The $2.13 subminimum wage has been frozen since 1991. Rooted in racist history and built to exploit tipped workers for 35 years. No other country does this. Abolish it.

"The fact that Venezuela's Central Bank is still being prevented from standing on its own two feet may speak to tensions within the Trump admin around the goals of US intervention in 🇻🇪" - Andres Arauz & Michael Galant in Phenomenal World.

15k job gain in manufacturing is largest one-month gain since a 22K rise in November 2023, but employment is still down 75k YOY

The use of collective punishment against the Cuban people as a means to force political change on the island may constitute a war crime in violation of the Geneva Conventions, co-director Mark Weisbrot argues in @latimes.com.

Tips are gratuity. They were never meant to be a paycheck. Yet millions of tipped workers survive on them because employers pay just $2.13/hr. 35 years too long and it's time the US abolish the subminimum wage. More from CEPR's Senior. Economist Sylvia Allegretto: https://bit.ly/3NGkMqt

Contrary to what right-wing media tell you, the $20 an hour minimum wage in California's fast-food industry is raising incomes, without costing jobs. The effect on prices is minimal irle.berkeley.edu/publications...

In March 2026 #SantionsWatch: 🇷🇺 oil tanker reaches fuel-starved 🇨🇺; New license allows limited sale of 🇮🇷 oil; Trump eases sanctions on 🇻🇪 oil & mining; US isssues general license for 🇷🇺 oil; Israel uses 🇮🇷 war to restrict aid to Gaza ...and much more.

#BREAKING: Today marks 35 years of the $2.13 subminimum tipped wage—a policy rooted in racist history, built to exploit. Tips are supposed to be gratuity, not a paycheck. The US needs to abolish the policy that creates a class of workers who labor for tips. https://bit.ly/3NGkMqt

1/5 #JobsDay Preview 🧵 @deanbaker13.bsky.social on  what to expect from Friday's March employment report. The short version: the job market was already losing steam before the Iran war, and March is almost certain to look worse. Here is what the data is showing: https://bit.ly/4bKWVis

UNITE is not working at hotels with ICE paydayreport.com/unite-here-r...

CEPR international research director @jakobjohnston.bsky.social was on Urban View Radio this week with Greg Carr & Lamont King to discuss recent news from Haiti and the Trump administration's intervention in the hemisphere. Watch the full interview here:

People living in the US need cost-of-living relief—not—more war.

#NEW PRESS RELEASE 🇨🇴 CEPR Applauds Colombian Government’s Decision to Exit Investor-State Dispute Settlement System that Impedes Environmental Protection https://tinyurl.com/54yfnwej Read the full statement ⬇️

When grifters run the government, everyday Americans suffer while footing the bill.

@repmcgovern.bsky.social is right. Even BEFORE Trump started the war with Iran, 68% of Americans said Trump had his priorities wrong. Now what's become crystal clear? Affordable health care, college, housing, and food weren't ever going to become priorities.

Conditions in #Cuba are rapidly deteriorating as Trump's de facto oil blockade brings life on the island to a halt. After traveling to Cuba last week, CEPR expert Michael Galant analyzes the situation on this week's episode of "From D.C. Across the Americas" FULL VIDEO https://tinyurl.com/uh34wjhy

Yesterday, CEPR senior research fellow Guillaume Long joined Colombian Environment Minister Irene Velez, Senator Clara López and other political leaders and scholars to discuss the need for #Colombia to withdraw from the investor-state dispute settlement system to advance the just energy transition.

@repmcgovern.bsky.social is right. Even BEFORE Trump started the war with Iran, 68% of Americans said Trump had his priorities wrong. Now what's become crystal clear? Affordable health care, college, housing, and food weren't ever going to become priorities.

"Trump's military blockade [on Cuba], his threats, and his track record this term show that Congress must reassert its constitutional authority & stop another disastrous war before it's too late.”

🧵NEW DATA:  The bottom 80% of American households are getting poorer. It's not just people in poverty falling behind. @a-austin.bsky.social  looks into 50 years of data explaining why so many families feel squeezed. https://cepr.net/publications/reduce-inequality-to-address-affordability/

The NLRB "bias toward unions" claim falls apart fast when you despite union approval being at an all-time high, unionization keeps declining. This isn't bias; it's decades of corporate union-busting. @lburnam.bsky.social writes:

Gas prices are up in every state and the biggest increases are hitting key political battlegrounds. States with competitive races like Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan have seen price jumps of at least $1 per gallon. How it's impacting midterms: politi.co/3PmAxDp

The Trump heat wave is really impressive. As he says, no one has ever seen anything like it www.nbcnews.com/weather/heat...

@deanbaker13.bsky.social  tells @huffpost.com  that the US/Israel war with Iran is "a big hit to people's pocketbooks." Gas prices are up ~30% nationally and when gas goes up, everything goes up. Read:

"Winning" on affordability means raising wages, putting more money in everyday people's pockets, ending profit-driven healthcare, ending unjust wars, and ceasing policies that cater to the interests the ultra-rich.

Employers spend $400M+ per year on union-busting consultants. Framing mandatory anti-union meetings as "just talking" erases the coercive, highly-funded suppression industry behind them. @lburnam.bsky.social breaks it all down.

🧵NEW DATA: Trump has made it a point to trash the Biden economy. He told Congress in 2025: "We inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare." @deanbaker13.bsky.social  compares between the two administrations.

