“By increasing penalties, New York is taking a critical step toward ensuring that employers who violate the law are held accountable and that illegally employing minors isn’t just the cost of doing business,” said Nina Mast, a policy and economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute.
City Limits
June 9, 2025
Starbucks has a long history of resisting union efforts. The Economic Policy Institute reports the company has previously attempted to shut down stores with unionization efforts and retaliated against unionized workers to deter organization.
The Daily Cardinal
June 9, 2025
If the current bill becomes law, annual cuts to Medicaid would average over $70 billion over the coming years — the same amount millionaires and billionaires would gain in tax cuts each year, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Even with those cuts to critical health care programs, the budget package is projected to increase the national debt by $3.1 trillion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. In an open letter to the Senate on Monday, EPI and six Nobel laureate economists said the nation’s structural deficits are already too high, and the bill would put upward pressure on inflation and interest rates while reducing incomes for the bottom 40 percent of earners. Taken together, the economists wrote, “the House budget constitutes an extremely large upward redistribution of income” while adding to the national debt.
Truthout
June 9, 2025
Opponents of I-82, including the Employment Policies Institute — not to be confused with the older and pro I-82 Economic Policy Institute — have claimed BLS data for restaurants and bars show that I-82 led to an $11.8 million decrease in pay for restaurant workers from May 2023 to September 2024.
Restaurant Dive
June 9, 2025
Sixteen million workers were represented by unions in 2024. However, there were millions more who would have joined a union but couldn’t. As the Economic Policy Institute observes: “The disconnect between the growing interest in unionization and declining unionization rates can be explained by the fact that there are powerful forces blocking the will of workers: aggressive opposition from employers combined with labor law that is so weak that it doesn’t truly protect workers’ right to organize.”
San Diego Union Tribune
June 9, 2025
With religious exempt status, companies are not required to offer employee benefits like unemployment insurance. Employment law advocates worry that expanding the religious tax exemption could be detrimental to the unemployment system.
The Economic Policy Institute said a large base of employers is necessary to spread out the costs and benefits of the system. By collecting funds from many employers during periods of stable employment, the system ensures it can pay out benefits during periods of high unemployment.
Courthouse News Service
June 9, 2025
The impacts of congressional Republicans’ proposed Medicaid cuts would be most destructive for those directly impacted—the millions of people who would be forced to pay more for coverage, subjected to onerous red tape, or kicked off benefits entirely.
But economist Josh Bivens observes in a new analysis that the damage caused by the GOP’s assault on Medicaid would be far-reaching, hitting local economies throughout the United States and forcing rural hospitals to close.
“Even during times when the national unemployment rate is low, tens of millions live in weaker local economies with higher county unemployment rates and far less ability to weather sharp spending shocks like a Medicaid cutback would provide,” wrote Bivens, the chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), in a Tuesday post. “In fact, a disproportionate share of the House bill’s Medicaid cuts would almost surely fall exactly on these weaker local economies.”
Common Dreams
June 9, 2025
However, before Musk took to X to begin his tirade against the bill, six Nobel laureates in economics published a joint letter through the Economic Policy Institute, which contained a grave warning about the legislative package under consideration. The work of the six economists addresses, to some extent, market failures, institutional inefficiencies, and the role of policy in addressing inequality.
El Diario
June 9, 2025
- Economic Policy Institute: “Work requirements effectively function like a cut to programs.” EPI explained that “while work requirements do not reliably increase employment, they do significantly increase the administrative burden and costs of applying for safety net programs. This increased administrative burden, in turn, reduces access and take-up.” EPI further explained, “In many cases, the sheer amount of additional administrative burdens levied on adults seeking benefits, and on case workers screening to ensure that work requirements are met, is a major driver in the decline in participation.” [Economic Policy Institute, 1/24/25]
Media Matters
June 9, 2025
The effects will be far-reaching. Eligible “tipped” workers will likely be defined as those in the restaurant and service industries. According to the Economic Policy Institute, they are overwhelmingly minority, women, single parents and younger than 35. Most would welcome the financial help, but is this the right kind of help?
The legislation in Congress overlooks an opportunity to do something more for this group: save for retirement.
Washington Times
June 9, 2025