As researchers at the Economic Policy Institute and North Carolina Budget and Tax Center have documented in a pair of recent briefs, the “no taxes on tips” idea benefits comparatively few workers.
Analysis from EPI shows that the law will benefit between 2.5 and 5.2 million tipped workers who will receive an income tax deduction before the policy expires in 2028. The average tax benefit would amount to $1,700 annually during the four years the bill would be in effect. Notably, however, the policy would disproportionately benefit the top 20 percent of all tipped workers, who would receive an average tax cut of over $5,700. Because so many tipped workers have incomes too low to have any federal income tax liability, the bottom 20 percent of all tipped workers would receive an annual average tax cut of just $74.
NC Newsline
August 13, 2025
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the average estimated expenses tied to living in Cortland County for two adults without children is $5,019 per month, or $60,231 per year.
MoneyDigest
August 13, 2025
And because of the severity of cuts to Medicaid and food assistance, the lowest-earning 40% of American households would lose income, on average, according to the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
The CT Mirror
August 13, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute has slightly different numbers but the same trend: Wage growth shot up with inflation, then slowed as inflation ebbed. However, wage growth in 2025 remains higher than during the first half of Trump’s first term, when it generally ran under 3%; in the last half, it topped 3% and was running at 3.4% before the pandemic hit.
Cardinal News (VA)
August 13, 2025
Here are some of the sources I currently rely on for the truth: Democracy Now, Business Insider, The New Yorker, The American Prospect, The Atlantic, Americans for Tax Fairness, Economic Policy Institute, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, The Guardian, ProPublica, Labor Notes, The Lever, Popular Information, Heather Cox Richardson, and, of course, this Substack.
Robert Reich Substack
August 13, 2025
- Reduced reliance on government assistance: As of 2025, the federal minimum wage is considered a “poverty wage,” according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). A single, full-time working adult earning $7.25 per hour now falls below the poverty threshold of $15,650. Raising the minimum wage to match inflation could lift millions above the poverty line and reduce dependence on safety net programs like food stamps and Medicaid, ChatGPT said.
GO Banking Rates
August 13, 2025
The ITIN has also been used as a way for immigrants to show they are abiding by the law as they wait for Congress to pass an immigration reform bill, said Daniel Costa, the director of Immigration Law and Policy and the Economic Policy Institute.
“I think this is because the immigration reform bills that have been proposed in Congress and included a legalization program for unauthorized immigrants have often included provisions requiring undocumented immigrants to pay back taxes. If they have kept up with paying their taxes and a legalization passes Congress, then they’ll already have met that requirement,” he said. He added, however, that Congress hasn’t taken a meaningful step in that direction since 2013.
Houston Chronicle
August 13, 2025
We’re joined today by VALERIE WILSON — labor economist at the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute, where she heads up the organization’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy — to discuss just some of those reasons.
“I think this particular firing has raised alarm bells with so many people because of how important, how essential, those monthly jobs numbers are in this country,” Wilson explains today. “There’s a lot of visibility around these numbers and statistics. And we know that a lot of decision-makers rely on those numbers: the Federal Reserve, state and local governments, policymakers, businesses.” Moreover, she tells me, “the fact that this seems to be a politicized firing because the President simply didn’t like what the report was saying, is especially troubling to people who rely on the accuracy of those numbers to make important decisions.”
Pacifica Radio
August 13, 2025
Director of Immigration Law and Policy Research at the Economic Policy Institute Daniel Costa doubts that net migration will be negative in 2025 but thinks it will be soon.
“I am skeptical that we will see negative net migration in the first year, just based on some of the legal immigration flows… which might take longer for the administration to impact,” Costa told The Center Square. “But I do think we will likely see it in the next years of the administration, especially after the major influx of $170 billion the administration has been gifted from Congress for immigration enforcement.”
The Center Square
August 13, 2025