The Brief

Lisa Peterson interviewed first at Kohl’s, then at TJ Maxx and Target. She applied for jobs at Raley’s, Safeway, Applebee’s, and Olive Garden, too. Once, she advanced to a second interview at the Cheesecake Factory, but like the rest, no job offer followed.

Peterson is 60 years old, with white hair that falls just below her shoulders. She holds her hands near her face, wiggling her fingers as she pauses to recall months spent searching for an entry-level job.

For deaf adults like Peterson, finding work isn’t easy. Either they take a position that requires little person-to-person communication, or their employers must hire a sign language interpreter, which can cost a business more than a hundred dollars an hour. Once hired, some deaf adults say they struggle to attain promotions or feel a sense of belonging at work, especially when there are few other deaf people around.

“I’ve been really just trying to prove that I can work,” said Peterson, speaking through an American Sign Language interpreter earlier this year. “…It’s been a year and a half that I’ve been doing this, and I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. Is there something wrong with me? Is there something wrong with them?”

State and federal disability law require companies to make “reasonable” accommodations for employees who are deaf. California goes further than federal law by offering a more expansive definition of disability, but the definition of reasonable still depends on the size of the employer. Small businesses can argue that the hourly cost of hiring a sign language interpreter is an unreasonable burden. Large employers, such as the government or big companies, are expected to shoulder the cost of interpreters, both at the interview stage and upon hire, said Andy Imparato, executive director of Disability Rights California, a nonprofit organization.

Compliance is “all over the place,” he said.

Working behind the scenes

The last time Peterson searched for a job was 1984, right after she had dropped out of community college. With the help of NorCal Services for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing, a Northern California nonprofit, she found a job in the state controller’s office, doing data entry. She stayed 18 years, until her daughter was diagnosed with diabetes. In 2020, Peterson decided it was time to work again and took classes at NorCal Services for the Deaf. 

To help job seekers like Peterson, California’s Employment Development Department contracts with NorCal Services for the Deaf to place career counselors within the state’s publicly run job centers. For over a year, Peterson went to a Sacramento job center near her home in Fair Oaks, often going twice a week, to work on her resume, apply for jobs, or “just keep the ball rolling,” she said.

She had about 12 interviews, many of which she said went well. Employers are responsible for providing interpreters at interviews, but in Peterson’s case, the state covered the costs.

“My ideal job would be retail,” she said, explaining that she wants something that allows her to be around people, such as hanging or organizing clothes in a store. But in interviews, she said, employers tried to steer her into backroom roles.

Lisa Peterson outside of the Sacramento Works job training and resources center in Sacramento on April 23, 2024.

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Miguel Gutierrez Jr.

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CalMatters

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Ryan Gallagher, an Employment Development Department program coordinator, was responsible for helping Peterson secure each interview. Speaking through a sign language interpreter at his Sacramento office, he said businesses often place deaf employees in warehouses, back kitchens, or in data-entry positions that have limited face-to-face communication. “They don’t want to give the client that opportunity because they don’t want to spend that much money on an interpreter,” he said.

In the past 12 months, he has had roughly 60 clients, about half of whom have found jobs. Most go on to work at Amazon, FedEx, or GoodWill, he said.

Over time, Peterson started considering other positions outside of retail. In April, after a year and a half of searching, Peterson accepted a part-time job at FedEx, where she helps put packages together in a warehouse and earns about $18 an hour.

“I’m happy with the work I’ve accepted at FedEx,” she said. “There’s really no time to socialize. It’s pretty busy there.”

Neither working, nor looking for work

In a 2007 survey of deaf youth across the country, more than three-quarters said they would probably or definitely graduate from college, and nearly everyone said they ultimately wanted to get a paying job.

Those dreams are statistically unlikely in California. Roughly 22% of deaf adults 25 and older have a college degree in the state, compared to about 37% for the “hearing” population, according to a recent study by the National Center for the Deaf. The unemployment rate in California is about the same for deaf people as it is for the hearing population, but there’s a catch: The unemployment rate only considers those who are seeking work.

