Biden's antitrust enforcers hated noncompetes, too. Former FTC chair Lina Khan held listening tours and solicited comments to hear workers stories about noncompetes, developing a record that she used to create a rule that banned noncompetes nationwide:

pluralistic.net/2024/04/25/cap…

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America's oligarchs weren't happy. They sued to overturn the rule, and got a nationwide injunction (you know, those things that Trump's illegitimate Supreme Court claims are unenforceable) that suspended the FTC rule pending a full hearing.

It's clear that Trump's FTC is going to walk away from this fight and let the rule die. Trumpism is wildly unpopular, and this is no exception.

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Americans overwhelmingly support banning noncompetes, but Trump's richest donors are terrified of another Great Resignation and want to keep us indentured to their shitty companies, so Trump's FTC will sell us all out.

But that's not the end of things. As David Dayen writes for *The American Prospect*, states and local governments can pass their own noncompete bans, and they are:

prospect.org/labor/2025-07-02-…

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States Take the Lead on Banning Noncompete Agreements

The FTC will probably stop defending its proposed worker protection on July 10. But action in both red and blue states is heating up.

^{David Dayen (The American Prospect)}

Take NYC mayor-in-waiting Zohran Mamdani: unlike Trump (and the Democratic Party's billionaire wing), Mamdani campaigned by offering to create policies that are *popular*, including a ban on noncompetes. New York City has two distinct groups of workers who are screwed over by noncompetes.

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One of those groups is Wall Street finance bros, who work for some of the most legendarily toxic assholes to ever draw breath, and are overwhelming bound by noncompetes that will all become null and void the day Mamdani dons his sash.

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The other group of workers Mamdani will liberate are those at the very bottom of the income distribution, from fast food workers to gig workers to doormen, who are victims of some of the dirtiest noncompete clauses in America, including "bondage fees":

pluralistic.net/2023/04/21/bon…

Big cities are filled with workers who are getting screwed by noncompetes and every city government has it in their power to liberate every one of those workers (who are also voters).

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States can do even better. There are already four states that ban noncompetes, two of them blood red: California, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Oklahoma. Other states place significant restrictions on noncompetes, including Washington, Colorado, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Maine.

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Nevada bans noncompetes for hourly workers, Idaho only allows them for "key employees"; Louisiana limits noncompetes to two years, and NJ bans noncompetes for domestic workers.

Up and down the country, in states blue and red, noncompetes are unpopular, and banning noncompetes is popular:

ipsos.com/en-us/majority-ameri…

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Oregon just banned noncompetes for doctors and other health workers, as part of a sweeping, bipartisan law that banned the "corporate practice of medicine":

pluralistic.net/2025/06/20/the…

Oregon's in good company: noncompetes are banned in the health sector in 32 states, including Arkansas, Indiana and Colorado.

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Lina Khan's FTC developed an irrefutable record about the abusive nature of noncompetes, proving industries can attract capital and field successful companies without them. States have it in their power to step in where Trump has betrayed American workers. This isn't the most efficient way to protect workers - that would be a federal ban on noncompetes - but it will still get the job done, and it will weaken the Trump coalition, which is barely holding together as it is.

eof/