The low-hire, low-fire labor market, which has been difficult for job seekers, looks likely to persist.
“It is concerning to me that we’re starting the year weaker than we were the prior year,” Economic Policy Institute senior economist Elise Gould said. “Do I think a recession is necessarily coming? I don’t know, but I think that I have concerns — and it’s important to remember that even a mild recession can hit historically disadvantaged groups a lot.”
Yahoo Finance
December 15, 2025
“It’s much harder to break into the labor market right now,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at Economic Policy Institute. “Employers just aren’t hiring at the rate that they did last year or the previous years.”
The Washington Post
December 15, 2025
As the Economic Policy Institute documented, voters supported progressive and economic populist ballot measures nationwide:
Common Dreams
December 15, 2025
Source:
[24] McNicholas, C., Poydock, M., & Sanders, S. (July 10, 2025). “Trump’s Department of Labor is dismantling key workplace protections.” Economic Policy Institute.
Counterpunch
December 15, 2025
Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said there are three major takeaways from this week’s JOLTS: the rate of hiring continues to be low; the rate of those quitting is the nation’s lowest since 2014, and layoffs are up slightly. The nation’s unemployment rate “can quickly spike” if layoffs continue rolling in and employers slow down their hiring, Gould said in a social media post.
“Not only will the unemployment rate spike if layoffs continue to rise as hiring remains depressed, but it may explain why the young adult unemployment has been rising as it becomes increasingly difficult to break into the labor market as employers and workers sit tight under economic uncertainty,” Gould said.
Homes.com
December 15, 2025
Nationally, school bus driver staffing levels are nearly 10% lower than they were in 2019, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. Many of those drivers were retirees, and many quit when the coronavirus pandemic-era shutdowns began. Replacing them has proven difficult.
Albany Times Union
December 15, 2025
According to the Economic Policy Institute, tipped workers face higher rates of poverty than other workers. Tips aren’t optional extras. They’re how servers survive.
VegOut Magazine
December 15, 2025
In October 2024 the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, called immigration a source of strength for the U.S. economy. EPI said immigration has great potential to boost the economy even more. “It is crystal clear that immigration expands U.S. gross domestic product and is good for growth. And immigration overall has led to better, not worse, wages and work opportunities for U.S.-born workers.” said the EPI researchers.
Hartford Courant
December 15, 2025
Data from the Economic Policy Institute show that from 1979 to 2023, the share of all wages held by the bottom 90% by income fell by 9.1 percentage points.
MarketWatch
December 15, 2025
This infographic ranks U.S. states by the share of low-wage workers earning less than $20 per hour, using data from the Economic Policy Institute as of July 2025.
Visual Capitalist
December 15, 2025