The law says H1-B workers are supposed to be paid the prevailing wage for their job, based on the Department of Labor statistics. In reality, the Economic Policy Institute found that 60 percent of H-1B positions were assigned wage levels well below the local median wage for the occupation.
The American Conservative
March 17, 2025
The town with the most unequal income in the US has long been a billionaire hideout. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the top 1% of residents in the metro area earn 132 times the income of the bottom 99% of residents. The average income of the top 1% sits above a cool $16 million.
Business Insider
March 17, 2025
The federal workforce in the Oklahoma City region represents nearly 4% of all jobs there, one of the highest levels for any big city beyond metro Washington, according to a review of federal data by the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute.
Wall Street Journal
March 17, 2025
In an effort to disseminate facts about labor market trends more broadly, the Economic Policy Institute has constructed the State of Working America Data Library, which allows users to easily browse and collate detailed data on wages, incomes, and employment. We hope this tool fosters a broadly shared understanding of the labor market changes we need to achieve a fairer society.
The Briefing Book (Substack)
March 17, 2025
It’s tricky math. To make up the difference, and “to beat Social Security’s quote-unquote return, you’d have to be investing in the stock market,” said Robert Brokamp, a senior adviser at The Motley Fool.
And the stock market is notoriously mercurial, as events of recent days have reminded us.
“So, it’s pure gambling — and really dumb for most people — to assume they’ll beat this high, guaranteed return by investing in the stock market,” said Monique Morrissey, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “I would not encourage anyone to do this, except Elon Musk.”
USA Today
March 17, 2025
HR 1968 gives the “Trump administration significantly more leeway to spend federal dollars without Congressional approval,” according to the Economic Policy Institute, as well as preventing any member of Congress from attempting to terminate Trump’s recent declaration of national emergencies over immigration and the U.S. border.
UPI
March 17, 2025
Child care costs more than public college tuition in 38 states, including California, Florida and Texas, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research nonprofit.
“Child care is one of the largest expenses in a family’s budget partly due to early care and education requiring long operating hours for better access and a low student-to-teacher ratio for better quality,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
Gould said that government-funded programs are necessary because “care costs cannot be made less expensive without sacrificing quality.”
Consumer Affairs
March 17, 2025
Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, tells BI that different parts of the economy, like the job market, won’t recover from a recession at the same rate.
“You can have job losses that persist quite a bit after an official recession ends — and you can certainly have unemployment rise well after the end of a recession,” he says.
Business Insider
March 17, 2025
“The administration seems determined to squander and wreck the strong economy,” Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote earlier this week. “Each of the individual policies they are pursuing—illegal layoffs of federal workers, mass deportations, constant threats and retractions of broad-based tariffs, and Medicaid spending cuts—would be bad for the economy. But each policy is also being pursued with maximum levels of chaos and incoordination, creating unprecedented levels of economic uncertainty. This uncertainty is itself a serious economic threat.”
Common Dreams
March 17, 2025
Margaret Poydock, a senior policy analyst with the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute, said this doesn’t bode well for organized labor.
“There will still be organizing, but unions and workers may be hesitant to bring cases to the NLRB,” said Poydock. “President Trump has made it clear that he expects members to rule in favor of employers.”
…
Despite the stance of the Trump administration, unions remain extremely popular among the general public. A Gallup poll in 2024 found that 70% of Americans view unions favorably.
That’s up from a low of 48% in 2009. Poydock said support for unions from the general public – even those who don’t belong to a union – is key to keeping momentum strong.
“Public solidarity helps support unions, when they’re trying to win a union contract or when their employer violates labor law,” said Poydock. “So public support is key in the mix of union organizing right now.”
Public News Service
March 17, 2025