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Coordinated attacks on state labor standards are laying the groundwork for dangerous Project 2025 proposals to undermine all workers’ rights | Economic Policy Institute
Following a growing trend, Republican lawmakers this year proposed legislation in Florida, Kentucky, and Ohio that would undermine federal laws on child labor, minimum wage, and worker health and safety protections. These proliferating state challenges to federal law are laying the groundwork for more extreme and dangerous Project 2025 proposals to allow employers across…
Southern and Midwestern districts are the most vulnerable to Social Security cuts and disruptions | Economic Policy Institute
Recent attacks on the Social Security Administration (SSA) by Elon Musk’s DOGE team and others in the Trump administration threaten the stability of this critical agency. In addition to endangering the financial well-being of millions of retired, disabled, and low-income people in the U.S., delays and disruptions also harm state and local economies dependent on…
Trump attacks on temporary immigration protections like TPS hurt the economy and strip millions of their workplace rights | Economic Policy Institute
The Trump administration has waged numerous attacks on workers’ rights during its first 100 days, as outlined in EPI’s recent report. Some of the most damaging actions include targeting millions of migrant workers who have been granted the ability to reside and work in the United States lawfully, and who are currently employed in key…
Trump-led attacks on equity are setting the stage for our next public health crisis | Economic Policy Institute
What is happening? The Trump administration is advancing an anti-equity agenda that will make people in the U.S. sicker and less economically secure. In his first 100 days, Trump rescinded dozens of Biden-era executive orders designed to advance racial equity and directed federal agencies to end all diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility offices and programs.…
Corruption in plain sight: How Elon Musk has benefited from the first 100 days of the Trump administration | Economic Policy Institute
During the first 100 days of his administration, President Trump has consistently put the interests of billionaires and corporations over working people. This is most evident by the Trump administration already halting or dismissing nearly 90 investigations against lawbreaking corporations, according to a recent report by Public Citizen. One of the biggest beneficiaries of this…
Class of 2025: Young workers were poised to graduate into a promising labor market, but Trump policy actions could unravel progress | Economic Policy Institute
Young workers have experienced a strong labor market coming out of the pandemic recession, with better job opportunities and faster wage growth than they experienced in much of the prior four decades. However, the Trump administration’s recent attacks on the federal workforce, higher education, and registered apprenticeships—as well as imposing extreme tariffs—threaten to reverse these…
The five-alarm fire that public education is facing | Economic Policy Institute
Acknowledgments: This blog post would not have been possible without the intellectual contribution and data analysis conducted by Joanna LeFebvre and Katja Krieger. All children deserve to attend welcoming and well-funded schools where they can learn and grow, regardless of race, disability, or income. But funding for public schools, where nearly 90% of all U.S.…
Jobs report doesn’t reveal clear signs of broad economic weakness—yet | Economic Policy Institute
Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her insights on the jobs report released this morning, which showed 177,000 jobs added in April. Read the full thread here. The hard data on the labor market remains far more resilient than softer measures have suggested in recent weeks. The unemployment rate held steady with a bump…
Some states and localities will be better prepared to fight a possible recession because of how they used ARPA fiscal recovery funds | Economic Policy Institute
With today’s news that GDP declined in the first quarter of 2025, there are increasing signs that the economy is headed in the wrong direction, with the risks of a recession and higher unemployment on the rise. Working families will face increased challenges in a recession. As always, government policies can do a lot to…
Too many workers die on the job every year. Trump’s attacks on OSHA will kill more. | Economic Policy Institute
This Monday marked Workers Memorial Day, an annual international day of remembrance of workers who have died on the job, as well as a day of action to continue the fight for workplace safety. An estimated 140,587 U.S. workers died from hazardous working conditions in 2023, according to a new AFL-CIO report. This amounts to…
Cuts to SNAP benefits will disproportionately harm families of color and children | Economic Policy Institute
Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration passed a budget blueprint to pay for tax cuts that overwhelmingly favor rich households at the expense of working people. Communities of color will be disproportionately impacted by these potential cuts. In addition to targeting Medicaid—we highlighted how Medicaid cuts would be especially harmful for people of color…
What to watch for in this week’s labor market data: Will there be signs of widespread economic distress? | Economic Policy Institute
As the Trump administration pursues a deeply chaotic policy agenda, key labor market data haven’t yet revealed strong signs of economic weakness, but other sources indicate growing recessionary pressures. Consumer expectations are more pessimistic about inflation and unemployment, manufacturing and construction activity are declining, the stock market has fallen and remains volatile, and GDP forecasts…
The federal minimum wage is officially a poverty wage in 2025 | Economic Policy Institute
In 2025, the federal minimum wage is officially a “poverty wage.” The annual earnings of a single adult working full-time, year-round at $7.25 an hour now fall below the poverty threshold of $15,650 (established by the Department of Health and Human Services guidelines). The limitations of how the federal government calculates poverty understate how far…
How should we assess and characterize worker wage growth in recent decades? | Economic Policy Institute
