The gap between productivity and compensation is not new. According to the Economic Policy Institute’s Productivity-Pay Tracker, productivity has grown roughly eight times faster than typical worker pay since 1979 — a divergence driven by a steady erosion of worker bargaining power over four decades.
Quartz
April 21, 2026
A report from the Economic Policy Institute details income losses across occupations and states and outlines impact on Social Security, Medicare, and other systems.
A report from the Economic Policy Institute details the financial consequences of misclassifying employees as independent contractors, finding substantial losses in pay, benefits, and legal protections for workers and reduced revenue for social insurance systems. The analysis quantifies how misclassification affects workers in 11 occupations commonly subject to the practice and examines variations by state. It also describes how the shift in classification transfers costs from employers to workers and public programs.
Vital Law
April 21, 2026
The gap between productivity and compensation is not new. According to the Economic Policy Institute’s Productivity-Pay Tracker, productivity has grown roughly eight times faster than typical worker pay since 1979 — a divergence driven by a steady erosion of worker bargaining power over four decades.
Quartz
April 21, 2026
Here are some of the sources I currently rely on for the truth: Democracy Now, Business Insider, The New Yorker, The American Prospect, The Atlantic, Americans for Tax Fairness, Economic Policy Institute, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, The Guardian, ProPublica, Labor Notes, The Lever, Popular Information, Heather Cox Richardson, and, of course, this Substack.
Robert Reich Substack
April 20, 2026
Just 10 percent of workers belong to a union, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yet 70 percent of Americans approve of labor unions, a figure that’s held steady for years in various polls and involves bipartisan backing. According to the Economic Policy Institute, 60 million workers would join a union if they could.
American Prospect
April 20, 2026
Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research for the Economic Policy Institute, said when adjusted for inflation, wage growth for farmworkers has been almost identical to other low-wage workers. He added farmworker wages, as a share of farm owner profits, have not budged for at least two decades.
“Farmowners see that they can use the significant power that they have politically to try to increase their profits a bit by squeezing this powerless group of workers,” Costa contended.
Public News Service
April 20, 2026
While Schultz claims to prioritize customer satisfaction, that same focus has never been granted to the employees who keep the billion-dollar company in motion. The Economic Policy Institute reported that, as of February 2024, Starbucks had accumulated 771 open or settled cases regarding unfair labor practices.
The Daily UW
April 20, 2026
Speaking to an audience full of Black women at the Hilton Chicago, Stratton addressed the elephant in the room: Black women’s unemployment. According to the Economic Policy Institute, in 2025, Black women saw the largest employment losses compared to Black men, AAPI, Latino, and white women. Most losses resulted from federal job cuts, disproportionately affecting college-educated Black women who worked in the public sector.
The Chicago Sun Times
April 20, 2026
Black women lost 251,000 jobs between January and August last year, and at the height of the summer, we accounted for nearly 55 percent of all female job losses, despite making up just 14 percent of the female workforce. And it’s the women who did everything “right” who got hit the hardest: college-educated Black women saw their employment rate fall 3.5 percentage points in a single year, according to the Economic Policy Institute. These two facts — collapsing employment and collapsing fertility — are treated as separate stories, but they are not.
The Hill
April 20, 2026
There are still about 9.5% fewer school bus drivers than in 2019, which means around 21,200 fewer drivers on the road than before the pandemic, according to a 2025 analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. This isn’t a leftover problem from COVID-19. It’s a bigger, and continual, issue for school districts.
WXOW-TV
April 20, 2026