In California, roughly 44% of deaf adults are neither working nor looking for work — compared to about 26% of hearing people. Some deaf adults are in school or taking care of children, as Peterson did for years. Others receive Social Security Income, a government program to help low-income adults with disabilities, or don’t work for other reasons. The study only includes people ages 16 to 64.

“It’s easier to say ‘Deaf people don’t want to work’ than to try and address the larger systemic barriers at play,” said Carrie Lou Bloom, an author of the study.

In her other research, she has tried to understand what those barriers are. “If parents believed their kid could go to college, get a degree, and work independently,” she said, “their kid would be much more likely to achieve these goals.”

It’s the same trend for children who aren’t deaf. The difference, said Bloom: “Deaf youth just have more hurdles in front of them and less access to resources, role models, mentors.”

Drez Brownridge, a Deaf studies major, at Ohlone College in Fremont on June 17, 2024. Brownridge previously worked at Amazon loading boxes and storing goods. They said they struggled to communicate with their boss and access promotions at work.

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Emily Steinberger

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For Drez Brownridge, those hurdles began at birth. Brownridge, who uses they/them pronouns and communicated through an interpreter, said they grew up in Costa Rica with grandparents who don’t use or understand sign language. To communicate with their family, Brownridge used gestures, sent notes back and forth, and tried wearing hearing aids, often in vain. They first enrolled at Modesto Junior College in 2016 but dropped out during the COVID-19 pandemic after failing to pass English four times.

For decades, Brownridge lived on Social Security Income, receiving around $600 a month. They were allowed to work while receiving government benefits but their income, including Social Security, could not exceed $2,000 a month.

It wasn’t enough. “Especially in California, $2,000 a month isn’t going to get you very far,” they said. “You’re not going to be able to buy a car or a house, or conduct your life, just on Social Security Income.”

Who gets the promotion?

For those who do find work, other obstacles arise. “We often see people talking about feeling a sense of satisfaction from work, being a productive member of the community, feeling like they’re making a difference,” Bloom said. “Deaf people may not have these feelings about work, if they’re working in environments where they are constantly fighting for access, advocating for themselves, being left behind, being passed over for promotions.”

After leaving Modesto Junior College, Brownridge got a job at Amazon, where they made around $17 an hour. They worked nights, loading boxes and later, storing goods. They used their cell phone to type out notes to their manager and to other employees who didn’t understand sign language, but they struggled to build close work relationships.

Brownridge repeatedly applied for new positions at Amazon, hoping to make at least $25, but they never moved up. “I was disappointed at what I perceived as a barrier,” they said, “… And it wasn’t just me. There were a few other deaf employees as well that were facing the same frustrations, where they had worked there maybe five or 10 years, but just couldn’t move up.”

A spokesperson for Amazon, Sam Stephenson, said the company offers career development for all of its employers, as well as specialized services for those who need it.

If an employer declines to offer promotion opportunities because of a disability, it could qualify as discrimination, though it can be difficult to prove or find legal resources to help, said Imparato, with Disability Rights California. “It’s hard for an individual to go to these enforcement agencies.”

With limited staff and a high volume of complaints, California’s Civil Rights Department is forced to triage cases, Imparato said. In 2022, the department had more than 300 staff processing nearly 26,000 potential discrimination cases, according to the most recent data. Over the course of the year, the department reached just over 650 settlements, though many other cases used private lawyers or fell outside of the state’s legal jurisdiction.

Brownridge never complained about the lack of a promotion, they said. Instead, they left Amazon in 2022 and re-enrolled at community college, this time at Ohlone College, where they now major in Deaf studies. Attending a school with a large population of deaf students colored how they look back on their career at Amazon. “It wasn’t until I got into the Deaf community,” they said, “that I was told that it was my right to go for those jobs, that I had a right to succeed just like anybody else.”

