“Basically, they’re saying, ‘We want workers, but we don’t want people,’” said Daniel Costa, a lead immigration researcher at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan thinktank focused on working people, during a panel on Thursday.
The panel, titled “Raids, Reform and the Future of Farm Labor,” was hosted by Investigate Midwest as part of a reporting project on immigration in the food system. The reporting project is funded by the Chicago Region Food System Fund.
Investigate Midwest
September 22, 2025
Recently, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) conducted a thorough analysis of Trump’s policies with regard to American workers over the last nine months. The EPI report includes the following findings:
• Trump lowered the minimum wage for contractors who work for the federal government, which could lead to a pay cut for these workers anywhere from 25% to 60%. Trump also eliminated an order to prioritize “high road” employers, which are employers that are willing to pay workers the prevailing wage along with benefits like paid leave and health insurance when awarding federal contracts. In addition, Trump did away with federal incentives for programs that give workers on federal projects training options that lead to higher-wage skilled trade occupations.
Connecticut Insider
September 22, 2025
Foreign worker visa programs in the United States are not doing enough to spur economic growth and recruit native workers, according to a new report.
The Economic Policy Institute released a report that says the H-2B visa program is bloated and stifles wage growth.
The Center Square
September 22, 2025
Research shows that U.S. workers are already much more productive than they once were. A September report from the Economic Policy Institute found that the productivity of workers has surged some 87 percent since the late ’70s and around 17 percent just in the past decade. But improved productivity doesn’t necessarily mean better pay, with EPI research showing a growing disparity between the two over the decades.
Inc.
September 22, 2025
There are differing views on how raising the federal minimum might impact the economy. An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that the $17 an hour minimum wage increase proposed by the Raise the Wage Act of 2025, would provide an additional $70 billion dollars each year in wages to the lowest-paid workers in the U.S. The average worker in this category would make an additional $3,200 a year, the EPI estimates.
SoFi
September 22, 2025
The state law, which allows employees the option to choose whether or not they want to join a union — known as “right-to-work” — has become a flash point in the gubernatorial race.
States with this law have been found to diminish wages and benefits for workers, an Economic Policy Institute analysis found. Twenty-seven states have passed such laws.
Technical.ly
September 22, 2025
Ben Zipperer is a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC.
According to his research, “If the administration follows through on its goals of deporting 4 million people over four years, there will be 3.3 million fewer employed immigrants and 2.6 million fewer employed U.S.-born workers at the end of that period.
“Employment in the construction sector will drop sharply: U.S.-born construction employment will fall by 861,000, and immigrant employment will fall by 1.4 million. The deportations will eliminate half a million child care jobs.”
Counterpunch
September 22, 2025
“Virtually the only way to draw more workers into the profession is to improve these jobs,” wrote Heidi Shierholz and Samantha Sanders in a comment submitted by the Economic Policy Institute. “Stripping away protections that boost pay will make recruitment harder, not easier, and will worsen the problem of insufficient access to home care services.”
AARP
September 22, 2025
A new report issued Thursday by the Economic Policy Institute is calling out the U.S. H-2B visa program, for swelling from the original mandated 66,000-limit without a solution. While a bipartisan effort has risen in recent years urging the Secretary of Homeland Security to raise the annual cap, the report’s authors contend that the H-2B program is undercutting U.S. wage standards already, and if the program is extended year-round, it will only lower wages and revenue, especially for those working in the meat processing sector.
National Hog Farmer
September 22, 2025
Announcing these latest wage increases is also kind of a PR move, said Ben Zipperer, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
“They are pretty much signaling the kind of wage increases that we’re seeing most companies in the United States making,” he said.
…
About 67 million people — nearly half of workers in this country — earn less than $25 an hour.
Marketplace
September 22, 2025