The $7.25 federal minimum wage hasn’t increased since 2009, but the effective minimum wage has increased in 30 states over the last decade, according to the Economic Policy Institute. For this report, Redfin used a national effective minimum wage of $11.59 for 2025.
WMTV
February 28, 2025
“And it had been at or below 4.2% for 39 months. The last time unemployment was that low for that long was in the 1960s,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute.
She said as of this January, the whole economy was strong. And on its own, this week’s bump in unemployment claims isn’t really something to worry about.
“But many data sources are now starting to flash yellow, some are even starting to flash red,” she said. “Stock markets are down, bonds are down, consumer sentiment is down, inflation expectations are way up. All of those are going in the wrong direction.”
Marketplace
February 28, 2025
In fact, “nearly 50% of federal employees have been in federal service for more than a decade, acquiring deep expertise and knowledge,” reports the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Heggeness warns that losing all of these medical professionals, public health officials, regulators, scientists, and so on could be a long-term threat to the U.S.’s global standing.
Fortune
February 27, 2025
When Evans claimed that he voted for this budget because of Colorado’s undocumented immigrants, what he really means is that Colorado spends too much on households making less than $56,000 per year. According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, Colorado households making less than $30,000 stand to lose about $14,000 of that income due to Medicaid cuts.
Colorado Times Recorder
February 27, 2025
In this context, where is the movement for reparations? In a new report, economist Kyle Moore writes “Reparations is our North Star for equity, providing a counterweight against a backslide into white supremacy.”
GUEST: Kyle Moore, Economist with the Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute. He recently authored a report called Why we have to keep talking about reparations in 2025.
Rising Up with Sonali
February 27, 2025
While all of us should care about seeking out government waste and abuse, there are too many ambiguities and contradictions with DOGE and the Trump administration’s role in downsizing the federal government. As Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute writes, DOGE is “clearly a bad-faith effort rooted in ignorance and a knee-jerk desire to shrink the federal government, both for ideological reasons and the creation of space to preserve the tax cuts for the rich and corporations that will be locked-in later this year.”
Iowa State Daily
February 27, 2025
Meanwhile, Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute has warned that DOGE’s approach could cause long-term damage to essential services rather than improving efficiency, calling it “a bad-faith effort rooted in ignorance and a knee-jerk desire to shrink the federal government.”
Benzinga (via Yahoo! Finance)
February 27, 2025
A series of focus groups convened by the Urban Institute found that many people had no idea work reporting requirements were in place. Among those who did, many were not internet savvy and had tremendous difficulty navigating online portals. Many others lacked access to the internet. This is a pattern seen not just with Medicaid work requirements, but with work requirements for other programs like SNAP, the Economic Policy Institute found.
Idaho Statesman
February 27, 2025
In California and Washington, tipped employees get at least $16 an hour in wages. That’s because in those states and several others, there is no special tipped minimum wage — all employees get the regular minimum wage. Advocates like the Economic Policy Institute argue this is a better approach, since paying lower wages to tipped employees only reinforces the issues with tipping.
Denverite
February 27, 2025