GUTTING MEDICAID will have devastating knock-on effects around the country. That was the conclusion of a report released by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) earlier this year. “These cuts will not just cause harm to individual families, they will cascade, leading to hospital closures in rural counties, higher medical debt, lower earnings from future workers who will suffer from poorer health decades from now, and could even put upward pressure on federal budget deficits in the long run. In the very near term, these cuts will make the [U.S.] economy far more vulnerable to any recessionary shock.”
American Prospect
May 21, 2025
The letter’s signatories include Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Economic Policy Institute, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, the Alphabet Workers Union, and many others.
Business Insider
May 20, 2025
Without TPS, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants living and working in the U.S. legally will see their way of living uprooted overnight. TPS recipients have high labor force participation and pay income and sales taxes. Many contribute to Social Security and Medicare, even though they will likely never qualify for the benefits, says the Economic Policy Institute.
Daily Beast
May 20, 2025
Many critics of work requirements say the policy is built on the false belief that people who are struggling to get by are in that position because of laziness or some other personal shortcoming.
“More stringent work requirements implemented in the past have largely failed to boost work in significant ways because these requirements do not attack the core problems of weak macroeconomic conditions, the volatile nature of low-wage work, and other barriers to work,” Hilary Wething of the Economic Policy Institute wrote in January.
Yahoo News
May 20, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator estimates that a household with two adults and no children in the Seattle/Bellevue metro area will pay an average of $916 monthly in taxes.
Investopedia
May 20, 2025
Almost half of older Americans are financially unprepared for retirement. Many find themselves on the brink of poverty. The median retirement account balance for people nearing retirement age is just $10,000, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Next Avenue
May 20, 2025
New York and New Jersey are the only other states that allow unemployment benefits for striking workers, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, while several other states such as Connecticut, Hawaii and Oregon have recently considered similar laws. New York initially had a seven week waiting period to access benefits but shortened that to 14 days in 2020. New Jersey cut its 30-day waiting period in half last year.
Seattle Times
May 20, 2025
The bottom line: Critics argue the small pockets of victory don’t seem to outweigh the downsides.
- Some pockets of businesses want certain tariffs in place, acknowledges Heidi Shierholz, the president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute.
- But there isn’t a big constituency out there who wanted them to this scale.
Axios
May 20, 2025
A September 2023 report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that the CEO pay has soared 1,209% since 1978, compared with a 15.3% rise in what it termed “typical workers’ pay.”
“CEOs are granted massive compensation packages by corporate boards because of their bargaining power, not because of their skills or contributions they make to their firms,” the institute said.
“The concentration of earnings at the top leaves fewer gains for ordinary workers.”
Winston-Salem Journal
May 19, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute found 59% of teachers supplement their income through additional work.
Forbes
May 19, 2025