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
But as government school-voucher programs have expanded in other states, that funding has often come at the expense of public education, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank focused on the effects of policies on low- and middle-income families.
Idaho Statesman
May 19, 2025
Experts also have cautioned against taking the list — and Trump’s statements — at face value.
“There’s no guarantee that any of the investments that are announced actually come to fruition,” Adam Hersh, a senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, told us in a phone interview.
Various companies — or governments, for that matter — can announce that they plan to spend money building in the U.S., but any number of things could happen to halt a planned project before it’s actually built.
As economists, “we wouldn’t count them until they’re actually in the ground,” Hersh said of evaluating the economic impact of the listed projects. “Until they actually happen, it’s just a lot of hot air.”
FactCheck.org
May 19, 2025
As Maryland continues to address racial inequities, Moore’s forthcoming initiative to eliminate the racial wage gap marks a significant policy move. According to the Economic Policy Institute, as of 2024, Black workers in the U.S. earn on average 76 cents for every dollar earned by white workers — a gap that persists across industries and education levels.
New York Carib News
May 19, 2025
“It’s going to hit industries hard,” said Daniel Costa, director of Immigration Law and Policy Research at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Costa said the push to remove immigrants goes beyond targeting those who entered the U.S. illegally.
It’s also affecting people who entered the U.S. legally but their visas have expired or their protected status has been revoked. As the Trump administration boosts spending to tighten the southern border and support more deportations, Costa said the effort is focused on the wrong end. Instead, he said, the administration should be hiring more judges to clear the backlog of asylum claims and end the long delays when immigrants seek to become legal residents or naturalized citizens.
The U.S. doesn’t need to be pushing people out, Costa said. It needs more people coming in. “We’re facing a massive demographic challenge in the U.S.,” he said. As the U.S. population ages, immigrant workers are increasingly important. Since 2019, they have accounted for 88% of the nation’s labor force growth.
Charlotte Observer
May 19, 2025
Many states with conservative leadership, hopping in on the DOGE zeitgeist, have been attempting to copy the Trump administration’s extreme agency-gutting playbook. State-level Department of Government Efficiency–inspired entities have cropped up in twenty-six states, according to an April report from the Economic Policy Institute.
Jacobin
May 19, 2025