Adam Echelman covers California’s community colleges in partnership with Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education.

Financial support for this story was provided by the Smidt and Irvine foundations.

L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna confirmed Monday that ICE will play a role in World Cup security, but said he's been told federal agents won't conduct immigration enforcement.

He made the comments at a news conference on law enforcement's plans for the tournament, and said he'd been speaking directly with the head of Homeland Security in the Los Angeles area.

"There will be federal agents," Luna said. " Because it's gonna take all of us to make sure that all the venues, the scoped and unscoped events, are secure."

SoFi Stadium is set to host eight tournament matches, including the U.S. team opener against Paraguay on June 12. Los Angeles will also host a historic match three days later when Iran is set to take the field in Inglewood, making the U.S. the first host nation in World Cup history to be at war with a participating country.

Luna said the federal government had said that civil immigration enforcement would not occur at the tournament. But he made no guarantees.

" They told us that specifically would not be occurring at any of the games. Any of that's subject to change," he said. "But I have trust that they're giving me the appropriate information because if that starts occurring, we're gonna have a whole new host of problems."

In a statement to LAist, Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis wrote that Department of Homeland Security is working with federal, state, local and international partners.

“The safety and security of the American people and the millions of visitors attending these events remain our highest priority," Bis wrote in an email. "DHS will continue leveraging every available authority, technology, and partnership to protect the Homeland while ensuring the World Cup remains safe, secure, and successful for everyone involved.”

Luna is the latest official to confirm that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will play a role in the tournament. Kathryn Schloessman, who leads L.A.'s World Cup host committee, told reporters last month that ICE would be at the World Cup, and that its presence was typical at these types of major events.

ICE has two main branches: Enforcement and Removal Operations, which detains and deports people, and Homeland Security Investigations, which conducts international criminal investigations.

Todd Lyons, the former head of ICE, said at a congressional hearing earlier this year that it would be ICE’s investigatory branch, not its enforcement division, playing a key role in World Cup security.

Still, some in L.A. aren't satisfied. The World Cup is coming to Los Angeles at exactly the year mark since immigration agents ramped up arrests in the region. Masked agents in neighborhoods across the county sparked protests and widespread fear, and ICE arrests in the L.A. area last year tripled.

SoFi Stadium workers represented by Unite Here Local 11 have threatened to strike over ICE's role in the tournament. They'll vote on whether or not to authorize a strike later this week.

California air regulators on Friday approved a contentious overhaul of the state’s carbon market, creating a program that could steer billions of dollars in free pollution permits to oil refineries and other major polluters over the objections of environmental groups, key lawmakers and three of the board’s own members.

Ten members of the California Air Resources Board voted to adopt the changes to its cap-and-invest program after two days of lengthy hearings, including a full day dedicated to hundreds of public comments.

The overhaul followed intensive lobbying by the oil industry as well as pressure from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration to help keep refineries operating in the state amid rising gas prices.

The approval sets up a potential budget fight in Sacramento. The Legislative Analyst’s Office projects that quarterly auction revenue for state climate programs will drop from roughly $4 billion a year to about $2 billion under the new overhaul.

Such a shortfall would effectively zero out programs lawmakers spent last year fighting to fund: affordable housing, public transit, drinking water in low-income communities and pollution monitoring in California’s most polluted neighborhoods.

The governor’s office praised the measure as a compromise that balanced economic uncertainty with the state’s climate goals. Refinery closures and the Iran-Israel war have driven average California gas prices above $6 a gallon.

Newsom, in a statement, used the moment to draw a contrast with President Donald Trump.

“While Trump sows ongoing chaos and uncertainty, California is staying focused by protecting our economy, safeguarding public health, and doubling down on the clean energy future all Californians deserve,” he said.

