To put all of this in perspective: An estimated 26 million workers are paid less than $17 per hour, roughly 18% of the US workforce, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Yahoo Finance
December 15, 2025
High cost of living. The overall cost of living in Delaware County is higher than any other county in the state. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the cost of living for a two-parent, two-child family is $115,383 per year, or $9,615 per month.
Investopedia
December 15, 2025
“So if you look at the Black unemployment rate that’s been rising pretty steadily over the last few months, young workers, their unemployment rate has been rising over the last year, almost two years,” said Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute.
She said that can indicate things to come for the broader labor market. For the October report on job openings due out tomorrow, Gould will look closely at the rate of new hires, which has been falling.
“The hires rate is about where we were in the aftermath of the Great Recession. So think 2013, 2014. Not a very strong economy,” she said.
Marketplace
December 15, 2025
“It’s not just about how much things cost. Affordability is truly about, ‘Does an individual have enough money to buy the things they want?’ So it’s not about making things cheaper, but making it so you earn more so that the stuff you need is affordable,” Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, told CBS News.
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Shierholz, who served as chief economist at the Department of Labor under Barack Obama from 2014 to 2017, thinks a better way to make life more affordable is to raise worker wages so their dollars stretch further. She also favors providing government subsidies to help ease the burden of affording essential — and increasingly costly — services such as child care and health care.
CBS Moneywatch
December 15, 2025
It’s a long term necessity, but tragically, short term policy-makers put off a solution essential to a strong economy and restoration of our republican form of government. As of today, both the economy and democracy are in a downward spiral. A wealth tax is necessary to reverse this economic and political nosedive. Our guest today Josh Bivens, chief economist with the Economic Policy Institute, argues that while we’re far from being there politically, taxing the top .1% is a fair and just solution we can not put off forever. The problem is that many fear taxing the ultra-wealthy will mean they’ll get hit too. It’s still a political problem but we are getting closer with more democratic left leaning candidates winning.
Keeping Democracy Alive (Pacifica Radio)
December 15, 2025
According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), as countries grow wealthier and populations grow older, there is a greater demand for a larger public sector. However, the share of national income collected in taxes by the U.S. government has stagnated – leaving both revenue and public spending in the U.S. at levels far below other advanced nations. Starting in the 1970s, Republicans at the federal level have pursued an anti-tax and anti-government movement that has lowered tax rates on the wealthiest Americans and large corporations, while low- and middle-income households have experienced declining living standards and a diminished public sector.
CT Insider
December 15, 2025
Yes, we know it’s an outright lie that there has been “no inflation” over the last year, and that actual economists, including those at the Economic Policy Institute, said in January that Trump inherited a strong economy from Biden, not the “MESS” of a hand he claims he got dealt.
NewsOne
December 15, 2025
Data from the Economic Policy Institute show that from 1979 to 2023, the share of all wages held by the bottom 90% by income fell by 9.1 percentage points.
MarketWatch
December 15, 2025
Sources:
Economic Policy Institute. (2024). How vouchers harm public schools: Calculating the cost of voucher programs to public school districts. https://www.epi.org/publication/vouchers-harm-public-schools/
Tennessee Stands
December 15, 2025