“The CES data are jobs data reported by Virginia-based employers … The LAUS data provides information on the employment status of Virginia residents, wherever they work,” said David Cooper, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute. That distinction matters in a place where thousands of residents cross into Washington, D.C. for federal jobs.
Virginia has one of the country’s highest concentrations of federal employees and contractors, with over 144,000 residents either working in or tied to the federal workforce—many commute daily to agencies and contract roles in D.C. or Maryland.
“It’s never a good idea to look at single-month changes in either of these surveys,” said David Cooper, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “The month-to-month patterns can reverse quickly just due to noise in the data.”
The Center Square
April 28, 2025
Progressive and conservative groups also tend to clash when it comes to interpreting workers’ desire to be classified as independent contractors; while Cassidy cited Bureau of Labor Statistics data that 80% of independent contractors prefer their classification, progressive think tank Economic Policy Institute has said many low-paying workers are misclassified and lose out on rights and benefits.
HR Dive
April 28, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute reported earlier this month that children could also be heavily affected if budget cuts were to impact Medicaid expansion or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The proposed decreases to Medicaid funding could increase the number of uninsured children by about 12%, the think tank found.
News Nation Now
April 28, 2025
We are told Tennessee is a low tax state, but in reality it is only a low tax state for big corporations. The Economic Policy Institute reports that more than 60% of companies filing in Tennessee pay zero in the state corporate income tax. That includes 24% of companies that report over $1 billion in revenue to the federal government, according to the Tennessee Department of Revenue as reported by Tennessee Senate Democrats.
Tennessean
April 28, 2025
Adam Hersh, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told me that he doesn’t believe Trump has shown any signs of a rational or strategic approach.
“If it was strategic, you wouldn’t be putting tariffs on Heard and McDonald Islands near Antarctica — full of penguins — or Lesotho, one of the poorest countries in the world,” Hersh said. “You wouldn’t be putting tariffs on countries that we’ve been encouraging as an alternative for manufacturing to divert investments out of China. Or putting tariffs on countries that you wanted alliances with to isolate China, so that you can get economic concessions from them. Instead, we’re driving all those countries into China’s arms.”
MSNBC.com
April 28, 2025
In the US, child care is both unaffordable and inaccessible. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the average cost of care now rivals public in-state college tuition. To add insult to injury, these costs are rising faster than wages.
Time Magazine
April 28, 2025
Meanwhile, families at the bottom of the U.S. income and wealth distribution have struggled due to what the Economic Policy Institute recently described as “policy-induced wage suppression.”
Common Dreams
April 28, 2025
With the bill signed, Texas becomes the latest state where lawmakers have created or have tried to create their own versions of DOGE.
At least 20 other states in recent months have moved forward with efforts to create agencies, committees, task forces and other mechanisms to streamline government regulations or spending, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
NBC News
April 28, 2025
Many states have laws that are stricter than the federal standards. But Arkansas, Iowa and more than a dozen other states have pared back child-labor laws since 2021, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank. Lawmakers, nearly all Republicans, have sponsored bills loosening restrictions for teen workers in at least eight states this year, EPI said.
Wall Street Journal
April 28, 2025
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: No but I’m kind of reflecting back to 2018 when I. Trump’s first round of tariffs happened and he implemented them section, what were they, 232 and 301 tariffs, and we saw the same level of panic. Now, I know the response is going to be things are all different now.
PHILLIP: Well, I think the responses that those were about a tenth of the size of the current tariff.
BORELLI: But we saw the same level of panic. And I went back into my notes, a 2023 report by the Biden administration, the U.S. Trade Task Force said tariffs did actually onshore jobs and reduce imports from China. The Economic Policy Institute said that steel output grow based on the tariff imports, based on the tariffs, and that the other stuff improved as well. So, I mean, I just don’t buy that we can just sit here and panic and go over these things.
CNN
April 28, 2025