In 1960, an average American household spent over 10 percent of its income on clothing and shoes – equivalent to roughly $4,000 today. The average person bought fewer than 25 garments each year. And about 95 percent of those clothes were made in the United States.

Fast forward half a century.

Today, the average American household spends less than 3.5 percent of its budget on clothing and shoes – under $1,800. Yet, we buy more clothing than ever before: nearly 20 billion garments a year, close to 70 pieces of clothing per person, or more than one clothing purchase per week.

Oh, and guess how much of that is made in the U.S.: about 2 percent.

Browse through the timeline below to see how dramatically the cost and origin of our clothing has changed. And then continue reading to find out why.

How did we get here?

The mid-1970s saw the emergence of large textile mills and factories in China and other developing countries in Asia and Latin America. These operations offered incredibly cheap labor and raw materials, as well as the capacity to quickly manufacture huge orders. By 1980, even though about 70 percent of the clothing Americans bought was still made domestically, a handful of big retail chains like Gap Inc. and J.C. Penney began transitioning away from actually making their own clothes.  Instead, they increasingly just designed and marketed them, but outsourced production factories overseas where the work was done at a tiny fraction of the cost. Meanwhile, the same early adopters began to develop vast global supply chains that allowed them to divide up each step of the production process, sending the work to whichever location offered the cheapest, most efficient services. By 2003, Gap was ordering its clothes from more than 1,200 different factories in 42 countries, according to Elizabeth Cline, author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Fast Fashion.

A successive wave of trade liberalization polices in the 1990s, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, effectively wiped out most import restrictions and duties on foreign-made clothing. American retailers increasingly looked to suppliers in the Global South for all manufacturing needs.

Not surprisingly, American textile manufactures couldn’t compete: between 1990 and 2011, about 750,000 apparel manufacturing jobs in the U.S. disappeared, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  The average U.S. garment worker, among the roughly150,000 who still remain, makes about 38 times the wage of his or her counterpart in Bangladesh, according to Cline.

Today the U.S. apparel market is the largest in the world, comprising about 28 percent of the global total. And hardly any of this clothing comes with a Made in the USA tag.

(Photo by Art Cummings/Flickr)

Everyone likes a good deal.

And for that reason, most of us have flocked to clothing stores like H&M and Old Navy for the unbelievably cheap and expansive selection they offer.

T-shirts for five bucks; jeans and dresses for under $20. It’s almost like you can’t afford to not buy it.

Clothing is cheaper now than it’s ever been: today average Americans spend less than four percent of their total income on their wardrobes, about half what was spent 50 years ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It’s almost cheaper today to buy a whole new wardrobe than to pay to wash your old one (a bit of an exaggeration, yes, but really not all that far off).

But you know the saying that there’s no such thing as a free lunch? Same thing goes with your $5 t-shirt – it comes with some steep hidden costs. There’s no possible way retailers like H&M could be making billions in profits selling clothing at such low prices without there being some catch.

So what are we, the consumers, not seeing?

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

The answer became painfully clear last month when an eight-story factory building in Bangladesh collapsed, killing more than 1,100 garment workers who were manufacturing clothing for American and European retailers.

Bangladeshi garment workers, the majority of whom are women, receive among the world’s lowest wages – as little as $37 a month. They often work 15-hour shifts in unsafe, sweatshop conditions. Workers rights are few, and labor activism is commonly – and sometimes violently  - squashed. More than a few major factory owners are either government officials or have close political ties, allowing the industry to commonly ignore safety and labor standards.

The collapsed Rana Plaza in Bangladesh, which killed more than 1,100 garment workers last month. (Wikimedia Commons)

Rana Plaza, the building outside of the capital Dhaka that collapsed on April 24, was owned by a local politician who illegally built three additional floors onto the structure and installed heavy textile machinery (he’s currently being detained).  The building housed five different garment factories and more than 3,500 workers. Even after large cracks were found in the walls the day before the disaster, factory supervisors – under pressure to fill orders – ignored warnings to vacate the building, and ordered workers to continue production.

This was the deadliest industrial disaster in Bangladesh’s history, but certainly not the only one in recent memory. Just last November, 112 garment workers were killed in a factory fire near Dhaka, when supervisors ignored fire alarms and prevented workers from leaving their sewing machines. Roughly 500 Bangladeshis have died in similar disasters over the past decade. And even since the Rana Plaza collapse, a factory fire on May 8 killed at least eight more workers.