Environmentalists warned the changes to the program amount to a giveaway to the fossil fuel industry that weakens California’s only program setting a firm cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

Katelyn Roedner Sutter, California senior director for the Environmental Defense Fund, called the decision “deeply misguided” for prioritizing polluters over communities.

“Newsom’s air regulators are handing billions to oil executives at the expense of our climate, health, and affordability for working families in a rushed process that has shortchanged meaningful public participation,” said Bahram Fazeli, policy director at Communities for a Better Environment.

How the program works — and what changes

California’s 13-year-old carbon market forces major polluters to buy permits while the state lowers the overall cap each year. Friday’s vote will reduce those permits – and creates a new subsidy program carved out of the market.

The program, which may still see changes, could make available a new pool of free pollution permits available to industry valued at as much as $4 billion. Companies that pledge to invest in clean energy and efficiency may qualify for the permits in exchange for investments in clean energy.

The pool will be capped at 118.3 million permits — the same number the air board has said must come off the market for California to hit its 2030 climate target. Environmentalists say the proposal risks wiping out those reductions.

Half are reserved for the fossil fuel sector. A recent Berkeley analysis, by the chair of an independent committee that oversees the carbon market, found refineries could end up with more free permits than they need to cover their emissions.

The air board has defended the design. Officials say the credits will go only to companies undertaking decarbonization projects, will be limited and temporary and can be clawed back if companies misuse them. The plan, they say, is meant to keep California refineries operating at a time of mounting closures and global market pressure. According to air regulators, the amended program will spur clean-energy investment as Trump cuts federal support.

Here's what you should know about the vote totals currently released:

Keep in mind that June 9 will be the final day for votes postmarked by June 2 to arrive at county elections offices, so the bottom line on the vote totals won't be known until then.

In L.A. County, the combined tallied votes as of Sunday add up to about 10% of registered voters.

In Orange County, the current tallies represent about 22% of registered voters.

How vote counts will be released

I thought it was an election NIGHT?

That hasn't been true in quite a while. It takes a while to get results because after the initial tallies on election night, there are still many, many votes to count and more mail-in ballots are usually arriving.

Here’s what we know so far:

L.A. County turnout

Los Angeles County has more than 5.8 million registered voters. As of Sunday, May 31:

• 580,720 ballots have been processed
• 95% voted by mail
• 5% voted in person

What's next:

• We'll know more on election night and the following days how many ballot remain to be counted.
• Has your ballot been tallied yet? You can track the status of your ballot here.

Orange County turnout

Orange County has more than 1.8 million registered voters. As of Sunday, May 31:

• 401,865 ballots have been processed
• 95% voted by mail
• 5% voted in person

What's next:

• We'll know more on election night and the following days how many ballot remain to be counted.
• Has your ballot been tallied yet? You can track the status of your ballot here.

Expected total turnout

Political Data Inc. is tracking ballot returns across California and in some high-profile races.

As of midday Monday, turnout statewide was at 16%. While Democrats outnumber Republicans statewide by almost double, Republicans have returned more ballots pre-election (21% of their voters compared to 16% for Democrats).

See the latest totals ▶

Why election day has turned into ballot-counting month

Because of the increasing use of vote-by-mail ballots, the vote count has gotten longer, according to the California Voter Foundation. In an analysis, the organization found:

• In November 2004, more than 80% of votes were counted within two days of Election Day, with 32.6% voting by mail. 
• In June 2022, about 50% of ballots were counted within two days of Election Day, with more than 90% of people voting by mail. 
• In November 2024, 66% of votes were counted within the first two days of Election Day, with 81% of the vote by mail.

A closer look at ballot counting times in California where an increasing number of vote-by-mail ballots has slowed ballot counts.

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Courtesy California Voter Foundation

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Election officials must physically open mail-in ballots and verify signatures.

Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, recently wrote about the ripple effect of turning in mail-in ballots by hand or in drop boxes on election day. She wrote for our partner newsroom CalMatters:

"We turn in ballots in envelopes on Election Day that take time and care to process and cannot be processed until after Election Day. Processing these ballots — which account for as much as a quarter of all ballots cast — creates a bottleneck I like to call 'the pig in the python effect'. It prevents counties from doing other tasks they need to do to certify the results."

