Media clips
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According to the Economic Policy Institute, the District’s unemployment rate rose to 6.4% in the first quarter of 2026. This was higher than any state’s rate or the District’s rate itself, and the only rate above 6%. Nationally, unemployment was 4.3%.
The Washington Informer August 17, 2026 -
Many of the people we see in eviction court losing their homes are working long hours at difficult jobs. But they work in retail, the home healthcare sector, in food service work, etc.–where their employers do not pay them wages high enough to keep their families housed.
So that is why, for this week’s episode of We Can Do Better, we welcome David Cooper of the Economic Policy Institute. EPI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank working for the last 30 years to counter rising inequality, low wages and weak benefits for working people.
The national minimum wage is stagnant at a shameful sub-living wage of $7.25 per hour. But, as David tells us, dozens of states and localities are not waiting for Congress any longer. They are raising the wage themselves, including many this year alone. Among the 30 states with higher wages are several “red” states, reflecting the strong bipartisan public support for living wages for all workers.
Poverty Solutions Podcast August 17, 2026 -
What would happen if the United States tripled the share of workers who belong to unions?
In this episode of Policy for the People, we talk with Jennifer Sherer of the Economic Policy Institute about the case for dramatically expanding union membership—and what stronger unions could mean for workers and the economy.
According to EPI’s analysis, tripling union density could, among other things
–Raise the average worker’s pay by about 14.5%, or roughly $7,700 a year
–Shift an estimated $1.2 trillion annually toward workers
–Reverse about one-third of the increase in inequality since 1979Policy for the People Podcast August 17, 2026 -
Last year, the financial well-being of most adults held steady, but declined for Black adults, who were more likely to experience layoffs, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The biggest decline among Black people was for those who are college-educated.
Boston Globe August 17, 2026 -
According to data from the Economic Policy Institute, the annual cost for infant care in Indiana is $14,471. This is more than $4,000 more than Michigan and more than $5,000 more than Kentucky. In the same index, Michigan ranks 24th and Kentucky 14th, indicating substantially less restrictive regulatory environments than Indiana’s.
Indiana Capital Chronicle August 17, 2026 -
Ben Zipperer, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said Wednesday’s report was “unambiguously bad news for workers.”
“They’re now taking a pay cut. A frozen job market has weakened their bargaining power and slowed nominal wage growth, and the higher inflation from Trump’s Iran war has caused real wages to decline,” Zipperer said in a text to NOTUS.NOTUS August 17, 2026 -
Tennessee taxpayers are paying about $1,961 each to fund the Trump administration’s mass deportation policies, according to an analysis of the federal budget released by the Economic Policy Institute.
The think tank developed an online tool that calculates the average taxpayer’s share of the estimated $268.9 billion cost of deportations through the end of President Donald Trump’s term.
The calculator draws on IRS income data, estimates by the Institute for Policy Studies of projected federal expenditure on deportation and other data to estimate the price tag for federal taxpayers in every U.S. city, county, and state, and includes written analyses of its findings. Tennessee’s taxpayers, in total, will foot nearly than $4.5 billion of the total deportation costs, it shows.
The left-leaning think tank also calculated potential tradeoffs in the federal government’s immigration enforcement spending priorities, estimating what the same level of funding could instead be used for: covering the salaries of 21,401 firefighters, or funding Medicaid healthcare for 246,018 patients or the hiring 18,750 teachers.
Tennessee Lookout August 17, 2026 -
“EPI has long pointed out that worker pay is also a policy choice. Raising the overtime rate of pay would boost workers’ income, provide a stronger deterrent against overworking employees, and help to reverse the decades-long erosion of overtime protections. A double overtime rate would be a simple, fair way to put more money in workers’ pockets,” said Samantha Sanders, director of government affairs and advocacy at the Economic Policy Institute, one of the groups supporting the legislation. “This bill would address a key concern with affordability: making sure that workers actually earn enough in wages to cover the costs of living with dignity and security.”
McKnight’s Senior Living August 17, 2026 -
If policymakers are serious about addressing affordability, they would champion one institution that has consistently proven capable of raising pay: unions.
Through collective bargaining, unions are the most effective mechanism for workers to raise their wages and secure their fair share of the wealth they produce. Our new report at the Economic Policy Institute quantifies how transformative it would be to rebuild union power. Specifically, we examine what we stand to gain if we tripled current union membership to 30% — similar to its peak in the U.S. before decades of relentless attacks on unions and collective bargaining eroded it, and just shy of the current rate in Canada.
We find that tripling union membership would raise pay for the typical worker by more than $7,700 every year, or nearly $270,000 over a 35-year career. This would be life-changing for a working family — nearly covering the cost of raising a child from birth through age 17, for example. And those increases aren’t just for unionized workers — strong unions also benefit nonunion workers by establishing broad standards that employers must follow to get and keep the workers they need.
In These Times August 17, 2026 -
Indiana unions have membership numbers at just under 300,000, roughly 8% of workers in the state and a new report from the Economic Policy Institute found federal policies and lobbying efforts discourage joining unions, despite growing interest.
Indiana favors the manufacturing and automotive industries, which have some of the largest labor organizations in the nation but union membership is still below the national average.
Heidi Shierholz, president of the institute and the report’s co-author, said tripling the number of union members would bring widespread benefits, including boosting public schools, expanding access to healthcare and increasing wages to help families pay for the rising cost of just about everything.
Public News Service August 17, 2026