This year’s state and local minimum wage increases are estimated to impact 9.9 million workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute, which tracks minimum wage changes.
Of those 22 state increases on Jan. 1, 14 were due to automatic inflation adjustments. Two other places have automatic adjustments on July 1 each year: Washington, D.C., and Oregon. But the state with the highest increase as of Jan. 1 was Hawaii: a $2 increase to $14, representing a 28% bump.
NerdWallet
January 26, 2024
Between 2019 and 2022, the lowest-wage American workers (those in the 10th percentile of wages) saw their hourly wages grow 9 percent, adjusted for inflation, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), more than any other income bracket. The highest-wage workers’ earnings only grew around half as much:
Bank Rate
January 26, 2024
According to the Economic Policy Institute, Florida is one of 25 states (plus Washington D.C.) that have enacted such standards for minors 16 and older.
Orlando Weekly
January 26, 2024
Since 2021, lawmakers in at least ten states have introduced or passed legislation that would weaken child employment rules, according to a December 2023 report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
“Instead of competing in a race to the bottom on child labor standards, states can eliminate significant gaps and exclusions in existing child labor laws, strengthen protections beyond the minimal and limited standards mandated by federal law, and improve job quality for workers of all ages,” the report reads.
The Independent
January 26, 2024
Real wages increased marginally over the last 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but remained flat in real terms dating back to the late 1970s, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Restaurant Dive
January 26, 2024
Raising the minimum wage is good for workers, business and the economy, according to Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Zipperer said boosting the national minimum wage is long overdue.
“Workers today who are paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour are, after adjusting for inflation, paid 29 percent less than their counterparts 50 years ago,’’ said Zipperer.
WorkersCompensation.com
January 26, 2024
According to the Economic Policy Institute, “the federal minimum wage is worth 30% less today than when it was last raised 14 years ago.”
The Nation
January 26, 2024
Along with the passage of laws unfavorable toward labor unions, some corporations invest money into programs and consultants who engage in union-suppressing tactics, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). A 2019 analysis from the EPI found that companies spent $340 million a year on “union avoiding” consultants who help deter organizers. And employers were charged with violating federal law in 41.5% of all union election campaigns.
USA Today
January 26, 2024
The gains in private sector union membership came courtesy of younger workers and people of color, according to an analysis of the BLS data by the Economic Policy Institute.
Huffpost
January 26, 2024
These are just a few of Robb’s greatest hits—see this report from the Economic Policy Institute for a full accounting of the disastrous policies pursued under his leadership.
The New Republic
January 26, 2024
“Workers want unions, but a broken system is undermining their efforts to organize at every turn,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute. “Employers have exploited weaknesses in U.S. labor law, and federal and state policymakers have failed to prevent this from happening.”
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EPI’s Shierholz said the smaller premium may also owe something to “spillover effects” when wider pay standards set by unions help boost non-union pay. It’s a phenomenon she said played out “in real time” recently in the pay increases for non-unionized autoworkers after strikes by the United Auto Workers at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis resulted in substantial union pay hikes.
“So the union premium is reduced by the spillover effect, but that’s all good as far as workers are concerned,” Shierholz said.
Reuters
January 26, 2024
“Misclassification is a problem that affects many low-paid industries like construction, transportation, home health care,” says Sally Dworak-Fisher, senior staff attorney at NELP. But “people in every occupation at all types of pay levels” can be vulnerable to it, says Samantha Sanders, director of government affairs and advocacy at the Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
January 26, 2024
Jennifer Sherer, a director at the Economic Policy Institute, sees a silver lining in the data: People ages 16 to 45 are driving union membership growth and have decades of employment ahead of them.
“That’s not just polling and survey data, but that’s young people going through the very challenging and courageous process of organizing new unions even against the odds,” she said.
KCUR public radio (Kansas City)
January 26, 2024
The gains in union membership in 2023 were driven entirely by workers under the age of 45, says Heidi Shierholz, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
“I think that does point to a shift that may be a more lasting shift… in interest and popularity of unions,” says Shierholz.
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Shierholz says weaknesses in labor law are responsible for the significant gap between the number of workers who are represented by unions and those who want to be represented by unions but aren’t.
“That gap is labor law not truly protecting workers’ right to organize,” she says, noting that employers face little more than a slap on the wrist for violating that right.
NPR
January 26, 2024
Indeed, it is unlawful for employers to “interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of their rights,” which includes the right to organize, according to the National Labor Relations Board. That puts some union avoidance strategies in treacherous legal territory. In fact, a 2019 report from the Economic Policy Institute found that in 41.5 percent of all union election campaigns, U.S. employers were charged with violating federal law.
