Media clips

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• Waffle House rarely talks. A union push has it speaking out.

  Paywall.

  Atlanta Journal Constitution September 8, 2026
• Maine’s minimum teacher pay is rising. Can schools afford to keep up?

  Paywall. 

  Portland Press Herald September 8, 2026
• Late Labor Day? Summer birthday? How the calendar can cost you thousands more in childcare

  The cost of child care varies widely by state and by the child’s age. In Mississippi, where costs are the lowest, families pay an average of $7,220 per year for infant care and $6,571 per year for 4-year-old care, according to a 2025 analysis by Economic Policy Institute. Families in Washington, D.C. have the highest annual costs at $29,809 on average for infant care and $23,877 for 4-year-olds. Though D.C. offers free preschool for three- and four-year-olds, EPI notes that not all families may be able to access those programs due to availability or other barriers.

  CNBC September 8, 2026
• ‘The most anti-union president’: how Trump turned his back on US workers

  Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive thinktank, said she was stunned by some of Trump’s anti-worker actions, especially by his order last year chopping the minimum wage that federal contractors must pay their employees, to $13.30 an hour from $17.75. That move caused some workers to lose over $9,000 a year in pay.

  This year, Trump rescinded a Biden-era regulation that made overtime pay available to more salaried workers. As a result, 4.3 million workers will no longer qualify for time-and-a-half overtime. (Two federal courts in Texas had ruled against Biden’s overtime regulation.) In his years as president, Trump has never pushed to raise the $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage, which has greatly eroded in value since it last increased in 2009.

  “The Trump administration is systematically weakening policies and institutions that give workers a voice, that give workers protections and that hold employers accountable,” Shierholz said. “He’s been doing that from day one, and since then it has absolutely continued and accelerated. You see attacks on every kind of worker protection from safety and health to wage and hour protections. Policy after policy after policy goes directly against the interests of workers.”

  The Guardian September 8, 2026
• Opinion

  The figure comes from the Economic Policy Institute’s Cost of Deportations Calculator. It begins with the National Priorities Project’s estimate that …[paywall].

  Cincinnati Enquirer September 8, 2026
• U.S. Job Market Rebounds in Surprising Fashion

  Economic Policy Institute who studies wages. Wages rose by 3.1% over the year ending in August. [paywall].

  NOTUS September 8, 2026
• American labor savors successes, faces challenges

  In addition, more and more of us are producing goods and services much more efficiently. The Gross Domestic Product of the nation expanded by 2.1% in the first quarter of this year and then again by an additional 1.5% in the second quarter. The U.S. Economic Policy Institute reports the average hourly employee’s productivity has leapfrogged a staggering 90% between 1975 and 2025.

  The Vindicator September 8, 2026
• August jobs report shows U.S. added 162,000 jobs, more than double economists’ forecasts

  “Slowing nominal wage growth suggests workers don’t have the leverage to bid up their wages,” Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said in an email. “Even with low unemployment, the depressed hires rate means workers aren’t finding new jobs to raise their wages.”

  CBS Moneywatch September 8, 2026
• The Labor Movement in Iowa

  On this edition of Iowa Press, Jesse Case, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 238, and Jennifer Sherer, deputy director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Economic Analysis and Research Network and director of EPI’s Worker Power Project, discuss the labor movement and issues affecting Iowa workers. 

  Iowa PBS September 8, 2026
• Iowa labor experts speak on UnityPoint unionization efforts, worker challenges

  Jesse Case, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 238, and Jennifer Sherer, deputy director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Economic Analysis and Research Network and director of the institute’s Worker Power Project, spoke on “Iowa Press” Sept. 4 about efforts of some Iowans to unionize and the issues impacting unionized workers in the state and across the country.

  Sherer told “Iowa Press” moderator Kay Henderson and Gazette Des Moines Bureau Chief Erin Murphy that this is a difficult period for Iowa workers, and that in the 30 years she’s lived in Iowa, the state’s union representation density has fallen from above to below the national average.

  In 2025, the U.S. union membership rate was 10%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Henderson said currently just over 100,000 Iowans are union members, or around 6.8% of the population.

  “But that’s not the end of this history,” Sherer said. “Workers are still rewriting it today, and this Labor Day and the next election cycle and everything that comes after will probably write the next chapter.”

  …

  According to a May Economic Policy Institute report cited by Sherer in the discussion, UnityPoint Health spent more than $2.1 million on “union avoidance consultants” in 2025. The healthcare company came in second to Amazon, which spent more than $26.6 million, and the total spent on union avoidance topped $1.5 billion in the U.S.

  Iowa Capital Dispatch September 8, 2026