A note before we begin
This piece grew out of my three-part Equal Stakes series on American democracy. If you have not read those pieces, you do not need to before reading this one. This one stands alone. But if you want the full context for why this matters so much right now, the series is linked at the bottom. And this offers options for taking action right away.
What Most Americans Do Not Know
Slavery is still legal in the United States.
Legally. Like right now. Today.
I know that is a difficult sentence to sit with. Take a moment with it before reading on.
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1865, is the amendment most Americans were taught abolished slavery. Here is what most Americans were not taught. The full text of that amendment contains one sentence that changed everything about what abolition actually meant.
It reads: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.
Four words. Except as a punishment.
That exception was not an oversight. It was not a compromise forced by political necessity that everyone understood would be cleaned up later. It was a door left deliberately open. And the moment Reconstruction ended and federal troops left the South, that door was walked through with purpose and speed and only changed in 8 states since then.
The Door They Left Open
Within years of the 13th Amendment’s ratification, Southern states had developed a system called convict leasing. It worked like this.
Black Americans, newly freed, were arrested under laws called the Black Codes for offenses like vagrancy, which meant not being able to prove you had a job, or loitering, or any number of minor infractions that were selectively and aggressively enforced against Black communities. Once convicted, they were leased out to plantations, mines, and railroads to perform forced labor for private businesses. The state collected a fee. The businesses got free labor. The people doing the work got nothing and had no way out.
It was slavery. With a conviction as the legal mechanism instead of a bill of sale.
The 1619 Project documents this history in devastating detail. As Nikole Hannah-Jones argues, the exception clause was not a flaw in the abolition of slavery. It was the architecture of its continuation. The system did not end. It was rebranded. Convict leasing gave way to chain gangs. Chain gangs gave way to the mass incarceration system we have today. The legal foundation underneath all of it is the same four words. Except as a punishment.
What This Looks Like Today
The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country on earth. As of 2025, nearly 1.9 million people are held in federal prisons, state prisons, local jails, and other detention facilities. That number is growing. The number of people detained by ICE alone rose by 58 percent between 2025 and 2026, with immigration detention now accounting for virtually all of the growth in mass incarceration.
Inside those prisons, nearly 800,000 incarcerated people work. Two out of every three people in state and federal prisons are also workers. They manufacture goods. They fight wildfires in conditions that would be illegal for any other worker. They work in agriculture, in call centers, in kitchens, in factories.
The average wage is 86 cents per day (WTH?) For regular jobs the hourly rate ranges from 9 cents to 42 cents. In seven states, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas, most of that work is entirely uncompensated.
Absolutely NOTHING is paid for their labor!
Not 9 cents. Nothing.
And if an incarcerated person refuses to work? They can be denied phone calls and visits with their family. They can be put in solitary confinement. They can be denied parole.
The word for a system where you work or you are punished, for little or no pay, with no ability to leave, is not employment. It is slavery. And the 13th Amendment says it is legal.
Many of these jobs do not even pretend to serve a purpose beyond keeping people occupied. Prisons have no incentive to create meaningful work because the labor costs them almost nothing. The system is designed to extract, not to rehabilitate.
The Eight States
Eight states out of fifty have amended their state constitutions to remove the exception clause entirely.
In 2018 Colorado became the first state to do it. Utah and Nebraska followed in 2020. In 2022 Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont joined them. In 2024 Nevada became the eighth state to remove the exception clause entirely.
All eight of those amendments passed with broad bipartisan support. Several passed by ballot initiative, which means voters chose to do this when given the direct opportunity. They did not need to be convinced. They needed to be asked.
Note that California, despite its reputation as a progressive state, still has the exception clause written into its state constitution. It reads: slavery is prohibited, but involuntary servitude is prohibited except to punish crime. California is one of the forty-two states that has not yet acted.
The other forty-two states still carry language in their foundational law that permits slavery as criminal punishment. Some of that language is almost word for word identical to the 13th Amendment exception. Some of it is older, dating back to the original state constitutions. All of it means the same thing. In forty-two states the legal architecture of slavery is still in place.
What Can Be Done
This is the most actionable piece in this entire series. Because this one has a concrete mechanism for change that does not require winning a federal election or waiting for the Supreme Court to develop a conscience.
At the state level:
Ballot initiatives in nine states have already succeeded, which means this does not require a sympathetic legislature. It requires organized citizens willing to collect signatures and show up to vote.
State legislators can introduce and pass constitutional amendments that go to voters for ratification.
You can contact your state representative today and ask where they stand on removing the exception clause from your state constitution.
