“I don’t think this is a two-month blip on electricity. We’re in for higher electricity prices for a while, and someone should do something about it,” said Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute. He suggested requiring companies that build data centers to pay for new infrastructure, as well as extending Biden’s climate credits.
Bivens said that policymakers should be worried about signs of a softening labor market. Nearly twice as many workers have gone at least six months without a job now compared to early 2023, a sign of a tough climate for unemployed Americans. In recent years, Bivens said, “for most people, wages and income kept up with inflation … In the post-pandemic period, there were a bunch of shocks going on. A lot of them hurt. But the buttress was an incredibly strong labor market. Now, we’ve let inflation start turning back up, and we don’t have an incredibly strong labor market anymore.”
The Washington Post
September 22, 2025
Conflicting reports over the H-2B visa program are raising questions. A new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) claims the H-2B visa program has ‘ballooned without being fixed and expanding it to year-round jobs like meatpacking would lower wages and revenue.’
Pork Business
September 22, 2025
The report from the Economic Policy Institute shows that the H-2B program in its current state is undercutting US wages. In the top 15 H-2B jobs, the average hourly wage paid to H-2B workers was lower than the average hourly wage for all workers in that same job.
National Provisioner
September 22, 2025
Similar critiques have long been raised by labor economists and politicians across the political spectrum, including Senators Bernie Sanders (I.-Vt.) and Eric Schmitt (R.-Mo.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D.-Calif.). A 2020 study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that most H-1B employers do pay migrant workers less than market rate salaries.
“The program exploits workers,” says Ron Hira, a Howard University political science professor who studies high-skilled immigration and who has testified before Congress calling for an overhaul of the H-1B visa program.
NPR
September 22, 2025
The EPI report claimed the program’s continued issuance of more yearly visas has outpaced reforms to protect workers. It noted that H-2B workers, concentrated in industries like landscaping, hospitality, and meatpacking, are often paid less than national wage standards.
Dallas Express
September 22, 2025
“Basically, they’re saying, ‘We want workers, but we don’t want people,’” said Daniel Costa, a lead immigration researcher at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan thinktank focused on working people, during a panel on Thursday.
The panel, titled “Raids, Reform and the Future of Farm Labor,” was hosted by Investigate Midwest as part of a reporting project on immigration in the food system. The reporting project is funded by the Chicago Region Food System Fund.
Investigate Midwest
September 22, 2025
Recently, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) conducted a thorough analysis of Trump’s policies with regard to American workers over the last nine months. The EPI report includes the following findings:
• Trump lowered the minimum wage for contractors who work for the federal government, which could lead to a pay cut for these workers anywhere from 25% to 60%. Trump also eliminated an order to prioritize “high road” employers, which are employers that are willing to pay workers the prevailing wage along with benefits like paid leave and health insurance when awarding federal contracts. In addition, Trump did away with federal incentives for programs that give workers on federal projects training options that lead to higher-wage skilled trade occupations.
Connecticut Insider
September 22, 2025
Foreign worker visa programs in the United States are not doing enough to spur economic growth and recruit native workers, according to a new report.
The Economic Policy Institute released a report that says the H-2B visa program is bloated and stifles wage growth.
The Center Square
September 22, 2025
Research shows that U.S. workers are already much more productive than they once were. A September report from the Economic Policy Institute found that the productivity of workers has surged some 87 percent since the late ’70s and around 17 percent just in the past decade. But improved productivity doesn’t necessarily mean better pay, with EPI research showing a growing disparity between the two over the decades.
Inc.
September 22, 2025
There are differing views on how raising the federal minimum might impact the economy. An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that the $17 an hour minimum wage increase proposed by the Raise the Wage Act of 2025, would provide an additional $70 billion dollars each year in wages to the lowest-paid workers in the U.S. The average worker in this category would make an additional $3,200 a year, the EPI estimates.
SoFi
September 22, 2025