Our recently released State of Working America wages report includes new data on wages through 2024. Cumulative median wage growth was just 29% since 1979—or less than 0.6% per year on average. This was far slower than the economy’s potential to deliver wage growth for all workers. In fact, as Figure A shows, median wage…
The unlawful abduction and imprisonment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia puts all workers in peril | Economic Policy Institute
The Trump administration’s unlawful removal of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador—and willful defiance of court orders to facilitate his return—are demonstrating a flagrant disregard for due process that puts all U.S. residents in danger. The case has become the biggest test of the rule of law so far in the…
How Trump’s erasure of environmental data is endangering communities of color | Economic Policy Institute
President Trump has weakened the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by understaffing, underfunding, and restricting its work—leaving vulnerable communities at higher risk of environmental discrimination and racism. Within weeks of taking office, Trump revoked several key Biden-era executive orders on climate, public health, and environmental justice. While some of Trump’s actions have been reversed, his attacks…
Trump’s gutting of public health institutions is setting the stage for our next crisis | Economic Policy Institute
What is happening? The Trump administration is gutting our national public health infrastructure in real time, setting the stage for the next public health crisis. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), tasked with “protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services, especially for those who are least able to protect…
Trump is putting crucial school funding at risk by dismantling the Department of Education: See how much federal funding your school district could lose | Economic Policy Institute
Last month, President Trump ordered Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to move forward with plans to close the Department of Education (ED). While this move is illegal and has been met with litigation, it shows the Trump administration’s hostility to public education and raises deep concerns about how public school districts across the country will…
At least 26 states have launched their own version of DOGE: These states are simply rebranding longstanding efforts to undermine government in service of the wealthy | Economic Policy Institute
The Trump administration’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has wrought havoc on the federal government, diminishing its ability to perform essential work—like administering Social Security benefits for retirees, weather forecasting to predict tornadoes, and environmental pollution cleanup—while creating new inefficiencies and increased public costs. Now, many Republican governors and state lawmakers are demonstrating their…
A coalition of hundreds of employers is asking the Trump administration to override the NLRB and dictate labor law | Economic Policy Institute
With the Trump administration implementing a blizzard of anti-worker initiatives on a near-daily basis, it’s difficult to imagine that these early assaults could be only the tip of the iceberg. But President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk may well have far worse plans to attack U.S. workers and labor relations. One little-seen proposal from outside…
Trump attacks on federal agencies have steep implications for Black workers | Economic Policy Institute
In just over two months, the Trump administration has laid off tens of thousands of federal workers at several agencies. Probationary employees, foreign aid staff, and workers dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) were the first targets of these cuts that have since spread to include dismantling the U.S. Department of Education—with more to…
Wage growth since 1979 has not been stagnant, but it has definitely been suppressed | Economic Policy Institute
We recently released our annual report assessing wage growth in the U.S. economy. We highlighted that strong and broadly shared wage growth since 2019 contrasted sharply with much slower and unequal rates of growth before that year. This report's release is also a good time to be explicit about a judgement we’ve made in recent…
Missouri Republican state lawmakers are pushing a radical anti-worker tax plan | Economic Policy Institute
The piece has been updated to reflect the latest version of the bill passed by the Missouri Senate, which no longer eliminates the state earned income tax credit, reduces the corporate income tax, or changes the graduated income tax rate structure with a flat tax. The estimates of the bill's overall cost and how much…
What is DOGE doing to Social Security? | Economic Policy Institute
Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) attacks on Social Security aren’t about efficiency. The word “efficiency” may be in the name of his initiative to reduce the size of the federal government, but a more accurate description of what President Trump’s advisor is doing to Social Security is sabotage. DOGE announced plans to cut…
ICE under Trump is attacking labor rights by targeting a farmworker advocate | Economic Policy Institute
The Trump administration has ramped up its immigration enforcement over the last month, and claims to be targeting “the worst of the worst” for detention and deportation. However, several reports detail how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is targeting individuals simply for exercising their right to free speech, even going as far as repealing…
March jobs report shows a resilient labor market, but trouble is looming | Economic Policy Institute
Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her insights on the jobs report released this morning, which showed 228,000 jobs added in March. Read the full thread here. So far the labor market has remained far more resilient than expected given the economic turmoil fostered by recent policy decisions. While there were downward revisions…
Cuts to Medicaid will disproportionately hurt people of color and children | Economic Policy Institute
Cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, sometimes called food stamps) are inevitable if Congress and President Trump continue down the budget path they have laid out. Despite President Trump’s claim that he is opposed to cutting Medicaid, he enthusiastically endorsed the budget resolution passed by the House of Representatives in February.…
