Economic Policy Institute

A more diverse workforce isn’t ‘DEI-motivated discrimination’—it’s just demographic change: How Trump is weaponizing the EEOC against the workers it was built to protect Key takeaways: Trump has weaponized the EEOC to go after employers with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, accusing them of “reverse racism” against white workers—but nothing in the EEOC...

A workplace that reflects the workforce is not “reverse racism.”

The Trump EEOC’s frivolous justification for a serious federal investigation is another signal of the rise of white supremacy within our government & diverts attention + resources from the systemic discrimination that still occurs.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MARCH 05: Dr. Chandra Childers accepts the WMC Progressive Women's Voices IMPACT Award at the 2026 Women's Media Awards at Tribeca Rooftop on March 05, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Craig Barritt/Getty Images for The Women's Media Center)

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MARCH 05: Soraya Chemaly and award winner Dr. Chandra Childers attend The WMC 2026 Women's Media Awards at Tribeca Rooftop on March 05, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for The Women's Media Center)

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MARCH 05: (L-R) Maribel Pérez Wadsworth, Barbara Kopple, Jane Fonda, Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Margot Wallström, and Chandra Childers attend the the 2026 Women's Media Awards at Tribeca Rooftop on March 05, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Craig Barritt/Getty Images for The Women's Media Center)

Dr. Chandra Childers, Senior Policy and Economic Analyst for EARN at @epi.org, was presented by Soraya Chemaly (@sorayachemaly.bsky.social) with our WMC Progressive Women’s Voices IMPACT Award for her work to advance pro-worker economic, racial, and gender justice policies across the South & nation.

I am always glad to see Black women being centered in our own stories about the workforce and the workplace.

One thing I want to note is that across multiple sectors, the net employment loss Black women have experienced is closer to 216,000 from 2024-2025 according to @epi.org.

Merriam-Webster, dictionary extraordinaire, Recent examples of burdensome used in a sentence: Economic Policy Institute economic analyst Nina Mast, whose research focuses on child labor standards, disagreed that the reporting system was overly burdensome to employers. Find out why Indiana's reporting system was NOT burdensome to employers, and how it functioned as one of the last remaining protections to monitor how teen workers were being employed and what work they were being made to do in Nina's latest at https://www.epi.org/blog/indiana-lawmakers-are-once-again-trying-to-weaken-child-labor-laws-bill-sponsored-by-business-owner-would-enable-employers-to-hide-child-labor-violations/ Nina has also written on how "no tax on tips" and "no tax on overtime" are misleading and NOT the boon for workers the policies have been promoted to be.

Avid dictionary user and Policy and Economic Analyst @ninamast.bsky.social fights for U.S. worker rights, esp for the least protected like children. You've probably seen her on TV, read her work, heard her on podcasts.

And she has 👏 ARRIVED 👏 with a mention in @merriam-webster.com.

And now for a bit of good news:

🎉 Congratulations to EPI Senior Policy & Economic Analyst (and absolute legend) Chandra Childers who was honored with a Progressive Women's Voices IMPACT Award last week at the Women's Media Center's 21st Anniversary Awards.

#WomensHistoryMonth

Join us this spring for “The State Budget: What You Need to Know.”

NHFPI is hosting 10 events across all 10 New Hampshire counties about how the State budget works and what it means for Granite Staters.

📍 Find an event near you:
nhfpi.org/tour

#nhpolitics #nhbudget

Subscribe to Saturday Stats! Our biweekly newsletter for these stats plus more! Keep up with Ohio policy and research.

linktr.ee/PolicyMatter...

La proporción de hispanos con empleo (63.8%) también cayó en febrero. Tanto la tasa de empleo de las latinas (60%) como la de los latinos (75.4%) registraron un descenso el mes pasado. Ambas cifras se sitúan por debajo de las registradas en noviembre de 2025. #LatinSky #Economia #Latinos

La tasa de desempleo (TD) hispana subió al 5.2% en febrero dado un aumento mayor de lo habitual en la TD de los latinos (4.5%), lo que borró las ganancias de enero. La TD de las latinas (5.0%) también mantuvo la tendencia al alza que comenzó en diciembre de 2025. #LatinSky #Economia #Latinos

Hispanic EPOP ratio since December 2019. Tasa de empleo hispana desde diciembre de 2019.

The share of Hispanics w/ a job (63.8%) also fell slightly last month after what seemed like a strong start to 2026 in January. Both Latinas (60.0%) and Latinos (75.4%) saw their employment rates contract in February. Both figures now stand below those recorded in November 2025. #JobsDay #EconSky

Hispanic unemployment rate since December 2019. Tasa de desempleo hispana desde diciembre de 2019.

The Hispanic unemployment rate (UR) climbed to 5.2% last month. This was driven by a sharper than usual rise in the UR of Latinos, to 4.5%, which reversed the January gains. The UR of Latinas (5.0%) also kept the upward trend that started late last year in December. #JobsDay #EconSky

Wage Calculator Feel like your pay has not kept up? You're right. EPI's Wage Calculator shows what you could be making if pay kept pace with productivity.

Ever feel like your pay isn't keeping up? You're right.

Find out why with the newly updated Wage Calculator 👇

Divya Nair, EPI Policy Analyst, testifying in support of HB-7968 to strengthen the state’s paid family leave program by increasing leave to 12 weeks, expanding caregiving leave to include grandchildren and care recipients, and allowing self-employed workers to opt in.

