EPI in the news

• Here’s what the American dream costs in every state

  Data sources: Economic Policy Institute, Family Budget Calculator, 2026 edition (county data); Child Care Aware affordability data; Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers.

  Investopedia | October 22, 2026
• Is Paris Burning?

  In The New York Times, the estimable Steven Erlanger has a smart explainer piece on this dynamic. Complementing his own excellent analysis, Erlanger quotes the Nobel laureate MIT economist Daron Acemoglu pointing out that the traditional moderate left got sidetracked with elite cultural issues and ignored its working-class base. “The centerpiece has to be creating jobs and wage growth and career paths for people without college degrees and diverse skills,” Acemoglu told Erlanger in an interview. 

  I can’t resist adding that when writers in The American Prospect, or our friends at the Economic Policy Institute, keep pointing this out (over decades), it’s not a story. When a prominent mainstream economist finally figures it out, it’s worth a Nobel.

  The American Prospect | October 22, 2026
• Construction must preserve trades knowledge to know when AI is wrong

  There is a warning here. The Economic Policy Institute has documented a widening national gap between productivity and compensation for a typical worker over recent decades. If construction allows technology to boost output without workers sharing in those gains, we risk reproducing the same disconnect other industries are still struggling to address.

  Construction Dive | October 22, 2026
• Profits Are Soaring. Workers’ Share of Income Is Sinking.

  In an email, EPI Chief Economist Josh Bivens told Jacobin that the fall in the labor share and the growing inequality within it both stem from excess employer power in the labor market and decades of wage suppression. “Basically, I think a set of policies aimed at wage suppression have successfully slowed wage growth for the vast majority of workers,” Bivens said, “and this left a large and growing ‘excess’ wedge of income that went to much more privileged actors in the economy.”

  …

  Whether it flowed to executives or shareholders, this redistribution of income has been a driving force behind the rapid growth of both income and wealth inequality over the last half century. As Bivens and EPI President Heidi Shierholz point out in a recent essay, estimates suggest that “anywhere from 40 percent to nearly 100 percent” of the nominal gains in the stock market since 1989 can be attributed to capital’s growing share of the national income.

  Jacobin | October 22, 2026
• Childcare costs are growing faster than rent in the U.S.

  Along with facing rising childcare costs, workers have also seen slowing wage growth, heightening the financial pressure on many families, Economic Policy Institute economist Elise Gould told CBS News.

  CBS Moneywatch | October 22, 2026
• How much does it cost each American to fund mass deportations?

  A new report from the Economic Policy Institute reveals that mass deportation operations represent an expenditure of over $268 billion in the United States. Attorney Jaime Vázquez analyzes how recent regulations impose an average cost of $2,000 in taxes on each taxpayer. Learn which states contribute the most funds to these immigration policies and the debate surrounding the reallocation of resources earmarked for infrastructure, health, and education.

  N+ Univision | October 22, 2026
• Trump tries shifting child care funds to stay-at-home parents

  The Economic Policy Institute said the Trump plan would “strip resources from low-income working families,” and that paying benefits to stay-at-home parents when CCDF is already underfunded “hits low-income families, families with infants and toddlers, and families headed by single parents the hardest.”

  Baptist News Global | October 22, 2026

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