The new rule, called the “Adverse Effect Wage Rate Methodology for the Temporary Employment of H-2A Nonimmigrants in Non-Range Occupations in the United States,” says the wage in California for Skill Level One farmworkers will be $16.45 per hour. That’s a nickel below the state’s minimum wage this year. There is a higher Skill Level Two wage, of $18.71, but Daniel Costa, immigration director for the Economic Policy Institute, believes that “more than 90 percent of H-2A workers will get the lower wage.”
The Nation
October 14, 2025
Even before personnel cuts and the plan for more onerous terms for getting disability benefits, wait times for accessing disability benefits were far too long. According to the Economic Policy Institute, as of February 2025, the process averaged 236 days for decisions issued in the initial stage and 277 days for cases that were appealed. Over a million people are waiting on an appeal, with tens of thousands dying while awaiting a decision.
American Prospect
October 14, 2025
“Trump is obsessed with a lot of the aesthetics of being pro-worker,” said Samantha Sanders, government affairs director at the Economic Policy Institute, a thinktank.
She cited an appearance at the White House in April in the company of coal miners and a giant banner of Trump’s face hung from the Department of Labor building in Washington DC.
“But when it comes down to actual actions, we know, from his personal life to his policy life, he just does not deliver on those things,” she said.
The Guardian
October 14, 2025
Even when economists describe “rapid shifts” or “structural changes,” the paper lets that coded language stand unchallenged. “Rapid shifts” means sabotage. “Structural changes” means dismantling equity by design. Valerie Wilson of the Economic Policy Institute calls the pace “out of the ordinary.” She’s being polite. It’s engineered. And the Times buries that truth beneath charts and quotes that normalize the violence.
Dr. Stacey Patterson Substack
October 14, 2025
The African American unemployment rate has surged over the past four months, from 6 to 7.5 percent, while the rate for white people ticked down slightly to 3.7 percent. On top of a slowing economy, the White House’s actions have disproportionately harmed Black workers, economists said.
“I think the speed at which things have changed, in such a dramatic fashion, is out of the ordinary,” said Valerie Wilson, who directs the program on race, ethnicity and the economy at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. “There’s been such a rapid shift in policy, rather than something cyclical or structural about the economy.”
…
Job losses are concentrated among Black women working in professional services such as human resources, according to Ms. Wilson’s analysis of federal data. A hiring freeze and mass layoffs in the federal work force, which have continued during the government shutdown and now exceed 200,000, have also fallen disproportionately on Black workers.
New York Times
October 14, 2025
Like Perot, Trump likely attracted many votes with his anti-free trade statements, but has instead used tariffs to bully other countries rather than as part of a coherent industrial policy.
Labor Notes
October 14, 2025
Among the many ills of racism and sexism is that they are exceptionally expensive, labor economist Valerie Wilson explains, noting that the Trump administration is “really striking at anything and everything that has to some extent or another provided opportunities to historically marginalized groups, specifically by race and gender.”
Wilson is director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy. Her research has found that reducing discrimination is a financial boon for everyone. Extrapolating from an earlier study which found that declining occupational barriers to women and Black men relative to white men resulted in substantial gains in gross domestic product of almost eight percent per capita between 1960 and 2010, Wilson found that the benefit of reduced discrimination through 2024 is more than $4,932 per person.
Wilson argues that the U.S. economy may now be headed towards recession and recovery will be made far more difficult and unequal if Trump’s current policies remain unchanged.
Rolling Stone
October 14, 2025
According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the cost of childcare should be 7 percent of household income to be considered affordable. According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, infant care for one child is 18.1 percent of a median family’s income in Massachusetts.
The Inquirer and Mirror
October 14, 2025
She went on to work in the appellate branch of the National Labor Relations Board and on Capitol Hill with Virginia U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, contributing to labor legislation, including the PRO Act, which sought to protect workers’ right to organize. As associate labor counsel at the Economic Policy Institute, she advanced workers’ rights.
The Advocate
October 14, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is recommending steps states should take to bolster health and safety protections for workers to lock-in current federal protections and close gaps in areas OSHA does not regulate, arguing federal worker protections are under attack by the Trump administration. “Since OSHA was created, fatalities and work-related injuries have dropped by 65%, even while the U.S. workforce has doubled in size,” but there are numerous threats to federal workplace health and safety protections, EPI says in…
Inside OSHA
October 14, 2025