There is nothing in the state legislation that forces Uber or Lyft to come to a contract agreement with any union. Such is not the nature of labor negotiations.
AB 1340, authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Berkeley), requires the parties to bargain in good faith — but if the companies refuse to do so, the remedy for that is an unfair labor practice charge, which takes time to resolve. As the pro-labor Economic Policy Institute demonstrated in a lengthy examination of corporate tactics, Starbucks, Amazon and Trader Joe’s (among others) have taken full advantage of that labor-complaint time gap to repeatedly stall negotiations.
Capital & Main
August 17, 2026
The truth is that “tax subsidies for retirement savings are upside down,” as the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute puts it. Some 80% of those subsidies go to households earning more than $100,000.
There’s little evidence that higher-income households are encouraged by those tax breaks to save more for retirement than they would without them — “they simply steer savings to tax-favored accounts,” EPI says.
LA Times
August 17, 2026
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the District’s unemployment rate rose to 6.4% in the first quarter of 2026. This was higher than any state’s rate or the District’s rate itself, and the only rate above 6%. Nationally, unemployment was 4.3%.
The Washington Informer
August 17, 2026
Many of the people we see in eviction court losing their homes are working long hours at difficult jobs. But they work in retail, the home healthcare sector, in food service work, etc.–where their employers do not pay them wages high enough to keep their families housed.
So that is why, for this week’s episode of We Can Do Better, we welcome David Cooper of the Economic Policy Institute. EPI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank working for the last 30 years to counter rising inequality, low wages and weak benefits for working people.
The national minimum wage is stagnant at a shameful sub-living wage of $7.25 per hour. But, as David tells us, dozens of states and localities are not waiting for Congress any longer. They are raising the wage themselves, including many this year alone. Among the 30 states with higher wages are several “red” states, reflecting the strong bipartisan public support for living wages for all workers.
Poverty Solutions Podcast
August 17, 2026
What would happen if the United States tripled the share of workers who belong to unions?
In this episode of Policy for the People, we talk with Jennifer Sherer of the Economic Policy Institute about the case for dramatically expanding union membership—and what stronger unions could mean for workers and the economy.
According to EPI’s analysis, tripling union density could, among other things
–Raise the average worker’s pay by about 14.5%, or roughly $7,700 a year
–Shift an estimated $1.2 trillion annually toward workers
–Reverse about one-third of the increase in inequality since 1979
Policy for the People Podcast
August 17, 2026
Last year, the financial well-being of most adults held steady, but declined for Black adults, who were more likely to experience layoffs, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The biggest decline among Black people was for those who are college-educated.
Boston Globe
August 17, 2026
According to data from the Economic Policy Institute, the annual cost for infant care in Indiana is $14,471. This is more than $4,000 more than Michigan and more than $5,000 more than Kentucky. In the same index, Michigan ranks 24th and Kentucky 14th, indicating substantially less restrictive regulatory environments than Indiana’s.
Indiana Capital Chronicle
August 17, 2026
Ben Zipperer, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said Wednesday’s report was “unambiguously bad news for workers.”
“They’re now taking a pay cut. A frozen job market has weakened their bargaining power and slowed nominal wage growth, and the higher inflation from Trump’s Iran war has caused real wages to decline,” Zipperer said in a text to NOTUS.
NOTUS
August 17, 2026
Tennessee taxpayers are paying about $1,961 each to fund the Trump administration’s mass deportation policies, according to an analysis of the federal budget released by the Economic Policy Institute.
The think tank developed an online tool that calculates the average taxpayer’s share of the estimated $268.9 billion cost of deportations through the end of President Donald Trump’s term.
The calculator draws on IRS income data, estimates by the Institute for Policy Studies of projected federal expenditure on deportation and other data to estimate the price tag for federal taxpayers in every U.S. city, county, and state, and includes written analyses of its findings. Tennessee’s taxpayers, in total, will foot nearly than $4.5 billion of the total deportation costs, it shows.
The left-leaning think tank also calculated potential tradeoffs in the federal government’s immigration enforcement spending priorities, estimating what the same level of funding could instead be used for: covering the salaries of 21,401 firefighters, or funding Medicaid healthcare for 246,018 patients or the hiring 18,750 teachers.
Tennessee Lookout
August 17, 2026
“EPI has long pointed out that worker pay is also a policy choice. Raising the overtime rate of pay would boost workers’ income, provide a stronger deterrent against overworking employees, and help to reverse the decades-long erosion of overtime protections. A double overtime rate would be a simple, fair way to put more money in workers’ pockets,” said Samantha Sanders, director of government affairs and advocacy at the Economic Policy Institute, one of the groups supporting the legislation. “This bill would address a key concern with affordability: making sure that workers actually earn enough in wages to cover the costs of living with dignity and security.”
McKnight’s Senior Living
August 17, 2026