Why Bangladesh?

Simple: labor and production costs are dirt cheap. Making clothes in Bangladesh costs less than just about anywhere else in the world. Check out the graphic below to see just of just how dramatic the contrast is.

If you take a quick look at the tags on the clothes in your wardrobe, chances are good that at least some of them were made in Bangladesh.  Since the 1990s, Bangladesh’s ready made garment industry has exploded: it now generates close to $20 billion a year in exports.  More than 25% of these garments go to stores in the U.S. and close to 60% are shipped to to Europe, according to a report by the International Labor Right Forum (ILRF) Major retailers that look to Bangladesh for much of their clothing manufacturing include H&M, The Gap, Walmart, Benetton, J.C. Penney and Zara.

Bangladesh’s textile factories have popped up like gangbusters in the last decade. There are now about 5,000 of them, employing nearly four million people, according to the ILRF. It’s become one of the largest clothing exporters in the world. In fact, it’s second only to China, which has actually lost a good deal of textile manufacturing contracts because it’s no longer the cheapest place to do business.

The Dark Side of Fast Fashion

It used to be that most clothing stores had seasonal fashion lines that would remain on the shelves for at least few months. But go into an H&M store today and then go back again a week or two later, and you’ll likely find a completely changed inventory. This is the concept behind fast fashion, pioneered over the last 15 years by European brands like H&M and Zana, and to a lesser extent, The Gap, Benetton, Urban Outfitters and Forever 21. The idea is to capture the latest design trends and whisk them from the catwalk to the store, quickly producing trendy but generally low quality garments in the fastest, most cost-effective manner possible.

This business formula has proven remarkably successful, with many of the big brands posting record profits (the founders of H&M and Zana are both among the richest people on the planet). And they’ve done it by providing a nearly unlimited selection of super cheap, fashionable clothing that consumers reliably devour.

In a recent interview with NPR, Elizabeth Cline, author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Price of Fast Fashion, explained that stores like H&M produce hundreds of millions of garments per year. “They put a small markup on the clothes and earn their profit out of selling an ocean of clothing,” she says. H&M has about 2,800 stores in 48 markets and it’s growing fast, especially in China and the United States.

But if these companies are making billions and consumers are getting great deals, the cost has to be absorbed somewhere. And that’s where developing countries like Bangladesh come into the picture. Because there’s no way the fast fashion model could exist without an army of extremely low-paid workers to quickly turn massive orders around.

Digital First Media

Unfortunately, the insatiable demand of the fashion model has also encouraged harsh working conditions: garment workers toil around the clock to quickly meet ever changing orders, while factory owners pay paltry wages and often avoid necessary safety improvements in order to keep production costs low. If conditions were improved and workers paid even a few cents per hour more, production costs would rise, and the retailers would likely look to cheaper suppliers.

See a NY Times slideshow on Bangladeshi factory workers

This, of course, is not unique to the fashion industry. A slew of other Western industries – food included – also rely on global supply chains. One prime example is electronics companies, which depend heavily on cheap production lines in developing countries. The issue came to light last year after worker abuses were reported at a Chinese factory that made products for Apple.

So who’s to blame?

There’s no simple answer. It’s easy to blame the big clothing companies, many of whom reap enormous profits, fully aware of the decrepit conditions where their products are made.  After the huge factory fire last November, a number of major clothing brands and retailers rejected a union-sponsored proposal to improve safety throughout Bangladesh’s garment industry, the Associated Press reported. Instead, companies expanded a patchwork system of private audits and training, which labor groups allege do little and lack any real enforcement mechanism.

The textile factories are almost all locally owned and managed, allowing Western retailers to maintain a distance from them and turn a blind eye to factory floor conditions.   And blame, of course, can also be directed at the factory owners and Bangladeshi government officials who knowingly exploit and endanger the workforce.

In the wake of this recent tragedy, a number of European designers including H&M, Zana and Benetton, signed a new legally binding agreement to pay for major safety improvements. But very few American brands have gotten on board: as of May 17, only two companies – PVH, parent to Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger and Abercrombie & Fitch signed.  The Gap, Walmart, Sears and Target are among the major American clothing retailers that have refused to sign despite relying heavily on Bangledeshi suppliers. Some of these companies counter that they have their own safety improvement measures in place, while others, like Disney, have announced that they will leave Bangladesh altogether.

