And on Tuesday, new government data pointed to large federal job losses in recent months, some 162,000 jobs in October and a further 6,000 last month.
“Federal government employment is down by 271,000 since reaching a peak in January,” the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.
“The cost of these losses are only beginning to be felt,” Elise Gould, an economist with the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said Tuesday.
Dayton Daily News
December 19, 2025
“Downward revisions for August and September plus large losses in October — due to an enormous drop in federal workers at the end of September — has meant a significant slowing in the pace of job growth,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist with the Economic Policy InstituteOpen in a new tab. “The three-month moving average of job growth fell from 232,000 in January to 62,000 in November.”
WorldatWork
December 19, 2025
- Americans were more likely to support unions than big companies by the widest margin in 60 years, according to Economic Policy Institute data.
Axios Chicago
December 19, 2025
According to the Economic Policy Institute, 67 localities across the U.S. have adopted minimum wages higher than their state minimum wage.
Scotsman Guide
December 19, 2025
Think tanks like Brookings (widely viewed as centrist to liberal) and the Economic Policy Institute (widely viewed as liberal) argue that without coordinated action, the middle class will continue to erode—making affordability less about choices and more about structural barriers. Still, how to pay for those investments fuels sharp political debates.
Investopedia
December 19, 2025
A nationwide mandate could generate an estimated $7 trillion in additional retirement savings and create 62 million new savers over a decade, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Financial Advisor
December 19, 2025
“It really boils down to sort of a perfect storm of factors,” says Valerie Wilson, the director of the program on race, ethnicity, and the economy at the Economic Policy Institute. “We have the federal layoffs and job losses. We have the retraction of DEI policies . . . and organizations, including the federal government, that have essentially eliminated DEI departments or roles that were likely held by a large number of Black women.” Wilson also notes that job losses across industries have disproportionately impacted women—from manufacturing to professional and business services.
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“The reason why we have a more diverse federal workforce is because at one point, the federal government was actually willing to sort of be a leader in establishing more equitable employment practices that were ultimately adopted in states and cities and, to some extent, the private sector,” Wilson says.
Fast Company
December 19, 2025
The cost of necessities is calculated using data from the Economic Policy Institute’s family budget calculator, with inflation adjusted to 2025 dollars in the study. The figures show the income a family needs for a modest yet adequate standard of living, breaking out costs for housing, food, health care, taxes and more.
“Many families don’t have the discretionary spending. They want to save for college for their kids and just simply don’t have anything extra,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist from the Economic Policy Institute, pointing out that the budget rule is now unrealistic for many families. “They can have trouble making ends meet, let alone being able to invest in the future.”
Albany Times Union
December 19, 2025
MIT’s Living Wage Calculator and the Economic Policy Institute both show that a genuinely comfortable lifestyle for a family of four can easily top $100,000 in many states. And a recent Harris Poll found that 64% of Americans earning six figures say their income merely keeps them afloat. The virality of Green’s post itself suggests that traditional economic indicators don’t fully reflect how financially strained many American families feel.
Quartz
December 19, 2025
The school bus driver shortage is just a fact of life, Richardson said; it’s been a consistent problem for most of her career. Data from the Economic Policy Institute show that school bus driver employment has decreased over the past 15 years, prompted by federal budget cuts in the early 2010s that forced schools to cut bus services or privatize its school buses.
Rocky Mountain PBS
December 19, 2025