According to the Economic Policy Institute, Black women face a median wealth of just $200 compared to $15,640 for white women. This disparity grows even larger for Black single mothers, whose median wealth is estimated at just $0. Job loss, especially on this scale, exacerbates these inequities, making recovery even more challenging.
BET.com
May 19, 2025
Axios Denver
May 19, 2025
In the United States, a 2022 report from the Economic Policy Institute estimated that the effects over the previous two decades include the loss of 5 million manufacturing jobs and the closure of an estimated 70,000 factories. The threat of having more jobs shifted to follow has also put downward wage pressure on the jobs that remain.
Nonprofit Quarterly
May 19, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute backs up Sanders’ claims. According to a recent EPI report, U.S. productivity has surged by 86.5% from 1979 to 2024, while hourly pay for typical workers only grew by 31.7% over the same period. That means productivity has grown nearly three times faster than wages, creating a wide gap between the value workers produce and what they take home.
The EPI argues this gap is not an accident but a result of policy decisions that reduced worker bargaining power, weakened unions, and shifted more wealth to capital owners. The report points out that this shift has resulted in slower economic growth overall, with typical workers missing out on the benefits of rising productivity.
Benzinga (via Yahoo! Finance)
May 19, 2025
A new report from the magazine Travel and Leisure highlighting the 50 best places in the country to retire included four New England towns on its list.
The magazine partnered with financial website Investopedia to compile the rankings. Data from the Census Bureau, the Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and more were used to rank cities based on cost of living and access to travel, healthcare, and entertainment.
Journal Inquirer
May 19, 2025
“The school bus driver shortage remains severe, and bus driver pay is getting worse,” according to a November 2024 blog post from the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank “that works to counter rising inequality, low wages and weak benefits for working people.”
There were 12.2% fewer school bus drivers on the road nationally in September 2024 than five years earlier, according to the institute. And the median school bus driver in 2023 earned 43% less than the median weekly wage for all workers while weekly earnings for bus drivers fell by 2.8% since 2019.
Look Out Eugene Springfield
May 19, 2025
According to the Economic Policy Institute, New York State is the 15th most expensive state for infant care.
News 12 Long Island
May 19, 2025
At the federal level, the minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, called “a poverty wage” by the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, because it equates to $15,650 in annual earnings for a single adult working full time, year-round, below the poverty threshold established by the Department of Health & Human Services.
Crain's Chicago
May 19, 2025
Adam Hersh, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said, “The chaotic tariff policy is still doing damage. It’s still raising prices. It’s still undermining American manufacturing and hurting working families, and it’s still leading us on a path to recession.”
Hearst TV
May 19, 2025
Currently, the Trump administration is negotiating a trade deal with China, agreeing to a 90-day truce. During that, many companies are likely stockpiling on goods, leading to increased trade and purchasing but offering minimal relief for inflation.
“It takes so long for orders to be placed, to be put on a ship, to make it across the ocean and then to make it to their destinations. In the United States, it takes a long time to plan for those things,” Adam Hersh from the Economic Policy Institute said. “Ninety days of uncertainty about what will happen next is not a lot of confidence for importers.”
Hearst TV
May 19, 2025