Josh Bivens, chief economist, Economic Policy Institute
In 2028, average tariffs could be 5% − about double their level when Trump took office. Or they could be 25%, or even higher than that.
The fact that nobody can say with any certainty where tariff rates will be is absolute poison for every business and family in America trying to make plans for their future.
USA Today
April 21, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute and the Immigration Research Initiative released a report in 2023 showing the economic impact immigrants have on the U.S. economy, as well as a statistical breakdown of the jobs immigrants hold.
Daily Democrat (California)
April 21, 2025
Hersh, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C., spoke at the 2025 Commercial Banking Conference at Marquette University on April 17.
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Hersh was the keynote speaker and focused much of his talk on the Trump administration’s tariffs. Hersh outlined a possible future that included countries not trading with the United States, which would lead to businesses not receiving or shipping the products that are needed to survive, which could cause job loss and a contraction in the economy.
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“What gives me hope is we don’t need to be doing any of these policies,” Hersh said. “They can be undone relatively easy if Congress would just step up and act and do its job and provide a check and balance on the President’s authority.”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
April 21, 2025
- Cost of living: Median monthly housing expenses and median home values were pulled from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey and average monthly costs for food, transportation and taxes from the Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator were analyzed.
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
April 21, 2025
New numbers from a group called the Economic Policy Institute find child care in a majority of states, including Arizona, is more expensive than college.
The data for Arizona shows the average cost for infant care is more than $15,000 per year; the number is closer to $12,000 a year for a 4-year old. Infant care tends to be more expensive because of the lower ratio of professionals to infants. EPI finds the average annual cost for college here is less than $12,000.
April 21, 2025
Teachers are paid less than comparable workers with similar education levels, according to the Economic Policy Institute. More teachers also report frequent job-related stress and symptoms of depression than similar workers. On average, teachers work 10 more hours per week than comparable professionals.
Education Week
April 21, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute has a piece about the letter, written by former NLRB member Lauren McFerran and AFL-CIO general counsel Lynn Rhinehart, explaining how unusual such a move would be. The CDW letter and a summary of it can be found here.
Jacobin
April 21, 2025
Federal education dollars are now at risk thanks to President Donald Trump’s dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education, which could significantly hurt Minnesota public school districts — the majority of which receive at least 10% of their budgets from the feds, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
Tribal nations within Minnesota’s borders would be even more impacted, as a larger share of their budgets comes from the feds. The Red Lake Public School District received nearly 40% of its revenue from federal funding in fiscal year 2022, according to EPI.
Minnesota Reformer
April 21, 2025
“The question becomes, if you want to use them as like a really important revenue source for the federal government, can you raise a lot of money with them without either affecting economic growth or imposing sort of undue burdens through their distributional effects,” said Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
“They do raise revenue. I think they do it badly,” he said. “They do it badly in the sense that they hurt low and moderate income people more, and they have worse growth effects than other ways of getting that money.”
The Hill
April 21, 2025
First-time jobless claims have held pretty stable since the start of March.
“That is perhaps surprising when we think about what’s going on with policymaking. There’s a lot of chaos,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute. And chaos, she said, is not ideal for businesses.
Marketplace
April 21, 2025