Some background: An Atlantic writer named Dani Alexis Ryskamp went through old episodes to work out how much Homer made at the nuclear power plant. In today’s dollars, it comes out to about $55,000. When the show started, CEOs earned about 60 times what their average worker earned. Now they make 325 times as much. Call this the Mr. Burns-Homer Simpson ratio.
Justin Wolfers Substack
October 7, 2026
The average cost of childcare is $15,394 a year in New York, the sixth-most expensive state in the nation, according to a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute.
The Center Square
October 7, 2026
Experts are calling the September jobs report weak—and that could be due to economic uncertainty, according to Elise Gould, Economic Policy Institute senior economist.
“Payroll employment growth has averaged 50,000 over the last three months, but it continues to be relatively volatile,” Gould said in statements on Bluesky. “Economic uncertainty may be at play in the latest spell of weakness and downward revisions.”
Forbes
October 7, 2026
A 2023 Brookings Institution review found voucher programs generated outcomes ranging from significant gains to no measurable effect, while researchers at the Economic Policy Institute concluded vouchers generally underperform traditional public schools.
MassLive.com
October 7, 2026
Buffett told shareholders the market does not reward teachers and nurses the way it rewards entertainers, athletes, or investors who can spot a valuable business, MoneyWise noted. At the time, the pay gap between teachers and similarly educated workers in other fields was 6.1%.
It is now 25.2%, according to the Economic Policy Institute, after hitting a record high in 2024. That gap has not closed since he spoke. It has gotten four times wider.
The Street
October 7, 2026
A report last month from the Economic Policy Institute found CEOs made 325 times as much as the average worker last year. From 1978 to 2025, top CEO pay has increased 1,316%, while typical employee salary has gone up just 28%.
Forbes
October 7, 2026
Two decades into the NAFTA experiment, the Economic Policy Institute’s Jeff Faux explained: “By establishing the principle that U.S. corporations could relocate production elsewhere and sell back into the United States, NAFTA undercut the bargaining power of American workers, which had driven the expansion of the middle class since the end of World War II.”
The result, said Faux, was decades of “stagnant wages and the upward redistribution of income, wealth and political power.”
Capital Times
October 7, 2026
Elise Gould, the senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, called out “the notable weakness” in the U.S. economy.
“Payroll employment growth has averaged 50,000 over the last three months, but it continues to be relatively volatile,” she said in her analysis of the new reportOpen in a new tab. “Four months of jobs losses over the last year, while some notable gains recorded as well. Economic uncertainty may be at play in the latest spell of weakness and downward revisions.”
World At Work
October 7, 2026
As the cost of living keeps rising while Americans’ paychecks fail to keep pace, Jon is joined by labor economist Kathryn Anne Edwards to break down where our economy went so wrong for so many. Together, they explore how decades of policy choices and corporate practices have weakened workers’ leverage and channeled gains toward those at the top—and lay out a vision for how to rebalance the economy so that workers share more fairly in the prosperity they help create.
Kathryn and Jon discuss EPI’s pay-productivity chart and how EPI was her first job out of college.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
October 7, 2026