Media clips

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• COMMENTARY: School spending can never be high enough to satisfy Big Labor

  It was expressed succinctly in February in a paper by Heidi Shierholz and left-leaning academic Josh Bivens for the Economic Policy Institute. 

  According to Shierholz and Bivens, state and local governments, whose collective spending soared by 62 percent from 2015 to 2025 (26 percentage points above CPI inflation for the decade!), to reach nearly $4.4 trillion annually, are being “starved”!

  Las Vegas Review-Journal March 27, 2026
• DOL Proposes Major H-1B Wage Overhaul: What the New Prevailing Wage Rule Means for Employers

  DOL cited evidence that some employers use the H-1B system to replace, not supplement, U.S. workers. A 2023 Economic Policy Institute study found that the top 30 H-1B employers laid off at least 85,000 workers in 2022 and early 2023 while simultaneously hiring 34,000 H-1B workers. DOL also points to outsourcing firms that place H-1B workers at client sites where the actual workforce earns significantly more, and where the outsourcing firm’s own “actual wage” benchmark never has to reflect that higher market rate.

  Boundless March 27, 2026
• $30 an hour by 2030: new pushes to increase minimum wage in New York and California

  The Economic Policy Institute projects 1.68 million New York City residents, 36.7% of the city’s wage-earning workforce, will earn less than $30 an hour by 2030.

  The Guardian March 27, 2026
• Why Iowa women’s wages have gotten worse in 2026

  Today—Thursday, March 26—is Equal Pay Day, a day highlighting how much less the average American woman makes compared to the average American man.

  In 2025, women made 18.6% less than men, meaning they’d have to work all of 2025, plus January, February, and nearly all of March, to make up the difference.

  There are several reasons for that, not least of which is a society that upholds men being in charge and devalues so-called “women’s work” like teaching, health care, and tipped work.

  But it’s also because of policy choices our elected officials make at the state and federal levels—especially in recent years, which have contributed to widening that gap this year.

  “We’ve really stalled out on our progress in our country around closing that gap,” said Jennifer Sherer, the Iowa-based deputy director of state policy and research at the Economic Policy Institute. “And, in 2025, we even went backwards a little bit.”

  Iowa Starting Line March 27, 2026
• Economists Say Politicians Aren’t Helping Affordability

  However, these solutions can also lead to other issues that have the opposite effect in the long run. For example, when you look at things like grocery prices, Josh Bivens, chief economist of the liberal Economic Policy Institute, says, “If you try to push down grocery prices, you could actually start reducing supply. People might start going out of business, or grocery stores close.”

  De Franco News Clips (YouTube) March 27, 2026
• Survey: Twin Cities child care providers say they’ve struggled this winter

  Even before Operation Metro Surge, child care was a major challenge for parents in Minnesota, which is home to the third most expensive care in the nation, according to a study from the Economic Policy Institute.

  Minnesota Reformer March 27, 2026
• COMMENTARY: School spending can never be high enough to satisfy Big Labor

  It was expressed succinctly in February in a paper by Heidi Shierholz and left-leaning academic Josh Bivens for the Economic Policy Institute. 

  According to Shierholz and Bivens, state and local governments, whose collective spending soared by 62 percent from 2015 to 2025 (26 percentage points above CPI inflation for the decade!), to reach nearly $4.4 trillion annually, are being “starved”!

  Las Vegas Review-Journal March 27, 2026
• DOL Proposes Major H-1B Wage Overhaul: What the New Prevailing Wage Rule Means for Employers

  DOL cited evidence that some employers use the H-1B system to replace, not supplement, U.S. workers. A 2023 Economic Policy Institute study found that the top 30 H-1B employers laid off at least 85,000 workers in 2022 and early 2023 while simultaneously hiring 34,000 H-1B workers. DOL also points to outsourcing firms that place H-1B workers at client sites where the actual workforce earns significantly more, and where the outsourcing firm’s own “actual wage” benchmark never has to reflect that higher market rate.

  Boundless March 27, 2026
• $30 an hour by 2030: new pushes to increase minimum wage in New York and California

  The Economic Policy Institute projects 1.68 million New York City residents, 36.7% of the city’s wage-earning workforce, will earn less than $30 an hour by 2030.

  The Guardian March 27, 2026
• Why Iowa women’s wages have gotten worse in 2026

  Today—Thursday, March 26—is Equal Pay Day, a day highlighting how much less the average American woman makes compared to the average American man.

  In 2025, women made 18.6% less than men, meaning they’d have to work all of 2025, plus January, February, and nearly all of March, to make up the difference.

  There are several reasons for that, not least of which is a society that upholds men being in charge and devalues so-called “women’s work” like teaching, health care, and tipped work.

  But it’s also because of policy choices our elected officials make at the state and federal levels—especially in recent years, which have contributed to widening that gap this year.

  “We’ve really stalled out on our progress in our country around closing that gap,” said Jennifer Sherer, the Iowa-based deputy director of state policy and research at the Economic Policy Institute. “And, in 2025, we even went backwards a little bit.”

  Iowa Starting Line March 27, 2026