However, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute disputed that notion in a piece published this year. It said that “high-quality economic research finds increasing the minimum wage does not significantly impact employment,” or job opportunities and benefits. It even said raising the minimum wage isn’t expected to raise prices.
In fact, the EPI said evidence suggests that increasing minimum wages serves to “reduce poverty and should be paired with a strong safety net.”
Audacy
July 13, 2026
Minimum wage in the Portland Metro area will increase to $16.80 per hour, and the non-urban minimum wage will increase to $14.55 per hour, according to the state Bureau of Labor and Industries.
That translates into an average annual increase of $573 for a full-time, year-round worker in Oregon, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute.
Salem Statesman Journal
July 13, 2026
Almost half of American workers currently make less than $25 an hour, per data from the Economic Policy Institute.
The U.S. Sun
July 13, 2026
About 4% of Oregon workers earn minimum wage, according to state data. Among them, slightly more than half are women, more than 40% are Black or Hispanic and most — nearly 90% — are adults at least 20 years old, according to recent analysis from the left-leaning Washington, D.C.-based think tank Economic Policy Institute.
Oregon Capital Chronicle
July 13, 2026
For some teenagers across the country, the summer is the first opportunity to gain work experience for their nascent resume.
In a handful of states, however, teens who find jobs will find fewer protections under child labor laws. Four states — Indiana, Nebraska, Washington and West Virginia — enacted laws this year that weaken child labor protections, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank. In all, 13 states had bills seeking to weaken those protections; some are still under consideration.
Omaha Daily Record
July 13, 2026
“Eliminating these removal protections would jeopardize all facets of agency independence, as agency leaders would be reluctant to engage in regulatory or enforcement actions – or even day-to-day agency decision-making – without coordinating with the White House for fear of termination,” wrote Lauren McFerran, former National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) chair, and Celine McNicholas, a former official at the NLRB, in an Economic Policy Institute report from October 2025.
The Guardian
July 13, 2026
In a Bluesky thread, Economic Policy Institute economist Elise Gould said one of the report’s surprises was a 61,000 decrease in leisure and hospitality jobs, given expectations around the World Cup. The global soccer championships began on June 11 and are being held in North America through July 19, bringing travelers from around the world to the U.S.
Audacy
July 13, 2026
“You’ve got a lot of people who seem to work for firms that, in the aggregate, seem to be doing really well,” said Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. “They’re very profitable, and yet [workers’] wages aren’t growing particularly fast relative to how fast the firms are growing.”
CBS Moneywatch
July 13, 2026
The picture is further complicated by research from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which found that young workers without college educations are experiencing similar increases in unemployment over the same period. This makes it difficult to pin the slump on AI alone.
Straight Arrow News
July 13, 2026
But Kuttner understood that changing policy first required changing politics, which meant first and foremost finding a counterweight to the right’s new intellectual edifice.
That was very much what Kuttner and some of his fellow policy entrepreneurs had in mind when they established the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a think tank dedicated to restoring the kind of broadly shared prosperity Kuttner got to experience but that succeeding generations have not. EPI remains highly influential today. Its research is cited regularly even by analysts and groups who may not share the organization’s worldview but depend on it for insights into the realities of life for low- and middle-income Americans. It was also the longtime home of Jared Bernstein, who became the Chair of President Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Democracy Journal
July 13, 2026