Privatizing the Postal Service would hit homebound seniors, people in rural areas, and residents of low-income urban neighborhoods hardest, wrote Monique Morrissey of the Economic Policy Institute: “The corporations that stand to gain will do so not because they are more efficient than the Postal Service, but because they can shed public service obligations and pay their workers less.”
Provincetown Independent
March 3, 2025
In 2024, there were 48 million immigrants residing in the U.S. and working in fields ranging from construction, to nursing, to software development. As the native-born American population continues to age, welcoming new people to the country will be a vital component of continuing to grow the economy, according to a joint analysis by the Immigration Research Initiative and Economic Policy Institute.
Quartz
March 3, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute says 16.2 million American workers were represented by a union in 2023.
Business Insider
March 3, 2025
But intimidation from employers, including unlawful means of coercion and retaliation during union elections, can often serve as deterrents. A 2019 analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, for instance, found that employers are charged with violating federal labor law in roughly 40 percent of union campaigns.
Orlando Weekly
March 3, 2025
Thousands of probationary federal workers have been laid off across the country. These employees have generally been at their jobs for less than two years and lack the civil service protections that shield other federal workers. Roughly 5%-6% of total government spending goes toward federal worker salaries, NPR reported, citing the Economic Policy Institute.
Planet Detroit
March 3, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) separately found that if the House GOP’s proposal for $880 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade becomes reality, it would “reduce incomes for the bottom 40% more than extending the [Trump tax cuts] would boost them — and the lowest-income households would fare the worst.”
Common Dreams
March 3, 2025
California, Texas, Virginia, Maryland and Florida were home to the highest numbers of civilian federal workers at that time, according to estimates from Ben Zipperer, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank.
Pluribus News
March 3, 2025
Consumer spending is the “beating heart” of the American economy, said Marketplace. People buying stuff accounts for 70% of the gross domestic product. But there is a distorting effect when that spending is weighted so heavily toward the rich. “Maybe we’d have fewer people working in really high-end hotels and resorts and a lot more people working in elder care and child care,” said Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute. And it’s not clear that wealthy households can keep the economy going on their own. If their spending is “being driven by record stock prices, I wouldn’t count on that for sustaining long-term economic growth,” said Moody’s Mark Zandi.
The Week
March 3, 2025
Child care is one of the largest expenses for Georgia families.
The Economic Policy Institute reports the average annual cost of infant care in Georgia is $7,644, or $637 a month for a 4-year-old, it’s $6,500, or $542 a month.
PBS Georgia
March 3, 2025
These costs and competition in the delivery sector, are two of the main reasons why the Postal Service is losing money, says Monique Morrissey, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute think tank.
She anticipates the Trump administration will back away from privatizing the agency once officials realize the harm it would do to rural voters.
“Members of Congress in rural states are very aware of the fact that commerce is dependent on the Postal Service and if they [consumers] really had to pay their share of postage, it wouldn’t be cost-effective and small businesses would just move out of the state,” Morrissey said. “It would be catastrophic.”
Privatizing the agency wouldn’t necessarily make it more profitable or help it run more efficiently either, she noted.
“There’s no real good reason for privatizing the Postal Service,” Morrissey continued. “And you never are going to get rid of the need to regulate it.”
The Independent
March 3, 2025