Tensions between Ecuador and Colombia have reached new heights after President Petro asserted that a bomb from Ecuador killed 27 Colombians amid ongoing joint military operations with the US Andres Arauz goes in depth on this week's From D.C. Across the Americas FULL: https://tinyurl.com/2dbxh355

"What began as an attempt to demonstrate the ongoing relevance of unrivaled US military power is fast becoming one of the most consequential strategic miscalculations of this century," CEPR senior research fellow Guillaume Long writes in @fortune.com. 

Chinese AI companies had already captured ~30% of the global market by December. @deanbaker13.bsky.social: if they drive down US prices, the massive profits investors are counting on will never materialize. The bubble doesn't need a complex trigger to pop.

"The current bubble in AI is laying the groundwork for another bad story." @deanbaker13.bsky.social draws a direct line from the housing crash to today's AI bubble and warns the fallout will hit retirement savings hard. https://bit.ly/4789CRM

A @wsj.com op-ed calls the NLRB's dismantling a worker win. @lburnam.bsky.social calls it what it is: one of the greatest works of corporate gaslighting in recent memory. Claim by claim, she breaks down what I4AW really stands for: https://bit.ly/4lyvSdz

A @wsj.com op-ed calls the NLRB's dismantling a worker win. @lburnam.bsky.social calls it what it is: one of the greatest works of corporate gaslighting in recent memory. Claim by claim, she breaks down what I4AW really stands for: https://bit.ly/4lyvSdz

The gap between what we're paying for healthcare and what the government's inflation measure shows is stark—and it's been growing. Every year since 2021, what families pay has climbed far faster than the official numbers capture. More from @deanbaker13.bsky.social :https://bit.ly/4uxuls7

"Imagine a strike that accidentally killed 165 Jewish Israeli girls. There would be hell to pay." Hegseth had time to review targets but he chose not to. This is his policy and, by extension, Trump's. @deanbaker13 writes:

"They're using the term cartels very loosely. In the case of the Cartel de los Soles—the pretext used to invade Venezuela—there's no evidence it's an organized drug trafficking group, but designating it an FTO made Maduro a military target," Alex Main to @therealnews.com 

With foreign troops set to deploy to Haiti, CEPR international research director  @jakobjohnston.bsky.social argues in @thenation.com that there is another way: to build something new, Haiti doesn’t need war. It needs peace.

"Ecuador has become the latest site of Washington’s reinvigorated 'war on drugs.' This escalation risks making the US complicit in the human rights abuses of a government that is steadily dismantling its own country’s democracy"—Pedro Labayen in Responsible Statecraft.

Today's the last day to apply to the Digital Communications internship at CEPR. Are you passionate about public policy *and* memes? Please apply.  https://cepr.net/about/careers/

Private sector union membership has collapsed — from 16.5% in 1985 to just 5.9% today. That's barely a third of what it was. West Virginia, Indiana, and Michigan were hit hardest. Workers have been losing power for 40 years. More from @hcbrown.bsky.social: https://bit.ly/4rmZKL5

Private sector union membership has collapsed — from 16.5% in 1985 to just 5.9% today. That's barely a third of what it was. West Virginia, Indiana, and Michigan were hit hardest. Workers have been losing power for 40 years. More from @hcbrown.bsky.social: https://bit.ly/4rmZKL5

The Trump administration spent nearly $12 BILLION in a single week on an open-ended war of choice in the Middle East. Zero dollars to lower your healthcare costs. These are choices. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/w...

Why do the richest people get a 9-month tax holiday? I f they paid into SS for 12 months like the rest of us, the SS trust fund would be in better shape

New CEPR data: Union membership in the US fell from 18% to 10% since 1985—nearly cut in half. Every state but VT saw declines. Trump is accelerating the attack on workers, but this 40-year erosion started long before him. More from @hcbrown.bsky.social: https://bit.ly/4rmZKL5

OTD in 2011, Wisconsin passed Act 10, a singularly brutal anti-union law that sent the state’s union membership rate plummeting, even compared to other anti-union states. Check out our interactive maps to see how unions in your state fared over time! cepr.net/publications... @ceprdc.bsky.social

#BeckersReview  cites CEPR's @eileenappelbaum.bsky.social#BeckersReviewsmaller PE deals can help struggling providers—but larger buyouts burden institutions with debt, weakening stability & stymying operations. BTW, $1T has been invested over the last decade in our healthcare system.

"It seems like the fairest and most straightforward way to shore up Social Security's finances." @hcbrown.bsky.social on lifting the payroll tax cap. The SS trust fund could be depleted by 2032. The fix is right in front of us. #ScrapTheCap https://bit.ly/4rW0SGG

NEW PRESS RELEASE 🇪🇨 Ecuador Suspends the Country’s Largest Opposition Party Increased political repression takes place alongside illegal joint military strikes by US and Ecuadorian military forces, and Donald Trump’s “Shield of the Americas” summit  READ ⬇️

Even MAGA is asking: how is starting a war in the Middle East—while leaving hundreds of thousands of Americans stranded with no evacuation plan—America First? @deanbaker13.bsky.social has thoughts.

"It seems like the fairest and most straightforward way to shore up Social Security's finances." @hcbrown.bsky.social on lifting the payroll tax cap. The SS trust fund could be depleted by 2032. The fix is right in front of us. #ScrapTheCap https://bit.ly/4rW0SGG