Since 2000, Americans’ median household income “barely rose over the whole time period,” according to a report from the U.S. Treasury. Wages for the lowest 90% of earners have risen by 15% since 2000, according to the Economic Policy Institute, while hourly wages have risen around 22% over that period.
Salon
March 5, 2025
Why was this announcement so calamitous? While tariffs are designed to benefit domestic sectors and U.S. workers, per the Economic Policy Institute, many companies faced with tariffs pass costs on to consumers in the form of price increases. This can end up slowing sales and unsettling the economy.
GO Banking Rates
March 5, 2025
Meanwhile, the average monthly cost of daycare for one child in Fort Bend County is around $805, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Houston Public Media
March 5, 2025
Since then, the labor market has tightened, and wages have increased across all income levels. The biggest gains were among the bottom 10 percent of earners, whose real wages grew by 13% from 2019 to 2023, according to a 2024 Economic Policy Institute report.
Stacker
March 5, 2025
Cites Nina Mast’s rooted in racism spotlight on tipping.
Cites Dave Cooper and Nina’s piece on “no tax on tips”.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
March 3, 2025
The pandemic, along with competition from FedEx and UPS, as well as a decline in the overall letter business, has made the USPS a political football and put it in its current precarious financial predicament. A study by the Economic Policy Institute in 2020 said that “anti-government ideologues and special interests have long sought to privatize, shrink, or hobble” the service.
The report credited the postal service as an integral public service, part of the nation’s critical infrastructure and a good employer – especially for Black workers and military veterans.
“The social value of the postal service extends beyond the economic benefits provided by its delivery operations,” the report said, by connecting family and friends and fostering democracy, and is a key part of emergency and national security infrastructure.
The Guardian
March 3, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute said if executed, the budget would reduce the income for the bottom 40% of American households, according to an analysis by the nonprofit think tank.
“It would be impossible to cut the amount of spending as directed in the resolution without severely slashing Medicaid,” a statement from the group stated.
Arizona Republic
March 3, 2025
Nationally, the Economic Policy Institute found that on average, teachers took a 26.4% pay cut compared to other college-educated workers in 2022.
San Antonio Report
March 3, 2025
Meredith Slopen, postdoctoral research scholar at the City University of New York Graduate Center’s Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality, and Hilary Wething, economist at the Economic Policy Institute, noted that if a worker has access to job-protected paid sick leave, they can take the time they need to seek medical care or stay home without the fear of losing employment or earnings.
“Time off to care for an illness allows workers to recover and come back to work (rather than needing to take a longer leave [down] the road due to putting off care) and reduces the spread of disease in the workplace,” they said in a blog post. “Evidence shows that paid sick leave is associated with reductions in job separation rates among women, suggesting access to paid sick leave might improve workers’ employment prospects.”
HRD America
March 3, 2025
And it appears unlikely the tariffs on aluminum will make that can of Coke more expensive for soda drinkers, CNN reports.
The tariffs will likely have almost no impact on consumer prices, according to Adam S. Hersh, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
“Corporations have more than sufficient profit margins to absorb small price increases to a small input to production,” he said.
Yahoo Finance
March 3, 2025