EPI in the news

• My toddler’s child care costs more than my mortgage — how can I stretch my budget to cover these high monthly expenses?

  That’s more than their mortgage payment, which comes in at $2,100 a month. It’s also an astronomical 32% of their income. According to an Economic Policy Institute (EPI) analysis, “child care is more expensive than rent in 17 states and Washington, D.C.” (1)

  MoneyWise | November 10, 2025
• Northwestern community sheds light on academic freedom, Evanston ICE activity, unionization at Friday’s ‘University under Threat’ panel

  Second-year postdoctoral research staff and NUPU member Steven Baksa said local unions are key for fostering solidarity. In his presentation, he distinguished between two types of solidarity — the internal and the external. 

  “Internal solidarity refers to mutual support within a given group,” he said. “External solidarity, on the other hand, is huge support between different groups that share a context.”

  He cited a 2025 Economic Policy Institute report on how a high union density is associated with various “positive spillover” effects, including higher wages, more robust public services and healthier democracies.

  Daily Northwestern | November 10, 2025
• The Rick Smith Show 11-7-2025

  On The Rick Smith Show, Rick discusses the harmful impact of SNAP cuts with Ismael Cid-Martinez, Economist at the Economic Policy Institute, showing how millions of families, children, seniors, and people with disabilities are threatened by ongoing funding reductions and government shutdowns.

  Rick Smith Show | November 10, 2025
• How New York’s affordability crisis reshaped its politics

  According to the Economic Policy Institute, the average annual cost of infant care in New York is $17,361, or $1,447 per month. 

  Financial Times | November 10, 2025
• Veterans brace for deeper strain as government support thins

  The staff reductions across federal agencies hit veterans particularly hard because the government has a preference for hiring them, says Ben Zipperer, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. Of the 89,700 federal employees in Illinois as of January, 17,600 were veterans. Zipperer says it’s unclear how many federal employees in Illinois have been affected by job cuts.

  “We aren’t seeing exactly the large federal cuts in the data yet because many of these people may be on a leave situation and they haven’t been removed from payrolls,” Zipperer says. “But that’s coming. The Trump administration projects that federal government employment will fall by 300,000 by the end of the year.”

  Crain's Chicago | November 10, 2025
• America’s teachers are being priced out of their communities − these cities are building subsidized housing to lure them back

  For much of the 20th century, teaching was a stable, middle-class job in the U.S. Now it’s becoming a lot harder to survive on a teacher’s salary: Wages have been stagnant for decades, according to a study from the Economic Policy Institute, and teachers earn 5% less than they did a decade ago when adjusting for inflation.

  This is Reno | November 10, 2025
• Our toddler’s child care costs us more than our mortgage — how can we budget to cover these high monthly expenses?

  That’s more than their mortgage payment, which comes in at $2,100 a month. It’s also an astronomical 32% of their income. According to an Economic Policy Institute (EPI) analysis, “child care is more expensive than rent in 17 states and Washington, D.C.” (1)

  MoneyWise | November 10, 2025

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