The Biden administration expanded the definition of an employee in order to try to cover more workers employed in the gig economy. Now, though, the Trump administration is attempting to roll back the definition in a way that, as a new report from the Economic Policy Institute Report shows, could cost the most vulnerable workers thousands of dollars and leave them less safe in the workplace.
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In a report released Wednesday, the Economy Policy Institute looked at the fields where workers are most likely to be misclassified. The list was filled with old-fashioned jobs like construction workers, truck drivers, home health and personal care aides, and manicurists and pedicurists. “It’s happening to a lot of workers outside of the gig and app space, even though I feel like gig and app [companies] have been taking up a lot of air, and that is largely too because these companies have also lobbied a lot to … carve out drivers or gig workers from employment status in the state laws,” said Margaret Poydock, a senior policy analyst at EPI.
The report found that, on average, a worker who should be counted as an employee but is being treated as an independent contractor could lose thousands of dollars per year, depending on the industry, and as much as $20,399 for construction workers. Workers stand to lose even more in states where wages are higher. These workers also miss out on workplace benefits like paid leave and health insurance, and they foot the entire bill for their contributions to social security and Medicare, instead of splitting it with their employers. It’s also harder for them to get promotions or raises, reducing their long-term wealth.
The New Republic
April 20, 2026
“African American workers in the U.S. also earn less than White workers in the same occupations, with African American workers paid about 76 cents for every dollar paid to White workers with the same education and experience and in the same region, according to the Economic Policy Institute,” the report reads. “U.S. EEOC data show that race discrimination made up around 35-42% of all employment discrimination charges in Tennessee in 2009-2022.”
WBIR-TV
April 20, 2026
Behind the policy jargon is a simple problem: child care is expensive, and most Texas families cannot swing it without help. The Economic Policy Institute’s state fact sheets put average annual infant care costs in Texas at about $10,706 in 2025 and around $9,664 for a 4-year-old, and estimate that only about 26.5% of Texas families can afford infant care under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services benchmark. Those numbers help explain why county officials say local pilots, even when generously funded, are no match for statewide affordability pressures without changes in state funding and rules. The full breakdown is available from the Economic Policy Institute.
Hoodline
April 20, 2026
The economic logic of AI is that humans are expensive to employ, and no human is more expensive to employ than the human who runs the company. In 2024, the last year for which data are available, chief executives were paid, on average, 281 times what the typical worker earns, according to the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute. Why do we pay them anything at all?
The New Republic
April 20, 2026
Firms are holding on to workers but not expanding, said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, owing to economic uncertainty brought on by tariffs and policy volatility.
Employees, she said, sense that even a modest upswing in layoffs could “translate into a spike in unemployment pretty rapidly.”
The National Post (Canada)
April 20, 2026
The end result is easy to anticipate, said Ismael Cid-Martinez, economist with the Economic Policy Institute. More people will lose their food stamps because they can’t find work. They’ll go without and suffer all the attendant problems that come with chronic hunger. That condition causes people to fall sick more frequently and puts them at greater risk of chronic disease, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. For adults, that means even more difficulty finding a job. For kids, it also means delayed physical development and the inability to concentrate at school.
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“Not to be overly pessimistic about this, but I think that one of the important things to keep in mind is, these are all policy choices,” Cid-Martinez said. “We’re not in this position because of forces beyond our control.”
The American Prospect
April 20, 2026
The Economic Policy Institute provides families with updated cost-of-living data for various metro areas throughout the U.S. with a helpful Family Budget Calculator.
Investopedia
April 20, 2026
This unholy concentration of wealth has occurred even though worker productivity has risen. Americans are working harder but getting paid less for the fruits of their labors. Research released last month by the Economic Policy Institute showed that the gap between a typical worker’s pay and productivity has risen dramatically since 1979.
The Hill
April 20, 2026
The median cost to get full-time care for an infant in the United States is $14,106 per year, or $1,176 per month. That figure is determined by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank that used data from the Department of Labor and the nonprofit Child Care Aware of America to calculate estimates for every state.
If those numbers seem low, you might reside in a city or on a coast, where care is generally more expensive. The median monthly costs vary greatly around the nation, from a low of $572 in Mississippi, $1,342 in Illinois, $1,829 in California and a high of $2,363 in Washington, D.C. The median above comes from the state in the middle of the range: Nebraska.
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According to Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, child care started to become more expensive than housing in many parts of the country about 10 years ago. The uptick, she hypothesized, might be attributed to increases in the costs of commercial rent and labor, especially since the service can’t be automated or optimized. Care is typically more expensive for an infant than it is for older children because babies require more workers, Gould said. Most state regulations mandate that one worker can care for only four or five babies at a time.
New York Times Headway Newsletter
April 20, 2026
According to the Economic Policy Institute, unemployment has increased for Black Americans by around 1.1% under the Trump administration so far. However, many experts remain hopeful that despite new challenges, affected families will persevere.
The Fulcrum
April 20, 2026