While Vermont has prioritized investments that have made childcare more affordable and accessible, wait lists remain common. And Vermont families still pay more than $1,000 a month for childcare, according to data released early last year by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
Seven Days (Vermont)
July 20, 2026
Roughly 31.6% of workers ages 55 to 64 hold jobs requiring significant physical effort, a joint analysis by the Economic Policy Institute and The New School’s Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis found.
The Telegraph
July 20, 2026
In April 2024, the Biden administration cleared the way for more than 4 million low-wage workers to collect overtime pay. People earning less than $58,656 were to be paid time and a half if they worked over 40 hours a week, a shift that would put $1.5 billion into workers’ pockets, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Texas Tribune
July 20, 2026
Acemoglu and Restrepo found that a narrow category of automation — industrial robots — was associated with decreased employment and wages. But as the Economic Policy Institute’s Larry Mishel and Josh Bivens noted, when Acemoglu and Restrepo measured the effect of workers’ “exposure to IT capital” in general — i.e., how much the employers invested in IT tech overall — they found either no effect or a positive effect on employment and wages. Here’s the relevant table from the 2020 version of the paper:
Noah Smith Substack
July 17, 2026
Despite its importance, union density doesn’t get a lot of attention in mainstream political discourse. I’m always keeping an eye out for new UNION DENSITY FACTS. And this week we got some: a new report from the Economic Policy Institute that quantifies what would happen if we could triple union density—if we could once again make 30% of the work force union members, as they were in the mid-20th century.
Among the findings of the report (bolding added):
- “If we tripled union density from 10% to 30%, the real median wage for all workers (including both union and nonunion workers) would rise from $25.67 in 2025 to $29.39 per hour—a 14.5% increase. A full-time, full-year worker earning that wage would see annual pay rise by more than $7,700.”
Hamilton Nolan Substack
July 17, 2026
Tripling union membership in the US would lead to a 14.5% raise for the median US worker, shifting $1.2tn to workers annually and significantly narrowing racial wage gaps, according to a new report released on Wednesday.
The report from the Economic Policy Institute notes that union membership rates across the workforce, also known as union density, was once three times as high as it is today. Union density in the 1950s was more than 30% before it started to decline in the 1960s. By the 1980s, union density dropped to 22.2% only to decline even further in recent decades, to 10% in 2025.
Despite the lower union density, public approval of labor unions has remained high in recent years, with more than 68% of Americans viewing unions favorably in 2025. More than 50 million US workers would join a union if they could.
The Guardian
July 16, 2026
In April 2024, the Biden administration cleared the way for more than 4 million low-wage workers to collect overtime pay. People earning less than $58,656 were to be paid time and a half if they worked over 40 hours a week, a shift that would put $1.5 billion into workers’ pockets, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Texas Tribune
July 14, 2026
The minimum wage increased July 1 in Alaska, Oregon and Washington, DC, as well as in 14 cities and counties across the country, the Economic Policy Institute said in a blog post.
McKnight’s Senior Living
July 13, 2026
Redefining “joint employer” as proposed by the Department of Labor has proposed could cost workers approximately $1 billion annually “through increases in workplace fissuring and exposure to wage theft,” according to the nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank Economic Policy Institute.
McKnight’s Senior Living
July 13, 2026