If policymakers are serious about addressing affordability, they would champion one institution that has consistently proven capable of raising pay: unions.
Through collective bargaining, unions are the most effective mechanism for workers to raise their wages and secure their fair share of the wealth they produce. Our new report at the Economic Policy Institute quantifies how transformative it would be to rebuild union power. Specifically, we examine what we stand to gain if we tripled current union membership to 30% — similar to its peak in the U.S. before decades of relentless attacks on unions and collective bargaining eroded it, and just shy of the current rate in Canada.
We find that tripling union membership would raise pay for the typical worker by more than $7,700 every year, or nearly $270,000 over a 35-year career. This would be life-changing for a working family — nearly covering the cost of raising a child from birth through age 17, for example. And those increases aren’t just for unionized workers — strong unions also benefit nonunion workers by establishing broad standards that employers must follow to get and keep the workers they need.
In These Times
August 17, 2026
Indiana unions have membership numbers at just under 300,000, roughly 8% of workers in the state and a new report from the Economic Policy Institute found federal policies and lobbying efforts discourage joining unions, despite growing interest.
Indiana favors the manufacturing and automotive industries, which have some of the largest labor organizations in the nation but union membership is still below the national average.
Heidi Shierholz, president of the institute and the report’s co-author, said tripling the number of union members would bring widespread benefits, including boosting public schools, expanding access to healthcare and increasing wages to help families pay for the rising cost of just about everything.
Public News Service
August 17, 2026
Information from this article was sourced from the Economic Policy Institute.
Fox 5 DC
August 17, 2026
And then, there was a rapid increase in the number of people falling behind on their credit card payments. Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said that more recently, the number of new delinquencies has stabilized.
“But it’s at a level that’s higher — I would argue — than it should be, given a pretty low unemployment rate in the economy,” Bivens said.
Marketplace
August 17, 2026
Your article on deadly occupations reports that there were 52 fatal workplace accidents in Oregon in 2024, (“These are Oregon’s most deadly occupations,” Aug. 2). The source is the annual U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries. The critical word here is injuries, because these statistics exclude fatal occupational diseases. My review of literature in 2020 for the Economic Policy Institute revealed fatal diseases can outnumber accidents by as much as 10 to one.
The Oregonian
August 17, 2026
Nevada taxpayers paid $2.7 billion on mass deportations in 2025, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Clark County taxpayers accounted for $1.8 billion of that amount, and Washoe County taxpayers accounted for nearly $600,000.
The Nevada Current
August 17, 2026
President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda could cost Bexar County taxpayers more than $1.13 billion by the time his second term ends in 2028, according to a new online calculator created by the Economic Policy Institute.
The left-leaning D.C.-based think tank’s Cost of Deportations calculator shows how much U.S. taxpayer money is being spent on mass deportations at the national, state, county, congressional district and city levels — and for the average federal taxpayer.
San Antonio Current
August 17, 2026
Widening pay gap? Some 63% of women said they would feel pressure to accept a lower-paying job after a layoff, compared to 52% of men, according to a recent Glassdoor survey seen by Bloomberg. That could exacerbate the pay gap that’s been widening since 2024, the Economic Policy Institute reported.
HR Brew
August 17, 2026
The Trump administration’s deportation push costs the average American nearly $2,400 in taxes, according to analysis, money that could otherwise be spent on improving healthcare, housing and education.
A new tool from the Economic Policy Institute calculated how the $268.9 billion committed by the administration to fund President Donald Trump’s mass deportation and detention push would cost average American taxpayers $2,358.
The Independent
August 17, 2026