Western companies are often quick to argue that although working conditions in Bangladesh are far from ideal, they’re a whole lot better than they would be if the garment industry wasn’t there at all. Western demand has created jobs and training for millions of people, particularly women, offering a greater degree of independence and economic security. Since the arrival of textile manufacturing in the late 1970s, Bangladesh’s poverty rate has fallen from about 70 percent to less than 40 percent. And even though about half the country still lives on less than a dollar a day, income has risen markedly for large swaths of the population. Health and education have improved incrementally as well.

What role do you play?

And then there’s us – the consumers. Because the reality is that none of this would be happening if the demand wasn’t there to fuel it. Consumers in Western nations now buy more clothes than ever before, according to Cline, particularly cheap clothes that aren’t  made to last.  Factory conditions would likely improve if consumers were to demand it, especially if we were willing to pay more for our clothes and absorb some of the costs .

But doing so is a lot easier said than done. It’s one thing to be horrified by Bangladesh’s recent tragedy and to hope conditions improve. It’s quite another thing, though. to voluntarily pay more for your clothes at the register. With the exception of the worst tragedies that grab our attention, most of the inequities in this system are out of sight, out mind. It’s really easy to just pretend they don’t exist.

Which begs the question: how much more would you be willing to pay to know your clothes were being produced in an ethical manner?

NPR’s Planet Money show is documenting how t-shirts around the world are made.

Resources to further explore this issue

Lesson plan suggestions for using this issue in the classroom

• NY Times Learning Network
• PBS Newshour Extra

International labor rights advocacy groups

• International Labor Rights Fund
• Fair Labor Association
• IndustriAll Global Union
• International Labour Organization (a United Nations organzation)

Sites that help track product origins in the global supply chain

• SourceMap
• ImportGenius 
• Piers

Corporate responsibility statements from some major clothing retailers

• H&M
• Gap
• Walmart
• Target

As part of a collaboration with the National Writing Project, this is the first in a series of teacher-created educator guides on key topical issues. Written by two NWP-affiliated high school English and media arts teachers – Kirsten Spall of Natomas Charter High School (Sacramento) and Chris Sloan of Judge Memorial Catholic School (Salt Lake City) – the guide helps teachers explore and navigate the highly-charged political and emotional issues behind the topic of gun control. Based on content featured on The Lowdown, the guide provides ideas for integrating the issues into English language arts and social studies curriculum. It includes Common Core Standards Alignment, a synopsis of key background information, integration tips, and lists of issue pros and cons, creative writing prompts and best classroom practices.

Download the entire guide here (PDF)

A roadside sign just north of the Tijuana border crossing. (Credit: Flickr/Jonathon Mcintosh)

What’s the plan for America’s 11.1 million undocumented immigrants?

It’s the million dollar question, and the most divisive element of the Senate’s sprawling new effort to overhaul the country’s messy immigration system. After months of painstaking negotiation, a bipartisan group of senators, known as the “Gang of Eight”, recently unveiled a proposal to — among other things — create a path to citizenship for the millions who live here in the shadows. But legislators have made abundantly clear that this proposal is a far cry from “amnesty”. The path they outlined for almost all the undocumented (except for young “DREAMers” who would be on a streamlined 5-year path) is a tedious, decade-plus-long process full of steep hurdles and strict conditions, in which citizenship is a distant destination at the end of a long journey.

Where do the undocumented live?

The following map, produced by the online magazine Slate, uses the most recent Pew Research Center analysis of 2011 data, which includes state-by-state estimates. Slate notes that the data meets the 90-percent confidence interval for population estimates for each state (except for the handful of states where the undocumented immigrant population is so low that it’s nearly impossible to confidently estimate).

Many more undocumented immigrants reside in California (topping 2.5 million) and Texas  (more than 1.5 million)  than any other state, according to Pew data. However, Nevada has the largest proportion of undocumented immigrants—7.2 percent of the state population and nearly 10 percent of its workforce.

Mouse over each state to see the estimated number of undocumented immigrants living there, what percentage of the total state population and workforce they make up, and how the number of undocumented immigrants has changed over the past two decades.

Editor’s note: since production of the map, most media organizations have begun referring to this population as “undocumented” rather than ‘illegal” immigrants.

What else do we know about undocumented immigrants in the U.S.?

