Since January 2025, overall women’s employment has fallen most in professional and business services, manufacturing and federal government, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Public News Service
February 9, 2026
With the Trump administration dismantling labor protections, getting to this point was an uphill battle. “I think their struggle has also illustrated some of the existing, very persistent flaws in our labor law system,” said Jennifer Sherer, who directs the Worker Power Project at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. “The fact that it took, you know, almost two years from their organizing victory to the first contract … workers should never have to wait that long.”
Union workers, broadly, enjoy higher pay and better job protections than nonunion workers do, so it’s no surprise that the agreement will instantly improve the Volkswagen workers’ lives.
New Republic
February 9, 2026
The Economic Policy Institute’s Fact Sheet argues that the Trump administration’s push to expand access to alternative investments in 401(k) plans would weaken long-standing retirement safeguards and expose everyday savers to higher costs, greater risk, and less transparency.
EPI challenges the administration’s “democratizing access” rationale, noting that many large pension funds are actually pulling back from alternatives due to concerns over fees, illiquidity, valuation opacity, and underwhelming returns—suggesting the industry is seeking new investors as institutional demand wanes.
401K Specialist
February 9, 2026
70 percent of Americans approve of unions and a large majority of Americans have sided with unions in their recent strikes. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates that sixty million workers, about half of nonunion workers, would join a union today if they could.
Jacobin
February 9, 2026
Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia have youth minimum wages separate from adult rates, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
KFVS-TV (Missouri
February 9, 2026
It has not always been this way. Between 1947 and 1979, the period when Keynesian economic theory and policies prevailed, “hourly wages grew 2.2 percent. From 1979 to the present, average growth in hourly wages fell to 0.7 percent per year, only one-third of the average rate in the earlier postwar period” (Economic Policy Institute).
Common Dreams
February 9, 2026
That’s why the price for, say, a pair of jeans has gone up in line with inflationary trends.
“The price of a pair of jeans is mostly labor costs (wages). These wages can’t stay stuck at their 1950 level as inflation and real economic growth occur – if they did stay stuck, workers would leave jean-making and look for work elsewhere,” Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told Marketplace over email.
Marketplace
February 9, 2026
National figures show immigrants are heavily represented in construction work, with roughly one in three workers in construction and extraction jobs born outside the United States. That helps explain why enforcement actions and policy uncertainty flow straight into longer rebuilding timelines, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.
Hoodline
February 4, 2026
The bills could shrink Virginia’s public-sector pay gap, which is among the largest in the U.S., according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute; public employees in Virginia make more than 25% less than private-sector workers with similar schooling and backgrounds. The EPI’s report, published in January, found closing the pay gap could also lead to better public services, less turnover and improved racial and gender pay gaps.
WHRO Public Radio (Virginia)
February 4, 2026
Yesterday, the Virginia Senate Commerce and Labor Committee advanced a bill to repeal the commonwealth’s ban on collective bargaining for public sector workers on an 8-6 party line vote.
The bill would result in over 500,000 workers getting the right to collectively bargain, including teachers, firefighters, home care workers, and campus workers. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) published a report last month looking at how this legislation would benefit workers and Virginia more broadly.
“Data show that strong collective bargaining laws help states address persistent public-sector pay gaps, reduce staff vacancies and turnover, and lead to higher unionization rates,” EPI says.
Virginia Dogwood Newsletter
February 4, 2026