Employers in Colorado and across the U.S. spend $1.7 billion each year to keep workers from organizing and bargaining for better pay and working conditions, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute and LaborLab.
The report showed high-paid consultants and law firms have built substantial businesses over the past several decades specializing in union avoidance services. Their clients have included Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s.
Margaret Poydock, senior policy analyst for the institute and co-author of the report, said the $1.7 billion figure is likely an underestimate.
Public News Service
June 1, 2026
Oklahoma is on par with the federal minimum wage, but well below the average state minimum wage of $11.51, according to Ballotpedia. An analysis from the progressive think tank Economic Policy Institute found that enhancing the state’s minimum wage would increase wages for 357,700 Oklahoma workers — or roughly one-fifth of the state’s wage-earning workforce — by more than $783 million overall. This total includes workers who would benefit directly and indirectly from the policy. On average, affected full-time and year-round workers would gain $2,322 in annual pay, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
June 1, 2026
The Economic Policy Institute estimates the “college wage premium” — the percentage by which having a college degree raises an individual’s wage once one …[paywall].
Paul Krugman Substack
June 1, 2026
Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute and Nick Juravich, a labor historian from UMass Boston join the Curiosity Desk’s Edgar B. Herwick to about Artificial Intelligence, the Great Recession, the 1990’s dot-com bubble and why it’s a tough moment for young people to land jobs.
WGBH (Boston NPR)
June 1, 2026
Research from the Economic Policy Institute shows that since 1979, productivity has grown roughly eight times faster than pay for typical workers. [Paywall].
Business Insider
June 1, 2026
“Unemployment is rising, and therefore, when employers see more sidelined workers, they don’t have to work as hard to get the ones they want,” said the Economic Policy Institute’s Elise Gould.
Marketplace
June 1, 2026
The next political question is what and when. Which specific proposal should Ds coalesce around and when should they launch it? The “when” is truly above my paygrade. I’d say after the midterms but well before the presidential, but that’s not informed.
For the what, read this by Ben Zipperer, a highly knowledgeable, rigorously empirical economist who is, as noted, often Dube’s partner on min wg research.
The proposal, as you see, is to set a relative minimum wage (versus an absolute level, like $15), at two-thirds of the median wage, phasing it in over time and then indexing to the actual change in the median:
Jared Bernstein's Substack
May 29, 2026
Recent college graduates are also having a tougher time finding their first job. According to the Economic Policy Institute, unemployment among young college graduates climbed to more than 5% this spring.
CBS 17 (North Carolina
May 29, 2026
Another issue is a lack of oversight by the federal government.
The Trump administration has rolled back regulations and protections for workers. It also lowered the number of workers at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, to its lowest level in nearly five decades.
Straight Arrow News
May 29, 2026
Cost of living can be measured in a number of ways. The nonprofit Economic Policy Institute has built a measure of what it costs in metropolitan areas to maintain what it calls “a modest but adequate lifestyle.” That means a standard of living that covers basic needs and allows a family to live with stability and dignity, but without luxuries or substantial extras. For this analysis, El Paso Matters is using EPI’s numbers for a family with two parents and two children.
El Paso Matters
May 29, 2026