It won’t help all children equally, though, says Ismael Cid-Martinez, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute. “It’s a good idea for families that are already positioned to save,” he said. “But I’m deeply concerned about families who can’t afford to save, which represents the bulk of U.S. adults.”
Those families won’t be able to contribute to their children’s investment accounts, he said, and even if their babies are eligible for the Trump account seed funding, that won’t provide enough of a cushion to make a meaningful difference. The result, he fears, will widen economic disparities.
“If the government really wanted to do something to help families in need,” Mr. Cid-Martinez said, “it could bring back some of the programs that were introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, like the expansion of SNAP benefits and the Child Tax Credit, which cut child poverty in the U.S. nearly by half,” Mr. Cid-Martinez said. Child poverty rebounded quickly after the programs expired; SNAP benefits have since been slashed further by the law that established Trump accounts.
The New York Times
July 13, 2026
“It absolutely is OK to use the money for public safety, for public health, and that includes reimbursing the salaries, even if that use was not specifically COVID-related,” said Dave Kamper, a senior strategist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank based in Washington, D.C. “However, it has got to be reported the right way.”
Arkansas Democrat Gazette
July 13, 2026
Nationally, wage theft is a multibillion-dollar problem. Between 2017 and 2020, more than $3 billion in stolen wages was recovered on behalf of workers by the U.S. Department of Labor, state labor departments and attorneys general, and through class and collective action litigation, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Chicago Sun Times
July 13, 2026
It was the neoliberal corporate Democrats who got it wrong. They abandoned working families beginning in the 1970s, paving the road to Trump. Their critics got it right, including my own work and the work of The American Prospect, and another institution that I co-founded, the Economic Policy Institute.
American Prospect
July 13, 2026
A 2019 Maine Center for Economic Policy analysis, citing an Economic Policy Institute report based on NCES survey data, estimated Maine public school teachers spent an average of $356 annually on supplies for students.
Portland Press Herald
July 13, 2026
Following Trump’s federal layoffs last year, in which 277,000 federal employees were permanently laid off, a report from Economic Policy Institute economist Valerie Wilson drew the connection between the layoffs and the decline in Black female unemployment.
The City Reporter (NYC)
July 13, 2026
Nowadays, “childcare is more expensive than rent in 17 states and Washington, D.C.,” according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
MoneyWise
July 13, 2026
To afford childcare for one infant in Texas, a minimum wage worker must work full time for 37 weeks, according to research from the Economic Policy Institute. That annual total comes out to more per year than in-state tuition at a four-year public college in the state.
KERA
July 13, 2026
“There are certain procedures that are simply not going to be possible for certain families if they don’t have access to health insurance,” said Kyle Moore, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. Some low-income families, he said, forgo preventive care to afford basic necessities. Without preventive care, cancers and other life threatening diseases are harder to catch early.
New York Times Headway Newsletter
July 13, 2026
As Valerie Wilson—the director of the program on race, ethnicity, and the economy at the Economic Policy Institute—told Fast Company last December, the labor market is still rebounding from the fallout of the Trump administration’s anti-DEI policies.
Fast Company
July 13, 2026