Mass deportations taking place under the second Trump administration could end up costing the average New Jersey taxpayer nearly $3,000, a new study says.
Nonprofit think-tank Economic Policy Institute (EPI) recently released an online calculator that shows how many federal tax dollars are being spent on mass deportations in every U.S. state, county and city. It also shows what that money could be spent on instead, such as teachers, housing and health care.
See the calculator here, and learn about its methodology here.
Patch.com
August 17, 2026
Those changes were made, even though, a growing number of middle-class Americans are not earning enough to meet their basic needs. It’s something UC Berkeley researchers warned about a decade ago. Since 1979, wages for the nation’s highest earners have nearly doubled, while pay for the bottom 90% has risen just 44%, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Napa Valley Register
August 17, 2026
For Black voters, their unhappiness about the state of the U.S. economy reflects the fact that they are now in the worst financial position they have been in a decade, according to a recent analysis of Federal Reserve data published by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Newsweek
August 17, 2026
There is nothing in the state legislation that forces Uber or Lyft to come to a contract agreement with any union. Such is not the nature of labor negotiations.
AB 1340, authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Berkeley), requires the parties to bargain in good faith — but if the companies refuse to do so, the remedy for that is an unfair labor practice charge, which takes time to resolve. As the pro-labor Economic Policy Institute demonstrated in a lengthy examination of corporate tactics, Starbucks, Amazon and Trader Joe’s (among others) have taken full advantage of that labor-complaint time gap to repeatedly stall negotiations.
Capital & Main
August 17, 2026
The truth is that “tax subsidies for retirement savings are upside down,” as the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute puts it. Some 80% of those subsidies go to households earning more than $100,000.
There’s little evidence that higher-income households are encouraged by those tax breaks to save more for retirement than they would without them — “they simply steer savings to tax-favored accounts,” EPI says.
LA Times
August 17, 2026
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the District’s unemployment rate rose to 6.4% in the first quarter of 2026. This was higher than any state’s rate or the District’s rate itself, and the only rate above 6%. Nationally, unemployment was 4.3%.
The Washington Informer
August 17, 2026
Many of the people we see in eviction court losing their homes are working long hours at difficult jobs. But they work in retail, the home healthcare sector, in food service work, etc.–where their employers do not pay them wages high enough to keep their families housed.
So that is why, for this week’s episode of We Can Do Better, we welcome David Cooper of the Economic Policy Institute. EPI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank working for the last 30 years to counter rising inequality, low wages and weak benefits for working people.
The national minimum wage is stagnant at a shameful sub-living wage of $7.25 per hour. But, as David tells us, dozens of states and localities are not waiting for Congress any longer. They are raising the wage themselves, including many this year alone. Among the 30 states with higher wages are several “red” states, reflecting the strong bipartisan public support for living wages for all workers.
Poverty Solutions Podcast
August 17, 2026
What would happen if the United States tripled the share of workers who belong to unions?
In this episode of Policy for the People, we talk with Jennifer Sherer of the Economic Policy Institute about the case for dramatically expanding union membership—and what stronger unions could mean for workers and the economy.
According to EPI’s analysis, tripling union density could, among other things
–Raise the average worker’s pay by about 14.5%, or roughly $7,700 a year
–Shift an estimated $1.2 trillion annually toward workers
–Reverse about one-third of the increase in inequality since 1979
Policy for the People Podcast
August 17, 2026
Last year, the financial well-being of most adults held steady, but declined for Black adults, who were more likely to experience layoffs, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The biggest decline among Black people was for those who are college-educated.
Boston Globe
August 17, 2026
According to data from the Economic Policy Institute, the annual cost for infant care in Indiana is $14,471. This is more than $4,000 more than Michigan and more than $5,000 more than Kentucky. In the same index, Michigan ranks 24th and Kentucky 14th, indicating substantially less restrictive regulatory environments than Indiana’s.
Indiana Capital Chronicle
August 17, 2026