The Economic Policy Institute adds another layer to this picture, documenting how the Southern economic development model, rooted in policies designed to extract labor with minimal compensation, has produced persistently higher poverty rates across the region. In 2023, the South’s poverty rate stood at 12.4%, compared to 11% in the West and 9.8% in the Northeast and Midwest. The South’s child poverty rate of 18% is the highest of any region, with Black children facing a rate of 30.1%, almost three times that of white children.
“Efforts to continue exploiting Black workers have led to racist anti-worker policies that continue to maintain high rates of poverty, low economic mobility, and high levels of inequality for workers of all racial and ethnic backgrounds in most Southern states,” said EPI report author Chandra Childers.
Decked Out Magazine
March 16, 2026
Among those disproportionately impacted were Black women, who make up 12% of the federal workforce (almost double their 7% share in the overall U.S. workforce) and experienced the largest federal employment losses between 2024 and 2025, says Valerie Wilson, a labor economist and director of the Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy.
The DOGE cuts, which continued for several months, contributed to a disturbing trend: Black women’s unemployment rate skyrocketed to a high of 7.5% in September 2025, compared to 4.4% unemployment among all U.S. workers at that time.
The overall net loss in employed Black women in 2025 was driven entirely by public-sector losses, with most job losses in federal government, according to research from Wilson. Among Black women, the largest losses were for college graduates.
CNBC
March 16, 2026
Costs have continued to climb, making it even harder for families to afford child care. Parents in North Carolina pay an average $11,720 annually for one infant in child care, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a national think tank that has examined the issue.
North Carolina Health News
March 16, 2026
A 2024 review of 88 economic studies by Ben Zipperer of the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, and University of Massachusetts economist Arindrajit Dube posited that “most minimum wage studies find no job losses or only small disemployment effects.”
Gothamist
March 16, 2026
The Economic Policy Institute states that raising the federal salary threshold could encourage employers to hire additional staff or increase hours for part-time staff.
Kiplinger
March 16, 2026
Last week, the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, nonpartisan think-tank, released its latest Family Budget Calculator to demonstrate what households in every county nationally needed to earn last year to cover “basic expenses.”
The threshold for two adults with two children in Connecticut ranged from $131,189 in Windham County to $163,928 in Fairfield County.
…
The calculator is designed “to show what it takes for families to get by at a very adequate-but-modest level of living,” said Zane Mokhiber, EPI’s director of data management and analysis, who added it doesn’t reflect a poverty lifestyle but “not exactly a middle-class lifestyle” either.
The CT Mirror
March 16, 2026
The New Republic
March 11, 2026
…the most affordable county in New York State. According to the Economic Policy Institute’s comparisons of average living costs, however,…[paywall].
Long Island Press
March 11, 2026
A press release from the Washington Senate Democrats cited a study from the Economic Policy Institute that found domestic workers nationally earn 25% less on average than other service workers, and over half report harassment or mistreatment at work.
NBC Right Now (Yakima Washington)
March 11, 2026
And let’s talk about the teachers already in the trenches. They’re leaving in droves, and it’s not because they suddenly discovered a passion for interpretive dance. According to the Economic Policy Institute, teachers earn about 27 percent less than their college-educated peers. That’s right, folks – after years of study, the reward for shaping young minds is a paycheck that feels more like a participation trophy than a salary.
The Chattanoogan
March 11, 2026