Najmabadi quotes David Cooper, of the leftist Economic Policy Institute, who complains that Congress is making tips more attractive, perpetuating the tipping business structure. But tipping is not going away, so it does make sense that Trump and Congress are working in the realm of reality — instead of Cooper’s weird wannabe world without tips, where everyone earns high hourly rates.
The Economic Policy Institute predicts that removing taxes from tips will make employers less likely to raise wages. It has concocted some weak reasons for why it believes taxing tips is better for workers. It predicts that no tax on tips will not help many people because they are already low-wage earners who do not pay taxes. It also predicts that more employers will want workers to become tipped employees so they can be paid the lower hourly rate. And it predicts that the plan could “encourage tax avoidance and deplete state budgets.”
The Federalist
June 2, 2025
Payscale reports that the cost of living in Chicago is 14% higher than the national average, driven primarily by housing costs.11 The Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator (which takes into account housing, food, transportation, healthcare, taxes and other necessities) estimates that a household with two adults and no children living in Cook County would spend $5,599 a month on average or $67,185 a year.
Investopedia
June 2, 2025
Agencies covered by the order — supposedly all focused on national security — include the departments of Justice, State, Defense, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Health and Human Services, as well as Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the General Services Administration, and more. Layoffs have already begun in what Elise Gould, at the Economic Policy Institute, notes is “the steepest uptick since the laying off census takers in 2020.”
She continues, “The decision of this administration to target the federal workforce is having its intended effect. Unfortunately, this is likely only the tip of the iceberg.”
In These Times
June 2, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates that over 13 million Black Medicaid recipients and more than 19 million Latine Medicaid recipients are at risk of losing benefits under the bill.
As the authors of the EPI report explain, “Cuts to Medicaid will make low-income workers, non-workers, and their families poorer and less able to afford healthcare, especially those who are Black or Hispanic….Children are more than twice as likely as their white peers to rely on public health insurance.”
Nonprofit Quarterly
June 2, 2025
Similar laws to exempt tips and overtime have been introduced this year in 18 other states, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-aligned national think tank which called the proposed state laws “a gimmick” which would drain public funds and increase pressure from employers to work overtime.
“Though pitched as support for regular working people, the primary beneficiaries of these proposals would be employers and high earners who game the system,” the group said in a March 13 blog post.
The Press-Republican (New York)
June 2, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank largely funded by unions, says the impact would be less than 1% of unemployment compensation expenditures, and offering jobless benefits would stabilize a local economy hit by a strike. The legislature’s Office of Fiscal Analysis offered no assessment.
The Connecticut Mirror
June 2, 2025
Quotes Elise Gould (paywalled).
Fast Company
June 2, 2025
This trend of converting full time jobs into gig work, and depressing pay, is expected to grow, claiming more jobs in industries like health care, said Jen Sherer, the acting deputy director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Economic Analysis and Research Network.
For example, to squeeze more profit and cut costs, some health systems are considering hiring nurses for just the days they are needed.
South Side Weekly
June 2, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute has compiled data on childcare costs by state. Washington, D.C. has the most expensive infant care at $20,667 per year. Mississippi has the most affordable infant care, at $6,868 per year.
Investopedia
June 2, 2025
“If I had to wave my magic wand to provide the best educational opportunity to every child in this country, I would take all of the money that is getting kind of put into these voucher programs and redirect all of it into public education. And in particular, I would redirect it into low-income neighborhoods who are getting less funds from their local property taxes in the first place,” Wething said.
Straight Arrow News
June 2, 2025