• The population has actually gone down quite a bit since 2007, when it spiked at about 12 million, according to Pew. The decrease is due largely to the U.S. recession and increased border enforcement and deportations, with the rate of undocumented immigration from Mexico falling the most.
• Mexicans made up close to 60 percent of all undocumented residents, according to a Pew analysis of the 2010 population. DHS estimates that in 2011, 70 percent of this population came from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador.
• Today’s estimated 11.1 million undocumented immigrants make up less than a third of all foreign-born residents in the U.S. Roughly 40 to 50 percent of the undocumented entered the country legally and overstayed their visas, according to a Pew 2006 analysis. And although about 1.6 million of the total undocumented population today arrived within in the last years , the majority of the current population has lived here for at least a decade, reports the Department of Homeland Security reports.

So how do we know all this?

Counting America’s undocumented population is a true exercise in estimation. Pew, a non-partisan public policy group, came up with the latest 11.1 million figure (for 2011) primarily by analyzing census data, which provides a measure of the total immigrant population (both legal and undocumented). Pew then analyzed a variety of other government data sources – including DHS – to estimate the number of legal immigrants (green card holders and refugees) and then subtracted this figure from the total number of immigrants. Of course, a lot more statistical wizardry goes into the calculation (as described here) but this is the basic framework for its estimation.

The infographic below, produced by the Census Bureau, uses data from the decennial census and the American Community Survey to illustrate the massive changes that have occurred over the last half century.

Recently arrived Irish immigrants in the the mid-1800s.

Ever since the first Europeans landed here over four centuries ago, America has had a conflicted relationship with its newcomers. It’s a serial drama that continues today in the halls of Congress, as legislators wrestle with a new generation of immigration reform. We are, of course, a nation of immigrants: the U.S. has less than five percent of the world’s population, but is home to about 20 percent of its migrants. And the vast majority of us – everyone, in fact, except for American Indians – can trace our roots to foreign lands. Despite that common thread, though, America has not always treated its newest residents with the most empathy.

There have been four major waves of immigration to America, the last of which – mainly from Mexico and other Latin American countries - continues today. Several themes play out consistently in all four chapters:

• Each successive wave of immigrants has been, to an extent, a reflection of conditions elsewhere in the world.
• Each cycle of newcomers has faced animosity and backlash from the already assimilated.
• The history of America’s immigration policy is one of continual repetition and vacillation, a revolving door that often swings open during periods of economic prosperity and slams shut when times get tough.

Scroll through the timeline below to follow the tangled history of America’s ever-changing immigration policies. The interactive chart beneath it shows rates of legal immigration from 1820 to the present (use the scroll bar to zoom into specific chunks of time).

Number of Foreign-Born Legal Permanent Residents, 1820 to 2012

Source: Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics

View data table

georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov

One of the final requirements in the long road to becoming an American citizen (in addition to an application, an FBI background check, and a three-part English language exam) is passing a short civics test. Applicants are given 10 questions about American history and government (randomly selected from a batch of 100 questions that they are allowed to preview beforehand). The test is given orally, so unlike the quiz below, there is no multiple choice. To pass, applicants must answer at least six questions correctly. The questions in this quiz are adapted from the list of 100 possible questions that could be asked.

So … how would you do? Give it a shot!

As Congress haggles over comprehensive immigration reform, it’s worth taking a look who America’s immigrant population actually is. The following infographics, compiled and designed by the Pew Research Hispanic Center, illustrate findings from its analysis of the nation’s foreign-born population. The information is based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey, which counts both legal and undocumented immigrants.

The estimated 11.1 million undocumented immigrants make up less than a third of all foreign-born residents in America. Among them, roughly 40% to 50% entered the country legally and overstayed their visas, according to 2006 Pew estimates. The majority of undocumented immigrants have lived in the country for 10 years or longer. 

The Haymarket affair, as depicted in a Harper’s Magazine engraving (Wikimedia Commons)

For some, May Day means prancing awkwardly around a feather-wreathed pole.

But that ancient Druid rite of Spring is likely not what today’s immigrant rights protestors have in mind.

In about 80 countries throughout the world, May Day is actually an official labor holiday, often commemorated with large strikes, rallies, and demonstrations in support of workers rights. The day’s roots date back to a heated struggle for something that most of us now take for granted: the eight-hour work day.

Also known as International Workers Day, May Day has become largely overlooked in the U.S.; we celebrate our own federal labor holiday four months later, which is pretty ironic, considering that it commemorates an event that happened on American streets.

