I also interviewed Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank in Washington. Shierholz said the “absolute scale of crushing unions” under Trump is “on a whole different scale from what we saw under Reagan. Trump is saying it’s absolutely open season on union folks. He took an absolute chainsaw to the federal workforce. He’s giving the green light to the private sector and local government to do the same.”
Steven Greenhouse Substack
April 13, 2026
“You can’t start rounding up and deporting people, and terrorizing, and getting people to self-deport, when they make up about 20% of the workforce without expecting major negative impacts on the economy,” said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
Meat and poultry processing employs about 560,000 workers nationwide, with a combined payroll of $30 billion, underscoring how deeply local economies depend on the industry, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Investigate Midwest
April 13, 2026
This is bad news for anyone who believed the predictions of immigration opponents. They claimed that cracking down on immigration would open up more jobs for native-born Americans, but this hasn’t happened. In fact, the unemployment rate for native-born workers has gone up under Trump, although not drastically:
Paul Krugman Substack
April 13, 2026
Guests:
Heidi Shierholz, president, Economic Policy Institute
Heather Long, chief economist, Navy Federal Credit Union
NPR 1A
April 13, 2026
“The overtime tax deduction will cut federal revenue by tens of billions of dollars, and potentially cost states hundreds of millions, depending on how they define taxable income,” according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) (5).
States can choose whether to follow federal tax cuts, including ‘no tax on overtime.’ For states that choose to adopt the federal policy, “the policy will substantially reduce funding for public services,” says the EPI.
MoneyWise
April 13, 2026
The union cited data from the Economic Policy Institute that identifies a “teacher pay penalty” — the wage gap between teacher salaries and salaries for their equally educated non-teaching peers. Washington’s teachers in 2024 had the 15th-highest pay penalty in the country, earning 28.1% less than those in other similarly-educated professions like nurses and accountants.
Tacoma News Tribune
April 13, 2026
Raising teacher pay is “necessary to improve educational outcomes and foster future economic stability of workers, their families, and communities across the U.S.,” according to a 2022 report by the Economic Policy Institute. Instead, Texas is paying for its failure to make this crucial investment.
Austin American-Statesman
April 13, 2026
Working families in Vermont are already saddled with some of the most expensive infant child care in the nation. A recent report from the Economic Policy Institute estimates that infant child care averages nearly $19,000 per year—well over $1,500 per month. This places Vermont 12th nationally regarding the cost of infant child care.
VT Digger
April 13, 2026
Although 7 in 10 Americans say they approve of labor unions, as long as they’re not taking their business elsewhere, corporations including Starbucks and Amazon continue to obstruct, delay, suppress and harass to avoid workers being represented. The pro-labor Economic Policy Institute noted that large employers already spend more than $400 million on “union avoidance” consultants annually to dissuade representation-curious workers.
San Antonio Current
April 13, 2026
Estimates calculated by the Economic Policy Institute show that farmworkers across the country stand to lose $4.4 to $5.4 billion annually because of the change.
Capitol News Illinois
April 13, 2026