#JobsDay?
Affordability
Enormous banner in a Venetian square protesting the Bezos wedding that bought out the city reading "If you can rent Venice for your wedding you can pay more tax"
Tax the rich
A school bus driver, leaning out of his open window, smiling.
Education
Without today’s jobs report, next-best data indicate a weakening labor market

In normal times, today would have been a jobs day.

However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has been forced to delay the release until December 16 due to the lingering impacts of the Trump administration radically restricting BLS operations during the government shutdown. BLS also announced that the October monthly survey of households will not be released.

This is the first time in 12 years that a jobs report was delayed and the first time a month of household data will be missed completely. Read more

Related

Talk about affordability is missing the key piece...higher paychecks

Affordability—or the lack of it—is dominating the public discourse. Election results in New Jersey, Virginia, New York and elsewhere showed that voters are responding to candidates who speak directly to the cost of living.

Today’s affordability debate focuses almost entirely on prices, as if the only way to make life affordable is to make things cheaper. That approach misses the bigger picture: Affordability depends on both prices and wages. The roots of today’s affordability crisis lie not in recent price spikes, but in the long-term suppression of workers’ pay. Read more →

Related

Raising taxes on the ultrarich

The July 2025 Republican budget bill cut back health care and food assistance to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. EPI’s latest report proposes a different tax strategy: Focus on stand-alone tax increases  for ultrarich households and corporations to generate tax revenue.

Addressing the corrosive inequality in the U.S. economy could restore public faith in the overall fairness of the tax system.

Here’s how →

 

Related

The school bus driver shortage continues to stress K–12 public education

School bus driver employment is still almost ten percent lower than in 2019 but has increased modestly in the last year. This modest progress appears to be driven by growing wages for bus drivers—the hourly median wage for these workers grew 4.2% in the last year.

Fueled by pandemic relief funds, overall K-12 employment is above 2019 levels, but workers like bus drivers and custodians are still heavily impacted. The end of these relief funds, and Trump administration attacks on public education, threaten to reverse progress made in recent years. It doesn’t have to be this way →

Related

Advanced search

EPI in the news

More EPI in the news