Media clips

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• What Would a Pro-Worker Agenda for the South Look Like?

  Jasmine Payne-Patterson, Senior State Policy Strategist with the Economic Policy Institute, joins us to talk about how the pro-worker fight is going in the States, but especially the South.

  The Valley Labor Report February 10, 2025
• 7 Ways to Get Financial Help From the Government

  Child care is one of the biggest budget breakers for many families. Annual costs for infant care range from just shy of $5,000 in Mississippi to more than $22,600 in Washington, D.C., according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on low- and middle-income workers.

  NerdWallet February 10, 2025
• Major Unions Sue DOGE to Block Musk Labor Department “Power Grab”

  The lawsuit was filed by Democracy Forward on behalf of AFL-CIO and affiliated unions, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and Communications Workers of America (CWA). The Economic Policy Institute also joined the suit.

  Truthout February 10, 2025
• The Timeline: Black Homeownership

  The problem didn’t come out of nowhere, according to Richard Rothstein, a distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute and author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.

  Many people have heard of redlining—the practice where banks literally drew red lines on maps around Black neighborhoods to deny mortgages—but that’s only part of the story. Redlining was officially outlawed in 1968, and is only a slice of the numerous ways that public policy locked Black people out of homeownership and conspired to depress equity once the doors were finally opened.

  BET February 10, 2025
• Worried about Elon Musk and DOGE getting your Social Security number? Here’s how to protect yourself.

  Unions and the Economic Policy Institute filed suit in federal district court in Washington, D.C., to keep Musk and DOGE out of U.S. Labor Department files, following a suit by the Alliance for Retired Americans and others to keep them out of the personal files held by the U.S. Treasury.

  MarketWatch February 10, 2025
• Trump detests the U.S. trade deficit. Here’s what it means.

  There may have been a point in the 1980s and 1990s when America’s widening trade deficit began to cause problems again. In testimony before the U.S. Senate in 1998, Robert Scott, an economist with the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said trade imbalances had likely contributed to 2 million manufacturing job losses between 1979 and 1994, with hundreds of thousands resulting from the 1992 North American Free Trade Agreement alone

  NBC News February 10, 2025
• Bill to offer unemployment pay to striking workers sets up clash in Salem

  In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a 2023 bill that would have paid striking workers, saying the move would cost too much at a time the state was already struggling to pay out other unemployment claims. Past proposals in more than half a dozen other states have failed to make it to the governor’s desk, according to a tally by the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute.

  Oregon Public Radio February 10, 2025
• Unions sue DOGE, Labor Department to block access to worker and Musk competitor data

  The unions, joined by the Economic Policy Institute, warn in the lawsuit that Musk and DOGE have violated several laws, such as constitutional limits on executive power, employment laws protecting civil servant and protections for government data regarding hundreds of millions of Americans. 

  Courthouse News Service February 10, 2025
• Trump’s Budget Director Pick, on Path to Confirmation, Could Hurt Millions of Working-Class Americans Including MAGA Voters

  Work requirements for safety net programs like SNAP and Medicaid are a “punitive solution,” found the Economic Policy Institute in a study which determined that “[m]ore stringent work requirements in the past have failed to boost work in significant ways because they don’t attack the core problems of weak economic conditions or the irregular and unpredictable scheduling practices of low-wage jobs. Instead, requirements increase administrative burdens for adults seeking needed benefits.” 

  Capital & Main February 10, 2025
• Labor Department workers fear they’re next on DOGE’s to-do list

  The American Federation of Government Employees joined the lawsuit with the AFL-CIO, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Service Employees International Union, Communication Workers of America and the progressive Economic Policy Institute. 

  Politico February 10, 2025