A new report from the Economic Policy Institute paints a stark portrait of the economic plight of home health care workers, who are grossly underpaid in every state. The national average for these workers is a mere $13.50 an hour. But home health care workers typically make less than $12 an hour in the lowest-paying states—Louisiana, West Virginia, Texas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.
Counter Punch
June 3, 2022
Emphasizing this point even further, Heidi Shierholz, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, recently tweeted, “People who are quitting are taking other jobs, not just leaving the workforce.” This points to a more complex reason for abandoning jobs, rather than simply not wanting to work. In fact, more and more people desire competitive wages, healthier environments, safer conditions and more respect. These are all things we’ve been providing our virtual professionals for years, because we know that the key to keeping your best and most valuable workers is letting them know that they’re your best and most valuable workers.
RIS Media
June 3, 2022
The average big company CEO earned 351 times more than the average worker on a realized basis in 2020, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute, first noted on Fortune.
Benzinga (via Yahoo! Finance)
June 3, 2022
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank, a single adult can expect to pay an estimated $11,026 on housing in 2022. This amount varies across the country, however, and in many major metropolitan areas, housing costs are well below the national average.
24/7 Wall St.
June 3, 2022
“Expiration of the advance CTC was associated with a 12% increase in food insufficiency in households with children relative to households without children by February — and rates of food insufficiency continued to climb since February,” researchers Julia Raifman and Allison Bovell-Ammon wrote in a blog post for the Economic Policy Institute last month.
Salon
June 3, 2022
Over 70 percent of DOL investigations find workplace violations, with 30 percent of investigations finding employers have committed five or more violations, according to a report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which analyzed DOL data.
NPR
June 3, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute released findings from a recent survey on the working conditions for gig workers. The research carried out in the spring of 2020 paints a poor picture of their earnings even relative to other service workers who typically receive low pay.
AS
June 3, 2022
Those studying the issue from the outside fully agree. “We have to stop treating our public school education system in this country as an afterthought,” said David Cooper, director of the Economic Analysis and Research Network at the Economic Policy Institute. “We are already facing a huge shortfall.”
Capital and Main
June 3, 2022
It’s hard to tease out. A pandemic, a trade war, a land war, huge government spending, and a global economy that’s become vastly more integrated might be too complex for traditional macroeconomic theory to explain. Josh Bivens, research director at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, thinks that’s a good reason to revisit what the discipline thought it had figured out.
New York Times
June 3, 2022
As a result, estimates suggest that the toll of electrification on auto industry jobs could be significant absent large new government subsidies. A report released in September by the liberal Economic Policy Institute, which has ties to organized labor, found that the auto industry could lose about 75,000 jobs by 2030 without substantial government investment.
New York Times
June 3, 2022
A report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute estimates the national auto industry could lose 75,000 jobs by 2030 if battery electric vehicles (BEV) leaped to 50% of domestic auto sales.
The Center Square
June 3, 2022
The NEA, which represents 3 million education workers, argues that the provision excluding teachers from overtime requirements has suppressed educator wages and exacerbated the teacher shortage. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that eliminating the provision would affect 1.5 million teachers, nearly a quarter of the teachers in the US.
Bloomberg Law
June 3, 2022
A recent report from the Economic Policy Institute finds that 92 percent of Dollar General employees make less than $15 an hour. Twenty-two percent make less than $10 an hour; Williams is just one of them.
Jacobin
June 3, 2022
Since 1977, CEO pay has soared 1,322%, while typical worker compensation has risen only 18%, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Much of that compensation is because vested stock awards and stock options have become a larger component of executive pay.
Fortune
June 3, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute says U.S. employers spend at least $340 million on union busting consultants each year.
NW Labor Press
June 3, 2022
Real wage growth across the wage distribution is down, and it is the middle-income workers that are in a worse position than they were pre-pandemic — the lowest-wage workers, by contrast, while struggling with inflation have seen the biggest wage gains. “They are getting hit really hard by this,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, which focuses on the needs of low- and middle-income Americans.
