoidable costs for lower-earning and frontline workforces. As a result, the report advised organizations to use anticipatory insights and self-service capabilities to drive more efficiencies to free up HR teams to focus on strategic workforce priorities rather than administrative triage. For example, the report showed 91% instant chat resolution usage, with 33% happening after hours.

“This isn’t about replacing human support — it’s about resolving issues earlier and more completely with empathetic and expert service,” said Carey McKenzie, Businessolver’s chief client officer. “When employees get the right guidance at the right moment, confidence increases, confusion decreases and HR regains meaningful capacity. That combination delivers measurable savings and a better experience for everyone involved.”

Black Women Strongly Impacted by Lack of Paid Sick Leave Laws

A new analysis by the National Partnership for Women & Families, A Better Balance and The 75 Million Campaign found more than 6 million Black women workers in the U.S. live in “preemption” states, meaning not only do these states lack laws mandating paid sick days, but they also ban local governments from passing their own related laws.

Black women are disproportionately impacted by these “preemption” laws because they are more likely than other groups of women to live in the South and in states that have regressive paid leave policies, said the report.

The 18 U.S. states given “preemption” status in the report include: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.

Additional key findings included:

57% of Black women in the labor force live in these 18 preemption states. By comparison, overall, 43% of the U.S. labor force lives in paid sick day preemption states.
Black women account for 18% of the women’s labor force in preemption states, compared to 13% of the women’s labor force nationally.
Most of these preemption states are in the South, disproportionately affecting Black women.

“These actions are especially harmful for Black women, who frequently power our economy with some of the highest labor force participation rates for women in the country,” said Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families and co-lead of The 75 Million. “Instead, they are being forced to shoulder caregiving and breadwinning responsibilities without the most basic workplace safeguards.”

Higher-Ed Pay Still Behind Inflation-Adjusted Pre-Pandemic Levels

New research from professional organization CUPA-HR shows most higher-education employees received pay increases typical of the years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic, after receiving historically high increases over the past few years. Median pay increases for administrators, professionals and staff exceeded the rate of inflation for the third consecutive year, but across higher-ed, employees are still being paid less in inflation-adjusted dollars than in the 2019-2020 time frame.

Other key findings from CUPA-HR’s analysis of higher-ed workforce salary data from 2016-2017 to 2025-2026 include:

All higher-ed employee groups continued to be paid less in 2025-2026 than they were in 2019-2020, when adjusting to 2025-2026 dollars.
Staff (typically nonexempt employees) received the highest median percentage increases in comparison to other workforce areas (3.0%). Staff increases also were higher than pre-pandemic levels, though lower than recent historical highs.
The largest gap between pre-pandemic inflation-adjusted salaries and current salaries is for tenure-track faculty (who are paid 11.7% less), followed by non-tenure-track teaching faculty (paid 6.8% less). The smallest gap is for nonexempt staff (paid 0.9% less).
For the fourth consecutive year, tenure-track faculty received the lowest median salary increase of all employee categories (1.8%). Across the 10 years of data analyzed, tenure-track faculty salary increases have never exceeded the rate of inflation. Tenure-track faculty have not received salary increases in real dollars for the past decade.

Figures and Facts of the Week

3.8 million: The dollar amount automaker Fiat Chrysler has agreed to pay to resolve a class-action lawsuit in Michigan federal court. The suit, filed in 2023, alleged that the company failed to properly include shift differentials and nondiscretionary bonuses in the “regular rate” of pay for roughly 68,000 workers when calculating overtime, violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and state wage laws.
70: The percentage of U.S. managers who trust AI-driven hiring tools, compared to only 27% of employees, according to a new report by employment background check services platform Checkr.
68: The percentage of benefits leaders who said mental health benefit use is increasing, according to a 2026 State of Workforce Mental Health Report by healthcare services provider Lyra Health.
44: The percentage of U.S. workers who said they would consider changing jobs if a company’s dress code better aligned with their personal style and preferences, according to a new survey by employment website Monster.
12.8: The percentage of resumes that included at least one AI-related term, according to an analysis by employment website Monster. In 2023, the figure was 3.7%, showing a 9.1 percentage increase.

Editor’s Note: Additional Content

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