Rooted in Racism
Immigration
EPI Explainers
Reconciliation 2025
How anti-worker policies, crony capitalism, and privatization keep the South locked out of shared prosperity

Southern lawmakers have neglected basic worker protections and disinvested in social safety net programs while offering hefty subsidies to corporations, privatizing public goods, and giving the wealthy big tax breaks. In fact, in 11 Southern states, the poorest 20% of residents pay more in sales taxes alone than the top 1% of residents pay in all state and local taxes combined. 

When policies in the South fail to raise adequate revenue to pay for public goods and services, these same harmful policies are leveraged as “the cure,” creating a vicious cycle that keeps millions of Southerners locked into poverty and out of the benefits from economic growth. Read more

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House Republican budget bill gives Trump $185 billion to carry out his mass deportation agenda—while doing nothing for workers

House Republicans recently passed Trump’s budget reconciliation legislation that massively redistributes income from some of the poorest households to the richest. It is now under consideration in the Senate and Trump is pressuring senators to pass it without major changes.

Aside from cutting taxes by trillions for the wealthy, kicking 15 million people off health care, and cutting food aid for the poor, the bill provides an unfathomable amount of additional money to fund Trump’s draconian mass deportation agenda. Read more

 

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Recession FAQ

Interest in recessions has been elevated lately. Americans often tell pollsters that they think the economy is in recession to express frustration with the state of economic rewards in this country. By economists’ definition, recessions rarely occur. When they do, recessions hurt workers and their families most.

EPI’s Recession FAQ will help you understand what is a recession, what causes a recession, who recessions hurt most and why, among other questions. Get recession informed

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The upside-down priorities of the House budget

Six Nobel laureate economists sign on to EPI’s open letter condemning the Republican regime’s destructive debt reconciliation bill. 

The United States has…pressing economic challenges to address…The House bill addresses none of the nation’s key economic challenges usefully and exacerbates many of them. The Senate should refuse to pass this bill and start over from scratch.

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