The teacher pay penalty — the relative gap between the weekly wages of teachers and other college graduates — grew to a record 26.9% in 2024, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
Las Cruces Sun News
January 20, 2026
Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, noted that as more workers grab more positions, it could become even more difficult for the unemployed to break into a labor market where the hiring rate is at its lowest since April 2020 and, absent the pandemic, at a level not seen since 2013.
Yahoo Finance
January 20, 2026
The job market is not great right now. Hiring has slowed. Artificial intelligence is replacing some knowledge workers. But Black women have been hit especially hard. The unemployment rate for Black women rose significantly from the start of 2025 to December, where it stood at 7.8 percent. That pattern of dramatic job loss was not seen for other groups.
“You don’t see that same loss with Black men, you don’t see that same loss with other groups of women,” said Valerie Wilson, a labor economist and director of the program on race, ethnicity and the economy at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. “It was a sharp and unique decline in employment for Black women.”
New York Times
January 20, 2026
Some labor advocates and economists say the rule change would push wages downfor both U.S. and foreign farmworkers. The Economic Policy Institute estimates the revised wage methodology could reduce total farmworker pay by about $3 billion a year—roughly 9% of aggregate wages. In November, the United Farm Workers and 18 individual farmworkers sued the Department of Labor, arguing the rule violates federal law by failing to prevent an “adverse effect” on U.S. workers’ wages and working conditions.
Forbes
January 20, 2026
First, these programs drain money from public schools—institutions built to serve all children regardless of zip code, income, or background. When a student leaves a public school with a voucher, the district loses funding tied to that enrollment, often without a corresponding reduction in fixed costs like building maintenance and teacher salaries. This creates a fiscal burden that ultimately affects the students who remain in public schools. (Economic Policy Institute)
Granite State Report
January 20, 2026
Interview with Margaret Poydock, Senior Policy Analyst at the Economic Policy Institute.
Rick Smith Show
January 20, 2026
Cites EPI chart on payroll employment.
It’s a boss’s economy. (Source: Economic Policy Institute)
The Lever
January 20, 2026
Fiscal Times
January 20, 2026
A lack of child care options in New York is costing working families, some of whom are spending 20% to 40% of their annual income on programs, according to a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute.
The average cost of child care is $15,394 a year in New York, the sixth-most expensive state in the nation, the report noted. Child care costs in New York City are among the highest in the nation, ranging from $26,000 to $40,000 per year per child.
The Center Square
January 20, 2026
The expansion of this model to a year-round workforce would effectively establish a new class of permanent, low-wage workers, with few rights and no economic mobility.
“It’s a really horrible idea and a little dystopian to bring in people on a temporary visa to make them ‘permanently temporary’,” says Daniel Costa, the director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute.
“The program was created to fulfill temporary shortages and seasonal jobs. If you want a program that brings in workers for permanent, year-round occupations, you need to bring them in on green cards, which are permanent immigrant visas, so that they can stay and work year round and have a path to citizenship – not be indentured through their visa status to their employer.”
Sentient Media
January 20, 2026