EPI in the news

• China Spring ISD staff drive buses amid nationwide driver shortage

  At the start of 2020, there were just over 232,000 school bus drivers across the U.S., according to the Economic Policy Institute. At the start of this school year, that number dropped to around 202,000.

  KWTX-TV | April 27, 2026
• Cities get creative as costs bite

  The bottom line: Boosting wages may do more to ease affordability than targeting prices, Economic Policy Institute analyst David Cooper tells Axios.

  • “A local government really can’t do much to change the price of oil,” he says.
  • “If everyone was earning 10, 20% more in their paychecks, a lot of these affordability conversations that we’re having would be moot.”
  Axios | April 27, 2026
• Tax hikes or benefit cuts? 8 ways to fix Social Security.

  A more drastic option: Remove the income cap so that all worker income is taxed for Social Security. 

  “To me, the simple thing is scrapping the cap,” said Monique Morrissey, a senior economist at the progressive Economic Policy Institute. 

  Eliminating the income cap would close 68% of the Social Security shortfall, CRFB estimates. 

  USA Today | April 27, 2026
• Women are having fewer kids. Women should direct the policy response.

  According to the Economic Policy Institute, “women were paid 18.6% less on average than men in 2025.”

  Dallas News | April 27, 2026
• Childcare Is Breaking Family Budgets in Every State—and Deepening the Housing Squeeze

  Data from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows that a median-income family in every state exceeds the 7% childcare affordability threshold by 2 to 6 percentage points. For minimum-wage workers, the burden is even more severe—ranging from 29 to 108 percentage points.

  Elise Gould, a senior economist at the EPI, began noticing a troubling shift in the data a decade ago.

  “All of a sudden, childcare became more expensive than housing in a number of counties across the country,” she says. “It really surprised us.”

  Today, her research shows that infant care costs more than in-state college tuition in 29 states and the District of Columbia.

  …

  In a cruel twist, Gould notes that childcare workers are often the most acutely burdened by the crisis they help manage.

  “Childcare workers are the ones that are doing this valuable work to take care of our children, and they themselves are paid such low wages, and they’re undervalued for that work, that they can’t afford childcare themselves,” she says.

  Realtor.com | April 27, 2026
• Mass deportations don’t lead to more jobs for Americans. Why does the myth persist?

  “Trump’s deportation agenda will destroy millions of jobs: Both immigrants and U.S.-born workers would suffer job losses, particularly in construction and child care” from the Economic Policy Institute

  Marketplace Make Me Smart podcast | April 27, 2026
• Denver Wage Brawl: City Hall Split Over Paychecks on Affordable Housing Jobs

  A literature review by the Economic Policy Institute finds that most econometric research shows little overall effect of prevailing-wage rules on total government construction costs, while a smaller group of studies has flagged higher costs specifically for subsidized housing. 

  Hoodline | April 27, 2026

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