Media clips

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• Holscher speaks at local town hall

  According to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, universal voucher programs for schools are rapidly expanding across the country. Under these programs, states give parents stipends to either homeschool their children or send them to private schools.

  Instead of boosting student achievement in equitable and cost-effective ways, voucher programs generally end up putting bigger, new demands on state and local budgets and increasing the cost of educating students who remain in public school, according to an EPI report.

  Parsons Sun (Kansas) April 14, 2025
• Red states rely on undocumented work

  The meatpacking industry in Southern states particularly the red states of Georgia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi represents another sector where undocumented workers play a crucial role. These five states constitute the top poultry processing states in the nation by number of workers [6].

  [6] https://www.epi.org/blog/meat-and-poultry-worker-demographics/

  Las Vegas Sun April 14, 2025
• Summer means new clothes, bikes, strollers and more. How will tariffs impact parents?

  Adam Hersh, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, even described the impending tariffs as “traumatizing” for parents. The institute is another left-leaning nonprofit think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people in the U.S.

  “It’s going to be hard,” Hersh said, especially since most Americans are “barely hanging on as it is.”

  USA Today April 14, 2025
• Sanders introduces bill to raise minimum wage to $17 by 2030, benefits nearly 22 million Americans

  According to analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), passing the Raise the Wage Act of 2025 would provide raises to over 22 million workers across the country by 2030.

  Vermont Business Magazine April 14, 2025
• Arizona’s “privatization scam” is starving public schools. Trump wants to take it national

  In addition to the $900 million that the state paid out to support the voucher program in 2024, far surpassing the $64 million estimate from the state’s budget committee, Economic Policy Institute economist Hilary Wething told Salon there was another indirect cost plaguing public school students.

  “It’s the cost to public schools from students who were previously attending public school and then take up the voucher and leave and go to private school,” Wething said. “The cost of providing that same level of education to the remaining students in public school is this second indirect cost of vouchers.”

  Certain school expenses – physical real estate, equipment, desks, even some staff – are difficult or impossible to scale back on a year-to-year basis, so planning ahead requires accurate headcounts of students for years into the future. However, voucher programs have made estimating enrollment more difficult.

  Salon April 14, 2025
• Minnesota House bill seeks to assist families with child care costs

  The average percentage of family income spent on child care in Minnesota is 18.8%, according to the Economic Policy Institute . EPI data as of February 2025 identified Minnesota child care — reportedly averaging $22,569 per year — as the third most expensive in the United States. Massachusetts child care averages $26,709 per year, and Washington D.C., child care is estimated at $28,356 annually, according to EPI.

  Cloquet Pine Journal (Minnesota) April 14, 2025
• Democrats unveil legislation raising federal minimum wage to $17 an hour

  The bill would raise the minimum wage to $17 by 2030 according to the Economic Policy Institute. The current federally mandated hourly wage is $7.25 and has not increased since 2009.

  The Hill April 14, 2025
• Trump overstates the number of U.S. factories lost since NAFTA while defending tariff hikes

  “Since the very beginning of NAFTA, our country lost 90,000 factories,” Mr. Trump said during his Rose Garden speech on April 2, as he announced a host of tariff hikes. The president repeated the claim in his Monday remarks. 

  While the U.S. has seen a decline in the number of factories, the claim of 90,000 factories lost appears to be based on outdated data and includes small facilities with only a few employees.

  The 90,000 figure matches a 2020 analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, which found that there was a net loss of about 91,000 manufacturing establishments between 1997 and 2018.

  However, the analysis relied on Census Bureau data that was significantly revised in 2021, the group told CBS News. The updated figures show a net loss of about 70,500 manufacturing establishments from 1997 to 2022, the most recent year for which data is available. 

  CBS News April 14, 2025
• Democrats push bill to raise federal minimum wage to $17 an hour

  Nearly 40 million workers in the United States earn the equivalent of less than $17 per hour, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The EPI estimates that more than 22 million workers in the U.S. will see their yearly wages increase by an average of $3,200 if the legislation passes.

  The Center Square April 14, 2025
• Republicans who say they didn’t vote for this economic crisis are wrong

  On the campaign trail last year Trump promoted massive universal tariffs and went as far as to float the idea of replacing income taxes with tariff revenue. At the time, Adam Hersh, a senior economist with Economic Policy Institute Action, told me Trump’s idea was like “dropping a nuclear bomb on a hurricane.” Hersh calculated at the time that across-the-board tariffs would have to be somewhere around 120% or 130% on incoming goods to make up for the roughly $4.2 trillion in revenue generated through income taxes. With the U.S. set to impose a 104% tariff rate on Chinese goods beginning Wednesday, it’s a bit silly to say none of this was foreseeable.

  MSNBC.com April 14, 2025