Federal worker layoffs spike in latest JOLTS report, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg | Economic Policy Institute
Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her insights on today’s release of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for February. Read the full thread here. The topline numbers in the latest #NumbersDay report on Job Openings and Labor Turnover for February showed little changed in February, but we can see the…
Chester is a prime example of corporations benefiting from public investments in South Carolina at the expense of local communities | Economic Policy Institute
Between 2020 and 2024, South Carolina’s job growth meaningfully outpaced job growth nationally. Our recent report analyzes the state’s economic boom in recent years, fueled in part by federal investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. A key industry in the state is manufacturing, especially tires, auto, and auto parts manufacturing.…
The blatant Trump attack on workers you may not have heard about: Cutting the wages of hundreds of thousands of workers | Economic Policy Institute
In a move that starkly exposes just how disingenuous the Trump administration’s pro-worker rhetoric really is, President Trump rescinded the Biden administration’s executive order that increased the minimum wage for workers on federal contracts. The Biden-era rule implementing that executive order raised the minimum wage for workers on federal contractors to $15 an hour in…
Workers of color made historic gains over the last five years, but Trump’s anti-worker and anti-equity agenda threatens to reverse this progress | Economic Policy Institute
Workers of color make up more than 40% of the U.S. labor force, and that share is growing as more of the white non-Hispanic population reaches retirement age and recent immigration trends help sustain the growth of our labor force and economy. Over the last five years, workers of color—who identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian…
The stock market is not the economy, but this time they really are sinking together | Economic Policy Institute
Many of Donald Trump’s economic plans put forward during the presidential campaign seemed extremely unwise even to the corporate leaders who supported him and care about profits over everything else. Universal and large tariffs and mass deportations, for example, were clearly anti-growth policies that could hurt profit growth. Often, these corporate leaders and other campaign…
Equal Pay Day: Gender pay gap hits historic low in 2024—but remains too large | Economic Policy Institute
Today is Equal Pay Day, a reminder that there is still a significant pay gap between men and women in our country. The date represents how far into 2025 women would have to work on top of the hours they worked in 2024 simply to match what men were paid in 2024. On an hourly…
Deliberate policy decisions have disempowered workers and increased labor market inequality: The new State of Working America Data Library shows the latest trends in productivity, wages, labor markets, unionization, and CEO pay | Economic Policy Institute
Below is an excerpt from a piece originally published in The Briefing Book, a Substack publication. Read the full commentary here. Rising inequality has been a major social and economic problem for the United States for decades. The policy agenda to stop or even reverse this inequality must start with a clear understanding of what…
No tax on overtime is another gimmick that would do more harm than good | Economic Policy Institute
With Congressional Republicans having passed a budget resolution, one of the tax provisions certain to be discussed in federal budget deliberations will be President Trump’s expressed priority to exempt overtime pay from taxation. The idea has gained steam across the country, with lawmakers in 19 states already introducing bills in 2025 to exempt overtime pay…
Trump administration is gutting the National Center for Education Statistics: Here are five things we only know about schools thanks to the NCES | Economic Policy Institute
Reports indicate that the Trump administration has laid off nearly all staff at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) as part of a massive number of staff cuts across the Department of Education. The NCES collects and analyzes crucially important datasets for researchers to use throughout the world. It’s likely that most Americans have…
The right wing has always had an asymmetric power to destroy—DOGE makes it much worse | Economic Policy Institute
In parliamentary systems, winning an election gives one party control of both legislative and executive powers. This means there are big policy swings after elections when parties switch. In the United States presidential system, the separation of powers combined with legislative chokepoints—like the Senate filibuster—means that opportunities for very large policy swings are much less…
The macroeconomics of the Trump administration: Chaotic and harmful policies will make the United States poorer—either rapidly or gradually | Economic Policy Institute
The Trump administration inherited the strongest economy of any president since George W. Bush—and unlike that economy, there was no obvious macroeconomic imbalance set to pull down growth. In short, the stage was set for the incoming administration to ride the desirable trends of rapid growth in jobs and real wages—as well as declining inflation—for…
Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey could signal warning signs ahead: Lower hires rate more concerning with layoffs on the horizon | Economic Policy Institute
Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her insights on today’s release of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for January. Read the full thread here. Another month another important Bureau of Labor Statistics #NumbersDay report on Job Openings and Labor Turnover. Note: these data are for January, so there is nothing here…
A strong Department of Education is critical to public schools | Economic Policy Institute
The Trump administration is reportedly preparing an executive order aiming to “abolish” the Department of Education—a prominent demand of far-right activists in recent years. His pick for Secretary of Education—Linda McMahon—is hostile to public schools and supports the privatization of public education. The U.S. public education system needs all sorts of reforms to boost its…