Author

Casey Quinlan

Casey Quinlan

Casey Quinlan is a reporter in Washington DC. In the past 10 years or so, they have reported on national politics and state politics, LGBTQ rights, abortion access, labor issues, education, Supreme Court news and more for publications including The American Independent, ThinkProgress, New Republic, Rewire News, SCOTUSblog, In These Times, and Vox. Some of their stories have included coverage of 2018-2019 teachers strikes, a medication abortion ban in Arkansas, the effects of the pandemic on LGBTQ workers, and the fallout of efforts to remove books with LGBTQ characters from school libraries and community libraries across the country.

?Help wanted: Women needed for U.S. chips manufacturing plan to succeed

By: - March 27, 2023

Natalie Bell was thinking about a career in art after college when a welding class and a delivery of four pizzas changed her career trajectory.? “I was taking a delivery out to a construction site and I met an ironworker who I was taking the delivery to,” said Bell, who lives in Columbus, Ohio. “I […]

Regulators ended last week like they started — tamping down fears, rescuing a bank

By: - March 20, 2023

Financial regulators, policymakers, and bank executives spent last week trying to abate fears that a banking crisis will spread across the U.S. financial system.? On Friday, President Joe Biden released a statement calling on Congress to take action to make it easier for regulators to hold senior bank executives accountable for their mismanagement.? “It should […]

Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse differs from our last financial crisis

By: - March 13, 2023

After the largest U.S. bank failure in more than a decade, regional bank stocks plunged on Monday as the federal government — with the 2007-2008 financial crisis still a fresh memory for many — rushed to reassure Americans that the U.S. banking system was stable. President Joe Biden?told?Americans that the risks taken on by failed […]

Powell signals higher interest rates. Here’s why Friday’s jobs report will affect Fed’s decision.

By: - March 9, 2023

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said this week that interest rate increases could be higher and come faster if Friday’s unemployment data shows the nation’s labor market isn’t cooling off. Stock indexes fell after his comments. That’s been a familiar pattern over the past year as the federal bank has tried to combat inflation.? A […]

Families are taking a hit as pandemic aid ends, inflation continues

By: - February 24, 2023

Forty million people in the U.S. are having difficulty affording household expenses, and a little more than 25 million people say they sometimes or often do not have enough to eat, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent Household Pulse survey data. The survey is designed to collect data on household experiences during the […]

Rural hospitals gird for unwinding of pandemic Medicaid coverage

By: - February 21, 2023

Donald Lloyd, CEO and president of St. Claire HealthCare in Morehead, has spent more than a year dealing with higher costs for food and medical supplies for his regional hospital. Now he’s trying to prepare for another financial hit — the loss of Medicaid reimbursements for treating people in rural Appalachia. “We are all being […]

Food sanitation company fined $1.5 million for illegal child labor

By: - February 20, 2023

A company responsible for cleaning meatpacking plants across the country has paid $1.5 million in civil penalties for making children as young as 13 work in dangerous conditions. The fine, announced Friday by the U.S. Department of Labor, followed an investigation by the agency into Packers Sanitation Services Inc., at 13 plants in eight states, […]

Advocacy groups ask FTC to expand Biden administration efforts to rein in junk fees

By: - February 10, 2023

President Joe Biden devoted 19 sentences of his State of the Union speech to “junk fees,” which includes credit card late fees, service fees for concert tickets and airplane seating preferences that he said strain families’ budgets. Biden did not mention the numerous and opaque fees faced by prisoners and their families every day. But […]

Proposed federal rule would lower credit card late fees

By: - February 7, 2023

As Americans continue to struggle with high credit card rates, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed a rule to help lessen some of their financial burden — in the form of lower late fees.? The new rule would limit late fees to $8. Currently credit card companies can charge as high as $41 — […]

States criticized for spending federal relief funds on tax cuts, prisons

By: - February 1, 2023

As states plan how they’ll spend the $25 billion remaining in federal COVID relief funds, some also are facing criticism and renewed scrutiny over how they allocated money already received from the American Rescue Plan Act. Of the $198 billion authorized by Congress in 2021, $173 billion already has been appropriated by states, the District […]

States that limit business with banks that ‘boycott’ fossil fuels could pay high cost, study says

By: - January 13, 2023

Republican state policymakers’ efforts to boost fossil fuels by prohibiting their governments from doing business with companies that take sustainability into consideration has the potential to cost states millions, according to a study released Thursday. Researchers looked specifically at the possible effects on Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and West Virginia if they passed Texas-like […]

Here’s what you need to know about new workplace protections for pregnant, nursing workers

By: - January 9, 2023

The $1.7 trillion federal spending bill President Joe Biden signed last month ushers in expanded protections for workers who are pregnant or nursing. Proponents of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act — both included as amendments to the spending bill — say the measures clarify rights for these workers, […]