A long tradition of income inequality and labor struggle

Income inequality in America (and most other places in the world, for that matter) is certainly nothing new. Dating back to colonial times, there has consistently been a fairly large chasm separating society’s small number of rich and powerful – those who control the means of production (who Karl Marx famously referred to as “capitalists”) – and the laboring masses who keep the machines humming (Marx called them the “proletariat”).

The actual size of the gulf between the two groups, however, has vacillated significantly over the course of America’s history. Today, that gap is pretty huge, a disparity that spurred the Occupy Movement protests two years ago, and heightened public demand for a more level playing field.

In the late 19^th Century, the income divide was similar in scope to what it is now, and the effort to mobilize working classes often resulted in explosive clashes with authorities, many of which  make most of today’s protests look more like, well, dances around the may pole.

A 1911 Industrial Worker publication illustraiton critiquing the capitalist system. (Wikimedia Commons)

In the period known as The Gilded Age, which stretched from the end of the Civil War to the turn of the century, America went through a period of dramatic economic growth and industrialization. This resulted in huge concentrations of wealth. The growth also demanded a larger workforce, which in turn fueled a sudden population boom in cities around the country, where millions of poor European immigrants  flocked in search of opportunity.

Chicago: A hub of industry and worker discontent

Chicago’s population, in particular, grew exponentially: in 1870, a mere 300,000 people lived in the city, but by 1900, it was home to roughly 1.7 million. German immigrants composed the largest ethnic group. The city became a major industrial hub and focus of labor organizing efforts. In the near complete absence of binding labor laws, newly arrived workers often toiled in wretched and dangerous conditions, working long hours for paupers wages. The eight-hour work day was still a distant goal, and challenges to the existing order were often met with repressive and violent retaliation from employers and authorities.

A brief period of economic slowdown in the early 1880s gave rise to successful organizing campaigns by militant socialist and anarchist labor leaders, who picked May 1, 1886 as the target date by which the eight-hour day would be established.

The convention resolved that:

“Eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labour from and after May 1, 1886, and that we recommend to labour organizations throughout this jurisdiction that they so direct their laws as to conform to this resolution by the time named.”

Labor unions in cities across the country prepared for a general strike in support of the demand, and on May 1, large rallies were held throughout the nation.

A flier promoting the the Chicago labor rally (Wikimedia Commons)

Two days later, strikers gathered outside Chicago’s McCormick Harvesting Machine Company Plant (known as “The Reaper Works”), which for months had locked out workers. A clash erupted between police and protesters, and two workers were killed.

The Haymarket Affair

In response, anarchist labor leaders quickly organized another rally the following evening in Chicago’s Haymarket Square. That night, a large crowd amassed to hear speeches from several prominent labor leaders. The event proceeded peacefully until large numbers of police arrived and ordered the remaining workers to disburse. As the police advanced on the crowd, a homemade bomb was thrown. In the melee that ensued, seven policeman were killed, mostly by friendly fire. Police then proceeded to fire on the crowd, killing at least four demonstrators and injuring scores of others.

The seven anarchists initially sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer during the Haymarket incident (Wikimedia Commons)

In the event’s aftermath, labor activists, particularly anarchist agitators, were viewed by authorities with heightened suspicion, as were many immigrant workers, and a number of subsequent organizing efforts were violently suppressed by police. In a desperate effort to identify the perpetrators of the Haymarket incident, Chicago authorities captured and convicted eight local labor leaders, despite any concrete evidence of their involvement in the incidents. Four were hanged, one committed suicide, and three were pardoned six years later by the governor of Illinois. The bomber was never found.

The Haymarket Affair, as the incident became known, spurred a fresh wave of labor activism around the world, particularly among younger generations of workers. Membership in labor organizations spiked.

The first May Day

Responding to ongoing pressure for an eight-hour day, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) resumed the fight and set May 1, 1890 as the date for a general strike. AFL president Samuel Gompers enlisted the support of European socialist labor leaders, proposing an international day of action to demand a universal eight-hour day.

Workers in countries throughout Europe and America rallied in the streets. The following day, the New York World’s front page was devoted entirely to the event, according to Philip Sheldon Foner, author of May Day: A Short History of the International Workers’ Holiday.

The headlines proclaimed:

“Parade of Jubilant Workingmen in All the Trade Centers of the Civilized World”

and

“Everywhere the Workmen Join in Demands for a Normal Day”

The Times of London listed 24 European cities where demonstrations had occurred. It also noted events in Cuba, Peru and Chile.