CNBC
June 3, 2022
Yes, you can set up an IRA without the help of your employer. But too few people do, and as a result, most families have little or no retirement savings, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The situation, said Jeff Schulte of ForUsAll, is “a crisis of epic proportions.”
Los Angeles Times
June 3, 2022
In addition to the ongoing losses of middle-wage jobs, the report identified an uneven recovery from the pandemic. In the first quarter of 2022, the state had a 4.8% unemployment rate overall, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute. The unemployment rate for people of color is significantly higher.
State Journal-Register
June 3, 2022
These claims are borne out in data. Over the past two quarters, despite growing costs, non-finance US companies recorded their largest profits since 1950. Rather than a consequence of the growing costs of workers and materials, the Economic Policy Institute found over half of the corporate-led increase in prices simply generated bigger profit margins.
OMFIF
June 3, 2022
There are still about 1.9 job openings for every unemployed person. On the one hand, that’s good for workers, per Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute.
Marketplace
June 3, 2022
“The reason unionization has declined over the past four decades is not that workers don’t want it, it’s that policy relentlessly reversed,” said Heidi Shierholz, a former chief economist for the Department of Labor and current president of the Economic Policy Institute, which advocates for low- and middle-income workers.
CNBC
June 3, 2022
Real wage growth across the wage distribution is down, and it is the middle-income workers that are in a worse position than they were pre-pandemic — the lowest-wage workers, by contrast, while struggling with inflation have seen the biggest wage gains. “They are getting hit really hard by this,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, which focuses on the needs of low- and middle-income Americans.
CNBC
June 2, 2022
In recent years, though, this has started to change, with some foundations supporting a dynamic new labor movement of national, state and local nonprofit groups that are working to boost wages and benefits of low-income workers.
I’m talking about organizing groups like the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, and Jobs With Justice, as well as policy groups like the National Employment Law Project and the Economic Policy Institute. This movement has amply demonstrated its impact in recent years; 30 states and 40 municipalities have raised their minimum wage since 2014.
Inside Philanthropy
May 27, 2022
According to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute, rising inequality over the last four decades has reduced economic growth in the US. Since 1979, income share has risen for the top 10% but fallen for the rest. By 2018, the top 1% were securing 16.4% of pre-tax and benefits income, up from 8.9% in 1979. The top 1% were saving 30.6% of their income, over 60 times as much as the bottom fifth of household. This reduction in spending put constraints overall economic growth.
Counterpunch
May 27, 2022
Over the same 20-year period, NAFTA contributed to the loss of approximately four million U.S. jobs, according to Robert E. Scott, director of trade and manufacturing policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. Seven years after the agreement, in 2001, Scott assessed the job losses at around 766,000; he issued another assessment in 2014, showing job losses totaling 3.2 million between 2001 and 2013.
Inc.
May 27, 2022
Josh Bivens, the director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, said most of the anxiety is being driven by the “relative newness of the inflation we’ve seen over the past year.” “The worry is that to rein it in and return it to more-normal levels might require a lot of policy dexterity, and, if policymakers can’t pull this off, this might lead to a recession,” Bivens told HuffPost.
The Huffington Post
May 27, 2022
Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, said Mr. Biden’s proposed economic policies would …(paywall).
The Wall Street Journal
May 27, 2022
But labor advocates say there is scant evidence to support such a grim forecast. At a recent hearing, EPI director of immigration law and policy research Daniel Costa pointed to the impact of making farmworkers in California eligible for overtime to encourage the establishment of similar protections in New York. There is “virtually no credible evidence” that overtime pay for farmworkers “will hurt the industry or slash profits dramatically,” Costa testified.
Capital and Main
May 27, 2022
According to analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, nearly 54% of the recent inflationary price hikes that Americans are paying have gone toward corporate profits. And people have started to notice: In February, a poll from Data for Progress showed that 63% of respondents have come to the conclusion that “large corporations are taking advantage of the pandemic to raise prices unfairly on consumers and increase profits.”
Business Insider
May 27, 2022