State Paid Leave Programs Cover Nearly One-Third of Workers in the United States | National Partnership for Women & Families Nearly one-third of all private-sector workers (32 percent) are eligible for paid leave under one of the 14 state programs that have been enacted. 46.2 million workers across the country are eligible…

Nearly one-third of U.S. workers are now covered by state-level #paidleave programs - but not in Indiana. YET!

Check out the research from @npwf and then join our growing coalition to demand #paidleave4Hoosiers: groups.google.com/g/inpaidleave

nationalpartnership.org/report/state...

The Virginia legislature is actively working on this legislation but current versions—HB1263 & SB378—exclude home care workers + higher-ed workers.

👉 Strong unions make stronger communities 👈

ALL public employees at all levels of state + local government deserve full collective bargaining rights.

A SNAPSHOT OF TRUMP'S ECONOMY—judged by his own goals: manufacturing jobs are down 100,000 since Trump took office, private-sector job growth is the weakest we’ve seen outside a recession in more than 20 years, and the unemployment rate for U.S.-born workers has increased.

Today's jobs report was much weaker than expected. Payroll jobs fell 92k in Feb, and revisions to Dec data show a loss of 17k jobs. Average job growth over the last 3 months now under 6k.

Household survey population controls indicate a significant drop in the labor force.

#NumbersDay #EconSky

$122,377 needed to support 2 adults and 2 children in Fulton County, GA Housing $22,888 Food $14,787 Child Care $15,878 Transportation $16,186 Transportation expenses are a combination of the costs of auto ownership, auto use, and transit use. Transportation cost data were provided by the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT). CNT created a modified version of transportation costs from its Housing and Transportation Affordability Index to account for differences in family types in the Family Budget Calculator. Health Care $19,462 Other Necessities $11,697 Taxes $21,478

How much does a modest but adequate lifestyle cost in your area? New Family Budget Calculator estimates from @epi.org

The Trump administration’s short-sighted attacks on the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Introduction The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) is a small, independent agency whose mission is to support businesses and workers in resolving workplace disputes and building positi...

@lynnrhinehart.bsky.social The Trump administration’s short-sighted attacks on the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service www.epi.org/publication/...

Wage Calculator Feel like your pay has not kept up? You're right. EPI's Wage Calculator shows what you could be making if pay kept pace with productivity.

Affordability is top-of-mind today not just because prices have risen. *PAY* hasn't risen in line with a growing economy.

Bad policy choices elevated corporate interests at the expense of typical workers...for the last 50 years. 🤬

See how has affected your pay with the new Wage Calculator 👇

Family Budget Calculator Understand affordability with EPI’s Family Budget Calculator. It shows the income a family needs to afford basic expenses in every U.S. country and metropolitan area. Budgets estimate community-specif...

*Over 5 million people* have used EPI's Family Budget Calculator to understand how much they need to afford where they live.

It estimates costs—housing, food, transportation, child care, health care, taxes, and more—for 10 family types in every U.S. county and metropolitan area.

You can’t starve the public sector to excellence Most people understand a basic truth: you get what you pay for. Skip maintenance on your roof, and you shouldn’t be surprised when leaks appear. The same is true of government. If we want a high-funct...

Every day, public service workers show up for our communities. When we invest in public service jobs, we invest in better outcomes for all of us. More from @epi.org: www.epi.org/blog/you-can...

[finger to earpiece] I'm getting word that "everyone" here means employers who want to misclassify their workers as independent contractors so they no longer have to pay overtime or the minimum wage, recognize unions, provide health insurance...

You can’t starve the public sector to excellence Most people understand a basic truth: you get what you pay for. Skip maintenance on your roof, and you shouldn’t be surprised when leaks appear. The same is true of government. If we want a high-funct...

The central constraint on public-sector performance is not the power of unions—it is chronic underinvestment.

@hshierholz.bsky.social + @joshbivens-econ.bsky.social: If we want a high-functioning public sector, we need to pay for it.

There is no shortcut.

NLRB rules anti-union captive audience meetings an illegal abuse of employer power: States must also continue to broaden protection of workers’ freedom from employer coercion on political, religious m... U.S. employers have tremendous power over worker conduct. For decades, federal law has allowed employers to require workers to attend “captive audience” meetings—and force employees to listen to polit...

More states should join those already protecting workers' freedom of conscience in the workplace by prohibiting employers from threatening, disciplining, firing, or retaliating against workers who choose not to attend mandatory meetings focused on political or religious matters unrelated to work.

“Every worker deserves the freedom to make their own decisions about politics and religion without fear of losing their job,” said Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.

“This law protects workers from retaliation … it also gives workers the power to stand up for themselves.”

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U.S. Supreme Court upholds Minnesota's worker protection law decision The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge against Minnesota's ban on captive audience meetings.

🏛️ This week the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to Minnesota's ban on captive audience meetings which force employees to listen to political, religious, or anti-union employer views—on work time. 1/

Trump’s State of the Union Ignored the Root Cause of Affordability Problems Rising inequality hurts families, but taxing the ultra-rich can help. On Tuesday night, Trump steered clear of advocating this effective solution to our economic emergency.

Trump talked about affordability in his State of the Union—but skipped the root cause: inequality.

@joshbivens-econ.bsky.social argues the real fix is taxing the ultra-rich and corporations to fund public goods, raise wages, and ease the squeeze on working families.