According to a 2025 Economic Policy Institute article, public support for unions is at 70 percent, a 60-year high, and millions of Americans want to join one. Yet membership remains historically low, with just six percent of private sector workers unionized. The USW’s scale and international reach position it to lead a unionization comeback, but coordinated resistance from companies and the government continues to pose serious obstacles.
Counterpunch
May 12, 2025
Donald Trump campaigned as a champion of working class voters. But straight out of the blocks, his policy choices have undermined workers at nearly every turn.
A recent fact sheet from the Institute for Policy Studies, Economic Policy Institute, and Repairers of the Breach rounds up the damage so far.
Trump started by illegally removing National Labor Relations Board Chair Gwynne Wilcox for allegedly favoring workers’ interests over employers. The NLRB cracks down on union busting and other abuses, but now it can’t function. A federal court ruled to reinstate Wilcox, but the Republican-dominated Supreme Court blocked this action while litigation is pending.
In These Times
May 12, 2025
Heidi Shierholz
Economic Policy Institute
President
A go-to analyst on the labor market, Shierholz testified before the Senate on what she sees as the damaging effect of non-compete agreements.
Adam Hersh
Economic Policy Institute
Senior Economist
Specializing in areas such as labor markets, trade, and industrial policy, Hersh produces data-driven analysis that informs policies aimed at reducing inequality.
Washingtonian Magazine
May 12, 2025
A ProPublica report stated that the 25 wealthiest Americans only paid an average of 15.8% in personal federal income taxes between 2014 and 2018, a lower rate a worker making $45,000 a year might pay in taxes including Medicare and Social Security. Meanwhile, the Economic Policy Institute reported a growing gap between increasing worker productivity and stagnant wages.
The Mercury News
May 12, 2025
Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, points out that Trump has laid off large numbers of officials at agencies overseeing worker safety, halted government rules ensuring good working conditions, and fired pro-worker, pro-union appointees at the National Labor Relations Board, among many other things.
“What makes manufacturing jobs good is unions and regulations that protect worker safety,” Bivens told me. “Without those things, any jobs created by somehow bringing toy manufacturing back are not going to be good or safe jobs.”
The New Republic
May 12, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, finds that: “No matter how these tax cuts are financed, the result will hurt most working families, especially low-income households. The most damaging way to finance TCJA [Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act] extensions would be with spending cuts for programs like SNAP or Medicaid.”
AlterNet
May 12, 2025
Federal workers make up the highest proportion of the workforce in DC compared to any US state, with federal jobs constituting more than 13% of total employment, according to a March report from the Economic Policy Institute. Maryland and Virginia, states that surround DC, have the second- and third-highest shares, at 7.3% and 5.6%, respectively.
CNN
May 12, 2025
HMG+ President Karen DiPeri said the firm also plans to host industry events in the space, including panels. Sharing ideas and resources among the industry is what will help hospitality get back to 100% staffed, she said. About 3.5 million workers left the hospitality industry by the end of 2020, according to the Economic Policy Institute, many of them service workers.
Chicago Sun Times
May 12, 2025
Manufacturing jobs also have a hidden power: Each one sustains more than six other jobs, according to an Economic Policy Institute study, a much higher multiplier than many of Florida’s other major industries. In other words, a new manufacturing job has a more positive ripple effect than a new tourism job.
Tampa Bay Times
May 12, 2025
Governor Lee and the TNGOP are getting closer to achieving what they want: the end of public education in Tennessee. The TNGOP’s goal is to bankrupt public education and substitute a public education with vouchers for religion-based schools and for-profit scam “schools.” According to the Economic Policy Institute, voucher expansion bills have failed in at least five states so far, as of 2023: Georgia, Texas, Idaho, Virginia and South Dakota.
TheChattanoogan.com
May 12, 2025