A new report suggests the money spent on deportations across the United States could be spent on funding over 925,000 schoolteachers or pay for over 5 million veterans’ medical care.
The findings from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) showed federal tax dollars being spent down to the state and county levels, as the Trump administration has drastically ramped up immigration enforcement over the past 18 months with the goal of mass deportations.
…
“The Trump administration’s immigration policy is not just inhumane, it is also a huge waste of public resources,” Heidi Shierholz, president of EPI, said in a statement accompanying the release of the calculator. “Every dollar spent on mass deportations is a dollar not spent on critical investments like education, health care, and affordable housing.”
Newsweek
August 10, 2026
American taxpayers would pay about $2,358 each for President Trump’s mass deportation push, according to a new calculator tool from the Economic Policy Institute.
By the numbers: EPI estimates the $268.9 billion projected for deportations could alternatively fund more than 118 million additional SNAP recipients over the remaining 2.5 years of the Trump administration, based on National Priorities Project data.
- Alternatively, nearly 12 million additional people could receive Medicaid.
- Or more than 9.7 million households could gain access to low-cost public housing.
What they’re saying: “I don’t think people realize how much money is being spent on these mass deportations,” Gordon Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center and research associate at EPI, tells Axios.
Axios
August 10, 2026
As of November 2025, there were 9.5% fewer school bus drivers in the U.S. than in September 2019, according to Economic Policy Institute.
One of the key issues perpetuating bus driver shortages is low pay, with the median school bus driver earning 43% less than the median weekly wage for all workers and weekly earnings for bus drivers declining 2.8% since 2019, says the Economic Policy Institute.
Shreveport Times
August 10, 2026
We all know D.C. is an expensive place to live. But a new report by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute highlights the disproportionate racial impact of this ongoing economic crisis, finding that three out of five Black residents can’t afford to live here. The analysis reveals that more than 60% of Black households in the city make less than what the Economic Policy Institute considers an “adequate” standard of living for the District. What kind of salary would be adequate? Based on these calculations, a family with one adult and one child would need to earn $125,468 to cover housing, childcare and other essentials.
City Cast DC
August 10, 2026
Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said the number of job openings softened slightly in June but has generally been rising over the year.
Gould said in a social media breakdown of the JOLTS report that the hires rate ticked up slightly in June but “remains on par with much weaker labor market conditions.”
It’s difficult for unemployed workers to break into the labor market, she said.
Sinclair Broadcast Group
August 10, 2026
According to a new report published by the Economic Policy Institute, Black Americans say they are in the worst financial position in a decade. The think tank cites an analysis of a Federal Reserve Board of Governors survey that tracks Americans’ economic sentiment. The latest Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking shows an increase in the number of Black adults who worry about finding or keeping a job, and a decrease in those who say they are doing okay or living comfortably.
“The latest SHED survey also shows that the harm caused by the administration’s economic chaos has not affected all people equally,” says the report authored by Ismael Cid-Martinez, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy (PREE).
Thegrio.com
August 10, 2026
As critics at the time predicted, the U.S. trade deficit exploded, reaching a high of $960 billion in 2022. This deficit contributed to the shuttering of 70,000 American factories from the mid-1990s to 2023 and the loss of at least five million manufacturing jobs between China’s admission to the WTO in 2001 and 2020, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Foreign Affairs
August 10, 2026
According to a study published in November by the Economic Policy Institute, the number of school bus drivers still lags behind pre-pandemic numbers. As of August 2025, there were about 202,000 people employed as school bus drivers nationwide. That figure represents a decrease of 21,200 people, or 9.5% compared to August 2019.
Tulsa World
August 10, 2026
Employers steal about $15 billion from workers every year through minimum wage violations alone, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Toledo Blade
August 10, 2026
According to the Economic Policy Institute, staffing levels are 9.5% to 10% below pre-pandemic baselines.
WDHN-TV (Alabama)
August 10, 2026