An outsourcing loophole in the H-1B visa program has allowed tech companies to get away with underpaying their migrant workers by millions of dollars, according to a new report by the Economic Policy Institute. While the report focuses on the workers under the IT staffing firm HCL Technologies, the tactic of outsourcing labor to migrant workers and paying them less compared to their U.S. born counterparts to save money is all too common, the report claims. We’ll talk with the study’s co-author.
KQED
December 22, 2021
Recent research from the Economic Policy Institute shows farm workers are among the lowest paid workers in the U.S. workforce.
HudsonValley360
December 22, 2021
Noida-based IT services firm HCL Technologies Ltd has been evading H1-B visa rules in the US, according to a report by Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Mint
December 22, 2021
In addition, all workers toil in settings where occupational safety and health laws are inadequate. As the Economic Policy Institute shows, workers do not have a meaningful right to turn down dangerous assignments or protect themselves from hazards due to power imbalances in the workplace. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) lacks the resources and authority to properly enforce laws and promulgate sufficient standards. Even with those constraints, there was a troubling history at Mayfield Consumer Products with 12 health and safety violations issued just in 2019.
Daily Independent
December 22, 2021
Researchers with the the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute said last month that, at that time, at least 16 states had together devoted about $15.7 billion of American Rescue Plan Act funding for their unemployment insurance trust funds and that this came after 23 states used pandemic aid from the earlier CARES Act for the funds.
Route Fifty
December 22, 2021
In his closing commentary, Mark Krikorian, the Center’s executive director and host of Parsing Immigration Policy, discusses a new report from the Economic Policy Institute that describes how one of the big Indian tech staffing firms cheated its own Indian H-1B employees by an estimated $95 million. Far from being an abuse of the system, Krikorian pointed out that the H-1B visa is designed to exploit foreign workers and undercut American workers.
Center for Immigration Studies
December 22, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute says the documents shoe HCL systematically underpays its workers as a business strategy (paywall).
Law360
December 22, 2021
A report by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute shows the top 0.1% got the biggest raise in 2020.
Business Insider
December 22, 2021
Real disposable income is “resources that households have after the tax and transfers systems come into play,” said Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute. “It’s a not-terrible bottom-line measure of how people are doing on average.”
The Hill
December 22, 2021
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C., the cost of living for a two-parent, two-child family in Mecklenburg County, NC is $92,400 per year.
WCNC Charlotte
December 22, 2021
Increases in average wages are often lopsided toward the rich, if history is any evidence. An analysis of new federal data by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that wages for the top 1 percent of earners grew much faster than the bottom 90 percent of earners in 2020, reflecting a trend going back four decades.
Truthout
December 22, 2021
Unemployment benefits, and recent supplements and extensions, have long been blamed for current restaurant shortages. However, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a non-profit think-tank based in Washington, D.C., had determined earlier this year that slow job growth had little to do with continued unemployment aid, but rather continued health concerns and an “outflow” of workers — primarily women — from employment due to caregiving concerns.
WGNTV
December 22, 2021
More than half of non-union, private-sector workers in the U.S. have signed agreements requiring legal claims to be brought in arbitration, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Reuters
December 22, 2021
“There’s reason to feel confident that we’re on track” for pre-pandemic labor market health by the end of next year, Elise Gould, senior economist at the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute, told me. “The pandemic continues to play a pretty significant role in what we’re seeing as the ebbs and flows of the labor market in general, but we’ve added over 6 million jobs this year, a recovery that’s much faster than we saw from the Great Recession.”
Los Angeles Times
December 22, 2021
The study, released Wednesday by left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute, analyzed the 17 U.S. states with the highest union membership rates. It found that the minimum wages in those states average 19% higher than the national average and 40% higher than in low-union-density states.
Fortune
December 22, 2021
Shutdowns, for example, pushed people toward spending on goods instead of services, according to Josh Bivens at the Economic Policy Institute.
Marketplace
December 17, 2021
More importantly, companies also need to comply with labor laws and address pay inequity in a transparent way, because workers are not seeing the fruits of their labor, according to Elise Gould, a senior labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
Agenda
December 13, 2021
A recent report by the US-based Economic Policy Institute finds that public investment increases productivity and growth across the economy. The report finds “investments in public capital have significant positive impacts on private-sector productivity, with estimated rates of return ranging from 15 percent to upwards of 45 percent.” Another report from the Roosevelt Institute argues that sustaining higher levels of demand through new public spending and permissive monetary policy could bring the US closer to full employment and increase growth.
Policy Note
December 13, 2021
Economists say you can expect a ripple effect from the jobs created by the Toyota battery plant. A formula from the Economic Policy Institute reveals for every 100 durable manufacturing positions created, there are also 744.1 other indirect jobs created. So, those 1,750 megasite jobs could really turn into 14,000 new jobs.
WFMY News 2
December 13, 2021
Other names under consideration include Director of Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy Valerie Wilson, Michigan State University economics professor Lisa Cook, Chief Economist at AFL-CIO William Spriggs, and former Obama-era Treasury official Karen Dynan.
The Street
December 13, 2021
For decades, education reformers and policymakers have searched for ways to close opportunity gaps — unequal access to the resources that children need to be successful in school and in life. As early as kindergarten, students from high-income families are ahead of those from low-income families on reading, math, and social and emotional skills, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
VOX
December 13, 2021
WASHINGTON —The U.S. unemployment rate dropped 0.4% in November, to 4.2%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. But BLS, the Economic Policy Institute, and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research all noted mixed numbers behind that positive decline.
People’s World
December 13, 2021
“Access to justice is really kind of a practical impossibility for a lot of these workers,” Daniel Costa, the director of immigration law and policy research of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, said.
NBC News
December 13, 2021
HCL Technologies, based in India, wields the H-1B skilled-worker visa as a way to undercut competition and find the cheapest workers, according to the study by the Economic Policy Institute.
Washington Times
December 13, 2021
Josh Bivens at the Economic Policy Institute estimates that failing to raise the debt ceiling would result in an instant spending cut of 8 percent of GDP. Compare that to the Great Recession of 2008-2009, in which spending dropped 9 percent over two years. Moody’s warned that international investors would no longer have faith in American credit and would demand higher interest rates on Treasury bonds, creating a permanent drag on the economy.
Salon
December 13, 2021
A third strategy, which aims to minimize unemployment, is to ensure adequate labor demand through expansionary macroeconomic policies. When fiscal policy keeps aggregate demand high, employers chase workers – rather than the other way around – and unemployment can remain low. Research by Larry Mishel and Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute shows that macroeconomic austerity is a major reason why US wages have lagged behind productivity since the 1980s. By contrast, the Biden administration’s aggressive fiscal response to the COVID-19 crisis has ensured that US wages have increased amid a sharp fall in unemployment.
Project Syndicate
December 13, 2021
Keep in mind, this is just talking about doctors. The pay gap exists for other medical professions too, such as nurses. Female nurses made nearly 8% less than male nurses, according to research from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
MarketWatch
December 13, 2021
“I don’t think we can celebrate quite yet,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. “I’m hopeful this means recovery is finally reaching them. I would like to believe it holds … I’m also really cautious because this data comes with a lot of volatility.”
The 19th
December 13, 2021
Wages have been on the rise as employers scramble to lure in workers, but after decades of declining wages, economist Heidi Shierholz of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute argues that gains are still just catching up with pandemic losses. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, average hourly earnings have ticked up by 4.8% from November 2020. In the traditionally low-paying leisure and hospitality, wages have soared by 12.3%.
Business Insider
December 13, 2021