“It’s one thing to get educators into the profession, but to be able to keep them, we need to be paying them what other professions outside of education are making,” said Dale Templeton, director of collective bargaining for the National Education Association, the country’s largest union at about 3 million members. (Disclosure: NEA is a financial supporter of Capital & Main.)
That isn’t happening. According to the most recent data from the Economic Policy Institute, the gap between average public school teacher pay and that of comparable college graduates working in other professions hit a record 27% in 2024. In 1996, the furthest year back before an interruption in data gathering, that gap sat at only 6%.
Capital & Main
June 25, 2026
Just days after Trump took office again, the White House enacted perhaps its most consequential policy regarding deregulation. Trump’s Executive Order 14192, titled “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation,” established a 10-to-1 rule for federal agencies; it ordered that anytime an agency enacted a “new regulation, it shall identify at least 10 existing regulations to be repealed,” according to the order. The goal of the rule is to “alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens placed on the American people.”
The EO, beyond establishing deregulatory guidelines, “also requires more upfront disclosure of forthcoming rules,” said Forbes. The order led to a slew of actions being taken by federal agencies and also stated that all new regulations should have no cost. This is “effectively impossible to accomplish when issuing any regulation at all, as nearly every regulatory change represents some level of cost to come into compliance,” said the Economic Policy Institute.
The Week
June 25, 2026
According to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, the bill would affect more than 13 million workers nationwide.
Casar emphasized the push as a matter of basic fairness for workers who are logging extra hours but still struggling to get ahead. “After nearly 90 years, our labor laws need to be updated,” he said. “If you work overtime, this bill would put money in your pocket by requiring your employer to pay you double for extra hours.”
Texas Politics
June 25, 2026
The pay boost was projected to directly benefit 216,000 Oklahoma workers and indirectly benefit about 142,000 others, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Tulsa World
June 25, 2026
Like Oklahoma, the federal minimum wage hasn’t seen an increase since 2009, but 28 states and D.C. have increased theirs since 2014, according to the Economic Policy Institute.Most of those states are left-leaning, making them more likely to back minimum wage increases, but several red states, similar to Oklahoma, have passed higher minimum wages by ballot initiative.
The Oklahoman
June 25, 2026
Investopedia
June 25, 2026
Economic Policy Institute research suggests that raising the federal minimum wage to two-thirds of the national median wage—about $17.70 today and projected to reach $25 by 2038—could boost pay for nearly 40 million Americans, or a quarter of the workforce. Advocates say such a move would close wage gaps, particularly benefiting Black workers and women, and help alleviate poverty without significant job losses. This approach mirrors wage benchmarks in other high-income countries and aims to keep pace with median wage growth, preventing erosion from inflation. CT Insider
CT Insider
June 25, 2026
In Pennsylvania, African American unemployment ranges from about 6.7% to 8.9% on average, often roughly double the rate for white workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The highest rate nationally is in Washington, D.C., where 11.8% of African American residents are unemployed.
Philadelphia Tribune
June 25, 2026
The latest push from House Democrats urging the Department of Labor to withdraw its proposed rule revising the joint employer definition follows a familiar script.
Lawmakers, including Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), argue the proposal would narrow accountability in ways that could harm workers and small businesses, citing estimates that weaker standards could cost workers more than $1 billion annually, based on Economic Policy Institute analysis referenced in their letter to Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling.
McKnight’s Senior Living
June 25, 2026