At the federal level:
The Abolition Amendment, introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley, Senator Cory Booker, and Representative Nikema Williams, would strike the slavery clause from the 13th Amendment entirely, clarifying that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude may be imposed as punishment for a crime.
This requires two-thirds of both houses of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of states. The state-level work builds the political foundation for the federal effort.
Contact your senators and representative and ask them to co-sponsor it.
What you can do right now:
Look up whether your state still has the exception clause. If you live in one of the forty-one states that does, you live in a state where slavery is still technically legal.
Find the End the Exception campaign in your state at endtheexception.com and support it.
Share this piece. Most people genuinely do not know this. That includes people who consider themselves informed and engaged. The gap between what people know and what is actually in the law is exactly what the people in power are counting on.
The Economic Case
The moral case for abolishing the exception clause is overwhelming. But for anyone who needs the economic argument, it is equally strong.
A detailed fiscal analysis projects that paying incarcerated workers fair wages would cost between $8.5 billion and $14.5 billion per year. The projected return on that investment is between $18.3 billion and $20.3 billion in net annual benefits to incarcerated workers, their families, crime victims, and governments.
For every dollar spent on fair wages for incarcerated workers, the projected return is between $2.40 and $3.16.
Over the first ten years alone, the net lifetime benefits are projected to be between $171 billion and $189 billion.
Those benefits include higher employment and earnings after release, reduced recidivism, reduced reincarceration costs, increased tax revenue, increased child support payments, and increased victim restitution.
The argument that we cannot afford to pay incarcerated workers fairly is not an economic argument. It is a choice. And the numbers show it is the wrong one.
Why This Cannot Wait
There is an argument that says this is symbolic. That the exception clause is a historical artifact that does not reflect modern reality. That mass incarceration is a separate policy problem that should be addressed through criminal justice reform.
That argument is wrong on every count.
The exception clause is not symbolic. It is the active legal foundation of a system that currently holds nearly 1.9 million people and extracts the labor of nearly 800,000 of them for pennies an hour or nothing at all. It is the reason prison labor is not covered by minimum wage law, workplace safety law, or labor organizing protections. Remove the exception and the entire legal structure that permits forced prison labor collapses.
And you cannot reform a system built on that foundation. You can change policies around the edges. You can reduce sentences. You can change charging guidelines. But as long as the exception clause exists, the legal architecture of slavery remains intact and available for use.
Every reform that does not address the foundation will eventually be undone. We have seen that pattern throughout this series. Rights extended. Rights removed. Systems reformed. Systems reimposed under new names.
The only answer to a system built on a wrong foundation is to change the foundation.
Abolition is not a radical idea. It is the idea the 13th Amendment claimed to be enacting in 1865 and did not finish.
It is unfinished business. And forty-one states are the proof.
Why This Is the Fight Underneath Every Other Fight
Everything in this series connects here.
The exception clause in the 13th Amendment is the oldest and most naked version of the argument this series has been tracking throughout. That some people’s bodies, labor, and lives are available for the use of those with power. That the law can be written to make that extraction not just permissible but permanent.
But this is also the place where the law can actually be changed. Not by waiting for the Supreme Court. Not by winning a federal election. By organized citizens in their own states demanding that their state constitutions mean what they claim to mean.
Eight states have already done it. Alabama did it. Tennessee did it. The argument that slavery should not be legal does not belong to one political party. It belongs to everyone willing to say so out loud.
The economic case supports change. For every dollar invested in paying incarcerated workers fairly the projected return is between $2.40 and $3.16. The net lifetime benefits from just the first ten years are projected to be between $171 billion and $189 billion. The gains flow to everyone.
The Abolition Amendment would finish what the 13th Amendment started. No slavery. No exceptions.
That is not a radical demand. It is the demand the 13th Amendment claimed to be making in 1865 and did not complete.
One hundred and sixty years is long enough to wait.
A Final Note
Forty-one states still have the legal architecture of slavery written into their foundational law.
That is not history.
That is a to-do list.
Resources
End the Exception campaign: www.worthrises.org. Consider donating to their efforts (I did today!) Also, www.endtheexception.com has wasy to use to send letters and make calls to your legislators. Tracks state-level efforts to remove the exception clause and connects people to active campaigns in their states.
The Abolition Amendment: introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley, Senator Cory Booker, and Representative Nikema Williams. Contact your senators and representative and ask them to co-sponsor it.
The Abolish Slavery National Network: organizes state-level campaigns and can connect you to the effort in your state. Facebook group
The 13th: the documentary directed by Ava DuVernay. The most accessible introduction to this history for anyone who wants to understand it quickly and viscerally.
The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones: essential reading for the full historical context of how the exception clause was used and what it built.