The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) argues that the prospects for national reparations are currently weak, but there is movement at the local level. They list some 40 localities that had reparations initiatives as of December 2024.
EPI offers a reasonable set of criteria for what constitutes reparations at the state and local levels.
Roanoke Tribune
January 20, 2026
To help clear things up, “Marketplace Morning Report” host Sabri Ben-Achour spoke with Monique Morrissey, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute about what the shortfall actually means. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Sabri Ben-Achour: Right now, how does Social Security pay for itself? Remind us.
Monique Morrissey: Well, about 91% of Social Security outlays, so what they’re spending on benefits, comes directly from taxes on work — on workers — and employers pay the same amount. And that money goes into Social Security and gets spent immediately out for benefits.
Marketplace
January 20, 2026
Giving localities the ability to set their own minimum wage rates above the state and federal levels allows officials to respond to local conditions, says David Cooper, director of the Economic Analysis and Research Network at EPI. When cities and state officials tie their minimum wage to inflation, a practice known as indexing, they also save themselves from having to vote on the issue repeatedly.
“It’s automatic,” Cooper says. “No one needs to take votes on whether this is going to happen, it’s just on autopilot. And it works well for the business community, too, because they can very easily anticipate what their new wage bill is going to be year to year rather than having to budget for some large increase five years later when lawmakers get around to enacting a raise.”
Governing Magazine
January 20, 2026
Another analysis from the Economic Policy Institute argues that proposals to end Affordable Care Act tax credits will hit Black Americans especially hard.
In 10 major metropolitan areas, such changes could leave over 170,000 people without insurance, drive up annual premiums by roughly $740 million, and increase preventable deaths. Healthcare Finance has noted that premium increases are outpacing wage growth, with Black and Hispanic workers feeling those pressures acutely.
Minnesota Spokesman Recorder
January 20, 2026
Twenty-two states and 66 cities and counties will raise their minimum wage by the end of 2026, with most having instituted the new pay floors on Jan. 1, according to a report from the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit advocacy organization.
That means more than 8.3 million people have already received a raise, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The institute also noted that there are now more people in states with a pay floor of at least $15 than there are in states that pay the $7.25 federal requirement.
U.S. News & World Report
January 20, 2026
AI Invest
January 20, 2026
Economic Policy Institute. At least 17 of those bills have been successfully enacted across 13 states [paywall].
Forbes
January 20, 2026
API claims that universal school choice programs don’t harm public schools. The Economic Policy Institute has done multiple studies and disagrees. Please read these articles. How do you refute their methodology and evidence? In their article, “Vouchers undermine efforts to provide an excellent public education for all,” they write, “Vouchers make no coherent economic sense, and the evidence shows that vouchers harm student achievement and expose state budgets to large future obligations that are hard to forecast, even while they divert spending away from public education.” The article also offers several examples of devastating school voucher programs in multiple states that have long standing programs.
Please read, “How vouchers harm public schools: Calculating the cost of voucher programs of public schools.” Furthermore, the underlying assumption that private schools offer a better education than public schools is not supported by the research.
Alabama Political Reporter
January 20, 2026
The Economic Policy Institute’s family budget calculator shows that, no matter where you live in the Mid-Atlantic area, you are spending $1,000 or more a month on groceries.
Asbury Park Press
January 20, 2026
From “stripping collective bargaining rights from more than 1 million federal workers” to “denying 2 million in-home healthcare workers minimum wage and overtime pay,” President Donald Trump “has actively made life less affordable for working people.”
That’s according to a Tuesday report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which cataloged 47 key ways that the 47th president made life worse for working people during the first year of his second term.
Common Dreams
January 20, 2026