The H-1B visa program — a key pipeline for skilled foreign workers in tech — has recently been upended by President Donald Trump. A recent executive order now mandates that companies to pay $100,000 per application, a move the White House says will protect American jobs. But critics warn it could shrink the talent pool, raise costs and push innovation overseas. So what’s really changed, who benefits the most and how might this impact the economy? Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, joins The Excerpt to unpack the issues.
USA Today The Excerpt Podcast
October 23, 2025
Ben Zipperer, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, has calculated for me that Black and Latino people represent only a little over one-sixth of workers whose wages put them in the top quintile of all wage earners, though they comprise nearly one-third of all workers.
Bloomberg
October 23, 2025
Polling released earlier this month found that 72% of likely New York City voters support incrementally raising the minimum wage to $30 an hour. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates that if a $30 minimum wage is not enacted, more than a third of New York City workers will earn less than $30 an hour in 2030.
“Discussions of a $30 minimum wage in New York City are not superfluous—they reflect the very real needs of working people throughout the city,‘ EPI’s Sebastian Martinez Hickey wrote in August.
Common Dreams
October 23, 2025
Today, that legacy is clear just by looking at the numbers. About 12% of the civilian workforce overall is Black—but Black workers constitute nearly 20% of the federal workforce. In some agencies—such as the Postal Service and the departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs—we are 1 in 4 employees.
With more than 90% of federal workers living outside the nation’s capital, the effect of Trump’s attacks on the federal workforce spreads nationwide. This is especially true in the South, where Black workers make up 35% of the federal workforce in a handful of states, including nearly 45% in Georgia alone. Black workers are able to stay and build a stable career in these jobs; 21% of Black federal employees have worked in the government for 20 years or more. And Trump’s attacks are especially harmful for Black women, who themselves are 12% of federal workers, nearly double their share of the workforce overall, and work at some of the agencies hit hardest by the administration’s cuts.
Black Press USA
October 23, 2025
The Raise the Wage Act of 2025, which would incrementally increase the minimum wage to $17 per hour by 2030, was also introduced into Congress in April. According to the Economic Policy Institute, “The bill would also gradually raise and then eliminate subminimum wages for tipped workers, workers with disabilities, and youth workers, so that all workers covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act would have the same wage floor.”
MoneyWise
October 23, 2025
Recent economic research from the National Women’s Law Center and the Economic Policy Institute has unveiled disparities in financial opportunities for Black women across America’s metropolitan areas. A comprehensive analysis of factors such as median income, homeownership rates, employment, business ownership, and healthcare access identified where Black women are flourishing financially — and where systemic barriers still limit potential.
Travel Noire
October 23, 2025
Previous shutdowns haven’t stopped the federal labor statistics agency from issuing its reports, and only three shutdowns delayed them in the last several decades. During the October 2013 federal shutdown, September jobs data was delayed 18 days and released less than a week after the shutdown ended. During a shutdown that ran from Dec. 16, 1995, to Jan. 6, 1996, the December jobs report was delayed by two weeks, according to the D.C.-based nonprofit think tank Economic Policy Institute
Oregon Capital Chronicle
October 23, 2025
According to the Economic Policy Institute, Starbucks had faced hundreds of unfair labor practice charges from the National Labor Relations Board as of early 2025, including accusations of retaliation and union-busting. The board is closed due to the government shutdown and did not respond to a request for comment.
Business Insider
October 23, 2025
“The fingerprints of Trump policy decisions are most clearly found in the distinct rise in federal [unemployment insurance] claims—claims filed specifically by workers laid off from federal agencies,” Elise Gould and Joe Fast of the Economic Policy Institute wrote last week. “However, we are also seeing troubling trends in UI claims in regular state programs, particularly in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.”
“The shutdown (and potentially the attempted politicization of key government data-collection agencies) could leave policymakers flying blind just as the economy encounters real turbulence,” they cautioned.
Common Dreams
October 22, 2025
According to the Economic Policy Institute, antidiscrimination policies like the CROWN Act are needed because Black and Brown students continue to face discrimination based on their hair.
Florida Politics
October 22, 2025