The buzz on college campuses is that AI is disrupting the job market for young college graduates.

But new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York finds that the culprit may be something else: remote work.

An analysis of federal employment data, paired with a deep dive into the flexible work arrangements at one unnamed Fortune 500 tech company, reveals that companies are less likely to hire recent college grads into occupations that can be done remotely.

Researchers speculate that employers are reluctant to put such workers in a setting where it's harder to absorb lessons from coworkers.

The researchers found the unemployment rate among younger college grads — those under the age of 29 — rose 20% after the pandemic, while unemployment among older college grads fell slightly.

The study compares unemployment rates pre-pandemic, from 2017 to 2019, with unemployment rates after the pandemic, from 2022 to 2024.

Unemployment rose as remote work grew fourfold, the researchers write. "Our analysis suggests that these trends are related, with remote work making it more difficult for managers to train and mentor new employees."

Remote work leads to less feedback on the job

The research began with a look at how much feedback software engineers at a Fortune 500 tech company were getting, says Emma Harrington, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Virginia and one of the authors of the report.

"What we saw was this pretty striking pattern that software engineers got about 20% more feedback if they were sitting near their colleagues than if they were distant from them," she says, adding that that was true even before the pandemic.

But after the pandemic, feedback plummeted.

"And that really hit young workers much harder," says Harrington. "It was these people who had the most to learn that really saw this deficit in feedback."

The researchers then looked deeper into who was getting hired at the tech firm. Turns out, as the company embraced remote work, they switched away from hiring younger people.

"So they used to hire a bunch of new grads for their software engineering jobs," Harrington says. "Then they shifted really towards hiring much older people, like a decade older on average."

Later, the company pivoted again, implementing what Harrington calls a "pretty aggressive" return-to-office policy. At that point, the company resumed hiring new graduates.

"So [there was] some sense that these problems with mentorship were translating into whom this firm was deciding to hire," she says.

A look at the broader economy

The researchers then wanted to see if what was happening at that single tech company was playing out in the broader economy.

Using a widely-used index that measures how feasible it is to do a job from home, the team divided all occupations into two categories: "remotable," which included software engineering, and "non-remotable," which included mechanical engineering.

They found the gap in unemployment between recent graduates and older workers was significantly higher in "remotable" jobs than in jobs that have to be done in person.

The unemployment rate for younger grads in "remotable" jobs jumped by almost a full percentage point after the pandemic, while the unemployment rate among older grads fell marginally.

They concluded that remote work explained nearly two-thirds of the rise in unemployment among young graduates during this period.

"This relative increase in young people's unemployment coincided with the pandemic and has remained elevated since then, as have rates of remote work," the researchers write.

AI isn't disrupting so many jobs for recent college grads — yet

To see how the rise of AI chatbots may have contributed to rising unemployment among the younger set, the researchers used another index that divides occupations into those more exposed to AI, such as engineering and accounting, and those less exposed, such as teaching and nursing.

They found exposure to AI didn't explain the divergence in unemployment rates in the 2022-24 time period. Remote workflows were much more of a driving force, Harrington says, while emphasizing that this could change.

"It's always hard to make guesses about what's going to happen with generative AI," she says. "It's certainly possible that this story could really change over the next few years."

Researchers at the London School of Economics have reached a similar conclusion — that remote work is having a clearer impact on early-career hiring than AI — in a working paper examining new hires in the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Australia.

Regardless of the cause, the New York Fed report warns that a high unemployment rate among young college grads is concerning.

"Early-career experiences can have lasting consequences," the researchers write. "Research finds that individuals who began looking for jobs in slacker labor markets tend to have lower earnings and slower career progression relative to comparable peers who began their job search in better market conditions."

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