Samantha Sanders, director of government affairs and advocacy at the Economic Policy Institute, said having a political actor in the inspector general role would be “a real shame.”
IGs of the past have probed the department’s ability to investigate child labor claims, unemployment insurance fraud during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
“It’s always good to be asking questions about whether things are being done appropriately, if funds are accounted for, or if programs are effective,” she said. “You need a strong IG for that and there’s certainly a concern that D’Esposito might be the president’s attack dog.”
Bloomberg Law
October 15, 2025
According to the Economic Policy Institute, enforcement of the tip credit law can be inconsistent, resulting in gaps where workers may not always receive the federally mandated minimum wage. While many servers in high-traffic restaurants earn well above $7.25 per hour from tips, others in lower-volume establishments rely heavily on their employer to meet wage requirements.
Complex
October 14, 2025
While those at the bottom of the wealth scale saw a very small increase in net worth, those at the top saw their wealth explode, further expanding the gap. This is reflected anecdotally in other statistics. According to the Economic Policy Institute, for example, CEO compensation increased by more than 900% from 1978 to 2018, while worker compensation rose by just 11.9%.
GO Banking Rates
October 14, 2025
For most Americans, those guardrails are not abstract—they protect the only wealth they have. According to 2022 data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finance and analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, approximately two-thirds of U.S. household wealth is concentrated in two asset categories: primary residences and employer-sponsored retirement accounts.
Forbes
October 14, 2025
Ron Hira, Ph.D., a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute and political science professor at Howard, is also the author of Outsourcing America, one of the first books to analyze the economic and policy implications of high-skilled job offshoring and has testified before Congress. He spoke with the Hilltop staff to share his perspective on the ongoing issue.
“The state of the H-1B program was scandalous,” Hira said. “It doesn’t operate the way Congress or policymakers intended, but is instead set up to exploit foreign guest workers, which harms both them and American workers by distorting the labor market.”
The Hilltop
October 14, 2025
A report from the Economic Policy Institute last week found that “immigrants tend to be younger than the U.S.-born population and that steady flows of net immigration buoy the U.S. labor force.”
“The drag on overall labor force growth stemming from sharp declines in the U.S.-born labor force over the next decade will likely be quite steep,” it added.
U.S. News & World Report
October 14, 2025
Trump’s mass deportations will have a ‘devastating’ toll on the economy, according to the Economic Policy Institute non-profit, which based this on a study out of DC.
Daily Mail
October 14, 2025
A 2024 report from the Economic Policy Institute found that government antiwage theft efforts recovered more than $1.5 billion dollars in stolen wages for American workers in only a two-year period, between 2021 and 2023 (6). “Wage theft,” they say, “is pervasive across all industries and income levels in the country.”
MoneyWise
October 14, 2025
Research from the Economic Policy Institute estimatef that a national deportation of 4 million people, as proposed by the Trump administration, could eliminate 6 million jobs nationally, including nearly 50,000 in Oregon.
Public News Service
October 14, 2025
In 2021, years before the H-1B program became the object of political controversy, Economic Policy Institute published its findings that “thousands of skilled migrants with H-1B visas working as subcontractors at well-known corporations like Disney, FedEx, Google, and others appear to have been underpaid by at least $95 million.” The organization went on to note: “Victims include not only the H-1B workers but also the U.S. workers who are either displaced or whose wages and working conditions degrade when employers are allowed to underpay skilled migrant workers with impunity.”
Republican-American
October 14, 2025