Inc.
January 26, 2024
This disconnect is largely a product of how difficult it has become for American workers to join unions, said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C. Unionization is often an arduous process that can take months or even years. When businesses form, jobs start off as nonunion positions. Workers can gain union status through democratic elections that typically occur one workplace at a time.
Maintaining union membership rates requires “really active [union] organizing just to keep up with the natural churn in our labor market,” Shierholz said. “It’s a long slog that goes on and on.”
Adding to the challenges, U.S. labor law is “highly stacked against workers,” Shierholz added, with current penalties for illegal retaliation against workers hardly serving as a deterrent for employers looking to crush union activity.
The Washington Post
January 26, 2024
The latest available executive pay data, as analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), shows that top U.S. CEOs on average were paid 344 times more than their typical employees in 2022. Between 1978 and 2022, EPI found, top executive pay skyrocketed by 1,209.2% while worker pay grew by just 15.3%.
Common Dreams
January 26, 2024
Other analysts of the Auten-Splinter case against growing income inequality — like the Economic Policy Institute’s Elise Gould and Josh Bivens — have been more blunt. To determine whether the United States has become a great deal more unequal or just a little, Gould and Bivens don’t see any need to enter into debates about arcane stats that leave most Americans scratching their heads.
Gould and Bivens ask us instead to look at what individual Americans are actually earning “in the labor market,” a data set “that sidesteps nearly all” the complexities that can so bewilder almost everyone outside the narrow confines of the economics profession.
In the middle decades of the 20th century, Gould and Bivens note, labor market data show clearly that worker hourly pay neatly tracked the American economy’s growth in productivity. But then, around 1980, that linkage broke down. Worker wage gains began no longer keeping pace with gains in the productivity of the U.S. economy. This worker “missing pay” was essentially going instead to business owners and their top-paid hired hands.
Inequality.org
January 26, 2024
A report by the Economic Policy Institute finds 10 states have introduced or passed bills weakening child labor standards in the past two years.
First Coast News
January 26, 2024
Because of the lack of benefits and overtime pay, independent contractors are often compensated less for doing the same jobs. A typical person working in construction as an independent contractor would make as much as $16,729 less per year in income and benefits compared to what they would as an employee, the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, estimated.
Investopedia
January 26, 2024
In the years since, shortages have shown small signs of improvement, but understaffing challenges remain, according to research from the Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
January 26, 2024
Washington also holds the worst Black-white unemployment ratio in the entire country, according to the Economic Policy Institute think tank — with vastly disproportionate unemployment rates in wards 7 and 8, underserved and predominantly Black areas in the district.
Huffpost
January 26, 2024
Such practices are rampant in the industry: Nearly 1 in 4 construction workers in Minnesota are either misclassified or paid under the table, according to a 2021 study from the Midwest Economic Policy Institute, a status that makes them susceptible to wage theft, and denial of workers’ compensation and overtime pay.
Workday Minnesota
January 26, 2024
This trend is happening as some states are taking steps to loosen child labor protections. Iowa and West Virginia have recently changed laws to allow teens as young as 16 to serve alcohol, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute. Others are rapidly rolling back protections for 14- and 15-year-old workers.
The Washington Post
January 26, 2024
The Economic Policy Institute calculates that a family of four in the Dallas metro area needs to bring home more than $82,000 per year to cover all of their basic costs.
Dallas Observer
January 26, 2024
The Economic Policy Institute’s annual study says a fair wage is that which provides “teachers with compensation commensurate with that of other similarly educated and experienced professionals.”
Santa Barbara Indepedant
January 26, 2024
According to the Economic Policy Institute, that means child care is only affordable for the highest-paid 12.2% of Ohio households.
Crain's Cleveland Business
January 26, 2024
The high number of job losses for full employees indicated by the study also calls into question the validity of the findings, said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute.
“The story that AB5 would cause job loss would be something like, some folks move from self employment to employee-based employment,” she said. “That would make traditional employment go up, or at least not fall. There’s just really no story where traditional employment would fall” as a result of that shift, she said.
Bloomberg Law
January 26, 2024
The rule is intended to protect vulnerable workers, DOL said at the time of the rule’s announcement. Groups including the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, previously estimated that a switch from employee status to independent contractor status may cost workers thousands of dollars in potential earnings.
HR Dive
January 26, 2024
Colorado’s not alone in facing a time crunch. As of June 2023, states had only spent about half the money the federal government provided, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank.
Colorado Sun
January 26, 2024