Billions of Alabama tax dollars are being spent on mass deportation. It’s enough to fund nearly 10,000 new teacher salaries in the state, or 12,000 firefighters, or 8,000 nurses.
That’s according to a new tool from the Economic Policy Institute. Its Cost of Deportations Calculator shows how much federal tax money from nearly every area in the nation is set to be spent on mass deportation during President Donald Trump’s second term.
AL.com
September 8, 2026
Definitions of what makes a working-class voter differ depending on who you ask. If it’s education — those who have less than a bachelor’s degree — then nearly half of the working class is women; in parts of the country, most of them are also people of color, said Valerie Wilson, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute who has studied working-class people. If working-class voters are those working low-wage jobs, then they are already majority women, who occupy two-thirds of the 40 lowest-paid occupations.
“The sort of traditional view of ‘working class’ was a White man in a hard hat, a construction worker, maybe someone who was in manufacturing,” Wilson said. That’s gone now as those jobs have disappeared and service-sector jobs dominated by women have become the primary field for people without college degrees.
19th News
September 8, 2026
A new Economic Policy Institute report finds workers in the 26 states with right-to-work laws earn nearly 7% less on average than those in states without them, a gap that has more than doubled over the last decade.
“Right-to-work is kind of a misnomer,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute who co-authored the report.
Gould said these laws do not offer workers any job protections.
“Instead, what they do is prohibit any requirement that workers covered by union contract either join the union or contribute toward the cost of union representation,” she said.
Marketplace
September 8, 2026
The signatories range from environmental, labor, and legal groups to those focused on faith, housing, immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive freedom, and more. They include the ACLU, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Drug Policy Alliance, Economic Policy Institute, Giffords, Greenpeace USA, Human Rights Campaign, Indivisible, National Education Association, Oxfam America, Public Citizen, and Union of Concerned Scientists.
Common Dreams
September 8, 2026
The Economic Policy Institute projected in July 2025 that if deportations reach the scale Trump promised, millions of citizen workers will in fact lose their jobs along with deported immigrants, due to the economic interdependence of citizens and noncitizens in the workplace. If 3.3 million immigrant jobs are destroyed, the EPI argues, 2.6 million citizen jobs will be too. Construction and child care labor sectors would especially decline.
Brooklyn Rail
September 8, 2026
2,$358 is what it costs each American taxpayer on average to finance this analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.
Putting that amount into perspective would mean, according to the same institute, funding more than 925,000 teachers or healthcare for more than 5 million veterans or Medicaid for almost 12 million people.
N+ Univision
September 8, 2026
Another major reason is teacher pay. The average teacher salary in the United States was $74,495 in 2024-25. On average, teachers earned 73.1 cents per dollar compared with professionals with similar experience and education in 2024, according to a study from the Economic Policy Institute. Back in 1996, that number was at 93.9 cents.
Gulfshore Business
September 8, 2026
In his first year since returning to power — even before his reckless decision to go to war against Iran had hiked gas prices and economic uncertainty —Trump had “actively made life less affordable for working people,” according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Hill
September 8, 2026
A second DOL proposal would make it easier for employers to classify workers as independent contractors, a change the organization said is risky for home care workers, who already face a heightened chance of being misclassified. The Economic Policy Institute estimates misclassification costs a worker between $7,719 and $10,963 a year in lost wages, benefits and protections
McKnight’s Senior Living
September 8, 2026
Richard Stern and Josh Bivens talked about the how the U.S. economy and its impact on Americans could influence the 2026 midterm elections.
C-SPAN Washington Journal
September 8, 2026