The lack of demographic data will hinder accountability for employers, said labor economist Valerie Rawlston Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy.
“(The proposal) is consistent with the general anti-equity push of this administration to eliminate pretty much all of the infrastructure that have been in place for equal employment in this country,” Wilson said. “We have laws in place that prohibit discrimination, but the effectiveness of those laws is really dependent on our ability to enforce those laws. And the enforcement of those laws is facilitated by having consistent reliable data.”
States Newsroom
July 28, 2026
The issue might not be how much is spent but where it’s spent.
“There are some districts that are spending more than enough, and there are some districts that aren’t spending nearly enough,” Hilary Wething, an economist with the liberal Economic Policy Institute, told Straight Arrow. “High-poverty districts are under-spending relative to the needs of those students.”
Wething said all schools could benefit from an overall increase in spending, but focusing funding on high-poverty districts has shown real benefits.
Straight Arrow News
July 28, 2026
The second change was to slow or stop wage increases for H-2A workers that had soared during the first Trump administration and the Biden administration. After months of industry pressure, the Trump administration last year reduced the hourly pay rate, which it expects will save farmers more than $2 billion a year. Those savings are projected to cost H-2A workers up to 32% of their annual wages, according to the think tank the Economic Policy Institute.
ProPublica
July 28, 2026
Tripling Union membership could help address the nationwide cost of living crisis. This, according to a new report the Economic Policy Institute announced last week Wednesday Labour Radio’s Sean Hacker up has more at a webinar hosted on Wednesday afternoon, Economic Policy Institute Executive Vice President Naomi Walker opposed the question quote what would America look like if we tripled Union membership and at a virtual press conference held earlier that morning, the think Tank announced a new report that offers an answer to that question. In that world? This week’s EPI report finds nearly one in 3 people would be employed in a card carrying Union job the median worker would make over a quarter of a million dollars more during a 35 year career, racial and gender pay gaps would narrow social programs like public education and Medicaid could be expanded, and Democratic institutions would be less likely to be undermined.
WORT Labor Radio (Wisconsin)
July 28, 2026
The Economic Policy Institute reports the average annual cost of infant care in Massachusetts is $26,709.
The Gardner News (Massachusetts)
July 28, 2026
Nationally, 14 million workers make less than $15 per hour and 20 million workers make less than $16, including overtime, tips and commissions, according to the Economic Policy Institute’s Low Wage Workforce Tracker.
PennLive
July 28, 2026
By the mid-1990s, however, two economists at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI president Larry Mishel and Jared Bernstein, who went on to become chair of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers under Joe Biden) documented that around 1980, productivity continued its merry ascent while wages began lagging farther and farther behind.
American Prospect
July 28, 2026
A separate analysis by the Economic Policy Institute also found the hourly gap increasing, from 18% in 2024 to 18.6% in 2025.
Forbes
July 28, 2026
REPORTER: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted on Tuesday to rescind the requirement that private employers collect demographic data. Can you talk about that?
VALERIE WILSON: Yeah, this is really a reversal of 60 years of the EEOC’s history and mission in enforcing anti-discrimination law, specifically anti-discrimination in employment law in this country. The big news is about the EE01 form, which is required by private employers with 100 or more employees and federal contractors with 50 or more employees.
But they actually voted to rescind all of the data collection. So that would also include employment data from state and local government, as well as elementary and secondary public schools and local labor unions. So it’s not just the EE01, they voted to rescind all of the data collection efforts that, again, have been in place for 60 years in order to support their role in enforcing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, national origin, and a number of other protected classes.
WORT-FM (Labor Radio, Madison WI)
July 26, 2026
A new report from the Economic Policy Institute finds that rebuilding union power would significantly reduce racial wage gaps while strengthening our economy and our democracy. Communities with higher union membership invest more in public education, are more likely to expand access to health care and provide stronger unemployment protections when people lose their jobs.
Black Press USA
July 26, 2026