Commemoration of May Day became an annual event, as workers in a growing number of nations each year participated. Today it still retains strong international political significance in a number of countries throughout the world – especially those with socialist or former-socialist governments.

Interestingly, though, America’s observance of May Day became increasingly obsolete in the 20th Century.  In 1894, riots erupted during the longstanding Pullman Strike near Chicago. The incident, in which several workers were killed by federal authorities, drew national attention. Under pressure to appease labor, Congress unanimously voted to approve rush legislation to make Labor Day a national holiday. President Grover Cleveland signed it into law six days after the end of the strike. Eager to distinguish Labor Day from the more radical activities associated with May Day, Cleveland agreed on a September date for the holiday — one that  trade unions had identified a decade earlier as a worker celebration day (separate from May Day).

So what ever became of the eight-hour day?

The American labor effort for the eight-hour day persisted through the turn of the century, with ongoing, and sometimes violent, strikes and demonstrations. Incrementally, though, a number of key industries agreed to adhere to shortened. And in 1916, Congress enacted the Adamson Act, officially establishing the eight-hour work day — the first federal law to regulate the hours of workers in private companies.

Two decades labor, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which set the maximum workweek at 40 hours for a wide range of industries, it also required employers to pay overtime bonuses.

Check out the following PBS video (in three parts) on the history of the incidents that you can partially thank for your 9 to 5 work schedule:

Haymarket Martyrs–Origin of International Workers Day

class=”wp-media-credit”>Flickr:Miish

When it comes to America’s eclectic patchwork of voting laws, there is certainly no lack of variety. Rules often vary dramatically from one state to another, and voting in some areas is a significantly harder feat than in others.

Take Virginia and West Virginia. While the latter doesn’t require any ID to vote, its neighbor to the east has one of the strictest ID laws in the nation. And while Virginia permanently strips certain types of violent ex-felons from voting, ex-felons in West Virgina convicted of the same exact crimes can regain the right to vote after completion of their parole.

To add to the confusion, a number of states have recently attempted to dramatically change their own rules on voter ID requirements, resulting in a constantly changing set of laws that can often leave voters feeling baffled and unprepared as elections approach (see examples at the bottom).

In February, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a challenge to a provision in the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a landmark law that is widely considered among the most effective and successful pieces of U.S. civil rights legislation. At issue is a provision in the law called Section 5 that applies only to specific parts of the country with a history of discriminatory voting practices. It covers nine states, mainly in the South, plus regions within seven other states (including California). The law requires that all covered areas receive approval from the U.S. Justice Department before implementing any changes to voting laws.

The map below helps sort through the hodgepodge of individual state laws that determine who can vote. We’ve ranked and color-coded each state by the severity of its voting laws (taking voter ID, felon voting, early voting, and Section 5 into account). See the notes below the map for explanations on asterisked states that have recently changed laws, are waiting for federal approval to do so, or just happen to have their own unique rules.

NOTE: All states require an ID for first time voters.

Special state rules

• *Alabama: Photo ID law set to take effect in 2014. Currently, a valid non-photo ID can include a state hunting or fishing license or gun permit.
• *Arizona, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington D.C.: Student IDs are no longer accepted.

• *Arkansas: Student ID is typically not accepted, unless it has an address. For voters who don’t have acceptable ID, Arkansas will provide a photo ID free of charge.
• *Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Washington, West Virginia: For 1st time voters student ID is typically not accepted, unless it has an address.
• *Mississippi: New state amendment requires government-issued photo ID, although the law is still pending (federal government permission required).

• *Missouri:  Although the state has a voter ID law, voters can still cast their ballots if an election judge from each political party vouches for them.

• *Montana, Rhode Island: Both states use signature verification to identify eligibility. If the voter’s signature on the provisional ballot matches the signature on the voter’s registration record, the ballot is counted.

• *New Hampshire: New Hampshire will require government-issued photo IDs after Sept. 1, 2013. The law is being challenged in court by two civil liberties organizations.

• *North Carolina:  State legislators recently proposed 3 new voter measure, including a strict new photo ID law.

• *Pennsylvania: Enacted new photo ID law, but it will not be in effect during the state’s May primary elections. However, voters may be asked by poll workers to present any ID with a valid address, even though they aren’t technically required to.
  
  Sources 
• Brennan Center for Justice
• Department of Justice
• HeadCount
• National Council of State Legislatures