Or consider OSHA — the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. According to the Economic Policy Institute, since its inception OSHA has saved an estimated 712,000 lives and workplace fatalities have gone down by almost two-thirds — even as the size of the American workforce has doubled. But the Republicans aim to put a stop to this.
Daily Hampshire Gazette
June 9, 2025
DOGE’s unprecedented access to Americans’ data “is alarming, made worse by the complete absence of meaningful oversight,” according to Ben Zipperer, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute. “That unrestrained access to data will likely worsen the problem of identity theft in the United States, which could cost working families tens of billions of dollars annually.”
The Independent
June 9, 2025
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, workers lose over $15 billion each year due to minimum wage violations alone — a burden that disproportionately affects immigrant and undocumented workers.
MoneyWise
June 9, 2025
According to the Economic Policy Institute, in 2023, more than one in five Black households experienced food insecurity, more than Hispanics and whites, and lack of food hit the lowest for African Americans in 2019.
South Florida Times
June 9, 2025
Research from the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C., shows that voucher programs in Ohio result in majority Black school systems such as the Cleveland Metropolitan School District losing millions in education funding.
This impact of voucher programs disproportionately affects schools in predominantly Black communities across the U.S. with lower tax bases to fund public schools.
The Conversation
June 9, 2025
Tipping is a complex issue. Nina Mast, an economic analyst with the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, sees tips as a modern tool of racist oppression in the South. “Tipped workers are more likely to be people of color, women, women of color or single parents, and are disproportionately born outside of the U.S.,” she wrote in a paper published last year.
Tipped workers experience high rates of poverty and are vulnerable to wage theft and sexual harassment, she added. “The South has the largest tipped workforce of any region. Tipped workers in the South are paid the second-lowest median wage of any region, and most Southern states allow employers to pay tipped workers as little as $2.13 an hour,” she wrote.
MarketWatch
June 9, 2025
Over the years, raids at farms, meatpacking plants and construction sites have grabbed headlines, but employers have seldom faced severe consequences. Many subcontract to avoid liability, and managers have long asserted that it is difficult to identify fake documents.
“They have plausible deniability for just about any hires,” said Daniel Costa, an immigration labor expert at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. “The system was kind of rigged against workers and in favor of employers from the beginning.”
New York Times
June 9, 2025
A recent report from the Economic Policy Institute points out that between 5.2 million to 7.8 million workers already suffer work-related injuries and illnesses each year, a number that is likely to rise under the Trump administration.
…
“The bad news is we are facing a national workers’ rights crisis, fueled by Trump administration attacks on long-standing worker health and safety protections and OSHA enforcement capacity, all while climate change is intensifying risks of deadly exposures to extreme heat in indoor and outdoor workplaces across the country,” the report’s coauthor, Jennifer Sherer, told Truthout.
“The good news is that states don’t need to wait to act, and can craft strong, effective heat standard policies that draw on decades of research and evidence-based best practices for preventing workplace deaths and boosting productivity,” she added.
Truthout
June 9, 2025
Six Nobel prize-winning economists said as much Monday in an open letter published on the Economic Policy Institute website.
“The most acute and immediate damage stemming from this bill would be felt by the millions of American families losing key safety net protections like Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits,” they wrote. “The Medicaid cuts constitute a sad step backward in the nation’s commitment to providing access to health care for all.”
Word in Black
June 9, 2025
Things have changed. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the pay penalty for teaching is now more than 26 percent. Male teachers are sacrificing more than a third of their earning potential by choosing teaching.
The News-Press
June 9, 2025