The Economic Policy Institute celebrated its 40th anniversary Thursday with a policy conference and gala. EPI has long been a key sister organization to the Prospect. We’ve published many of its thinkers, relied on its work, and shared goals for the country.
As my colleague Harold Meyerson wrote in the authoritative history of EPI as the workers’ think tank, EPI “has practiced an empirically rooted institutional economics that documented how unchecked corporate power and its accompanying agenda—the destruction of unions, the offshoring of industry, the suppression of wages, the discrimination against women and minorities—led to the squeezing of America’s middle class, the marginalization of its working class, and the rise in its deaths of despair.”
Along with co-founding the Prospect, one of my proudest achievements is to have co-founded EPI. In 1986, I worked with anti-poverty activist Jeff Faux (who became EPI’s founding president), former labor secretary Ray Marshall, economists Lester Thurow and Barry Bluestone, and future Prospect co-founder Bob Reich to launch and raise money for what became EPI.
The American Prospect
October 7, 2026
For example, according to the Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator, a single adult with no children would need $83,262 to support themselves in the New York metro area.
Meanwhile, a family of two adults and three children living in the same area would need $195,299 to cover the cost of shelter, food, childcare, transportation, healthcare, and more.
Yahoo Finance
October 7, 2026
“There’s always volatility in the data,” said Heidi Shierholz at the Economic Policy Institute. Shierholz said you want to look at the last several months together in order to draw any conclusions. “What we’ve seen recently is that the labor market is OK. There’s good news and bad news,” she said.
The good news? The unemployment rate is low: It’s hovering just over 4%, and has been for a while.
“Job growth is solid, not great, but it’s solid,” Shierholz explained. “Layoffs are low. So if you have a job, you are no more likely than usual to get laid off. So that is very good news,” she said.
The not-so-good news, according to Shierholz, is that wage growth is weak … and there’s not much hiring going on.
Marketplace
October 7, 2026
Some background: An Atlantic writer named Dani Alexis Ryskamp went through old episodes to work out how much Homer made at the nuclear power plant. In today’s dollars, it comes out to about $55,000. When the show started, CEOs earned about 60 times what their average worker earned. Now they make 325 times as much. Call this the Mr. Burns-Homer Simpson ratio.
Justin Wolfers Substack
October 7, 2026
The average cost of childcare is $15,394 a year in New York, the sixth-most expensive state in the nation, according to a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute.
The Center Square
October 7, 2026
Experts are calling the September jobs report weak—and that could be due to economic uncertainty, according to Elise Gould, Economic Policy Institute senior economist.
“Payroll employment growth has averaged 50,000 over the last three months, but it continues to be relatively volatile,” Gould said in statements on Bluesky. “Economic uncertainty may be at play in the latest spell of weakness and downward revisions.”
Forbes
October 7, 2026
A 2023 Brookings Institution review found voucher programs generated outcomes ranging from significant gains to no measurable effect, while researchers at the Economic Policy Institute concluded vouchers generally underperform traditional public schools.
MassLive.com
October 7, 2026
Buffett told shareholders the market does not reward teachers and nurses the way it rewards entertainers, athletes, or investors who can spot a valuable business, MoneyWise noted. At the time, the pay gap between teachers and similarly educated workers in other fields was 6.1%.
It is now 25.2%, according to the Economic Policy Institute, after hitting a record high in 2024. That gap has not closed since he spoke. It has gotten four times wider.
The Street
October 7, 2026
A report last month from the Economic Policy Institute found CEOs made 325 times as much as the average worker last year. From 1978 to 2025, top CEO pay has increased 1,316%, while typical employee salary has gone up just 28%.
Forbes
October 7, 2026