According to an analysis by the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a worker earning the $7.25 federal minimum wage in 2022 made 27.4 percent less in inflation‑adjusted terms than a counterpart in July 2009. Compared with 1968—the historical peak of the minimum wage’s value—the 2022 federal rate had lost 40.2 percent of its purchasing power.
Newsweek
July 13, 2026
American unions have been making this case since the 1980s, and the economists at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) went up against virtually the entire economics profession when they made this case in the early 1990s.
And their case wasn’t protectionist as such. Decades ago, a number of EPI staffers and associates laid out discrete wage standards (as a percentage of nations’ various outputs and living costs) that nations would have to meet to be America’s trading partners.
American Prospect
July 13, 2026
The nonprofit Economic Policy Institute, in a public comment sent last week to the Labor Department, estimates that the proposed rule would affect about 15 million workers in “fissured establishments,” of which about 10 million would be the employees of franchisees, and that the rule would cost these workers almost $1 billion annually.
New Republic
July 13, 2026
The last time the federal minimum wage increased was to $7.25 in 2009, during former President Barack Obama’s first term. It also said that if minimum wage had been in “pace with inflation and worker productivity since 1968,” minimum wage would have been about $25 an hour in 2023. The release also cited a tracker by the Economic Policy Institute, which said 26 million U.S. workers are paid less than $17 an hour.
CT Insider
July 13, 2026
Colorado is also one of 38 states where the cost of childcare exceeds the cost of in-state tuition for a four-year public college, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
KKTV (Colorado)
July 13, 2026
According to the Economic Policy Institute, cited in Murphy’s press release, 45% of American workers currently earn less than $25 an hour.
MassLive.com
July 13, 2026
Opponents say the voucher program could have a strong impact on rural students. Data show voucher spending made up more than a quarter of K-12 funding in some states in 2025. The Economic Policy Institute notes that in rural areas with no private schools, voucher programs pull funds from public schools.
Public News Service
July 13, 2026
“CEOs of major U.S. companies were paid 21 times as much as the typical worker in 1965, using the realized measure of CEO compensation, which captures what CEOs took home in pay after any stock-based compensation were sold,” according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
The numbers have climbed significantly in recent years.
“This ratio grew to 31-to-1 in 1978 and 60-to-1 by 1989. It surged in the 1990s, hitting 380-to-1 in 2000, at the end of the 1990s recovery and at the height of the stock market bubble,” the EPI showed.
The Street
July 13, 2026
The Economic Policy Institute found school bus driver employment in 2025 was still about 9 ½% lower than in 2019. Just a few years ago in the School District of Waukesha, some routes went unfilled because of a lack of drivers.
FOX 6 Milwaukee
July 13, 2026
Dresser acknowledged that may seem “very aggressive” given the regional landscape, but noted it’s based in part on an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
“They’re starting to look to two-thirds of the median wage as a good way to think about what’s possible for a minimum wage,” she said, adding “there has been so much work raising the minimum wage all across this nation since 2012.”
Wis Business
July 13, 2026