According to an Economic Policy Institute report, CEO compensation has grown by 1,209% since 1978, while the typical worker’s compensation has only ticked up 15%.
Sports Illustrated
December 15, 2023
Since January 2014, 28 states and Washington, D.C., have changed their laws around minimum wage, according to the Economic Policy Institute, which has been tracking these changes nationwide.
Delaware News Journal
December 15, 2023
The effort comes not a moment too soon, as wage theft and labor law violations have notoriously cost California’s minimum-wage earners nearly $2 billion every year, with a study from the Economic Policy Institute highlighting that these violations “exceeds the value of property crimes committed in the United States each year.”
Hoodline
December 15, 2023
The IRA was designed to counter the potential loss of American auto manufacturing jobs during the EV transition. The Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute warned in 2022 that 75,000 jobs could be lost “if – thanks to policy inaction – the batteries and drivetrains powering the BEVs continue to be produced abroad and U.S. producers make no gains in the share of overall car sales.”
Wards Auto
December 15, 2023
At the SEIU, Janelle Jones directs economic policy for over 2 million members, including healthcare workers, janitors, and education professionals. Jones’ leadership has been marked by a refusal to accept fewer benefits and stagnant pay. She’s found strength in advocating for workers often left out of union conversations, particularly Black women.
Before working at the SEIU, Jones was the chief economist at the US Department of Labor, the first Black woman to hold the post. She also worked at the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Business Insider
December 15, 2023
Teachers are notoriously underpaid in the US with a median annual salary of just over $61,000 a year, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, teachers make about 20 per cent less than other college-educated workers with similar experience.
The Independent
December 15, 2023
Arbitration clauses in employment agreements have become standard, with more than half of American employees subject to them, compared to 2 percent 30 years ago, according to research from the Economic Policy Institute.
Vanity Fair
December 15, 2023
According to the Economic Policy Institute, 92 percent of the company’s employees nationwide in 2021 made less than $15 per hour — the minimum wage in Massachusetts.
The Berkshire Eagle
December 15, 2023
From 1979 to 2013, hourly pay for middle-wage workers increased 6% and pay for low-wage workers decreased 5%, whereas pay for very high-wage workers increased 41%, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank.
CNET
December 15, 2023
A recent report by Josh Bivens and Jori Kandra of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) documents the wide wage gap. In 2022, they report, the top executives of the 350 largest U.S. companies received 344 times the pay of the typical worker; 87% of that top pay was received as a bonus, usually based on stock price. That compares to just 15 times the pay of the typical worker in 1965. They argue that this difference is not justified by an increase in the complexity of the top manager’s job.
Boston Business Journal
December 15, 2023
Writing for the Economic Policy Institute in 2020, for instance, education economist Emma García summarized the data: “When black students have the opportunity to attend schools with lower concentrations of poverty and larger shares of white students they perform better, on average, on standardized tests.”
Minnesota Reformer
December 15, 2023
Several factors contribute to the higher jobless rates among black Americans compared to whites. Racism and single-adult households, where one person must balance childcare and full-time employment, are among the primary reasons, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
24/7 Wall St.
December 15, 2023
Still, the report said Colorado educators make about 37 percent less compared to other professionals with the same amount of education, citing research by the Economic Policy Institute.
Colorado Public Radio
December 15, 2023
A variety of negative responses followed the decision, including proposals for proxies for and refinements of race-conscious admissions. Some commentators argued that colleges should simply refuse to comply. Richard Rothstein, a fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in the Atlantic, “University presidents should have no less courage. They should continue to implement race-specific affirmative action, in defiance of the Supreme Court.”
The American Conservative
December 15, 2023
A 2022 report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a research and policy organization in Washington, D.C., that looks at the impact on workers of economic trends and policies, listed delivery drivers as one of 11 occupations with workers “particularly vulnerable to illegal misclassification.”
“We’re literally talking about generations of policymaking and struggle that workers have engaged in to set some basic expectations and standards in our history, and also the contemporary expectation that most U.S. residents have about some basic, very minimal floors that we want to set for standards in our labor market,” said Jennifer Sherer, director of the State Worker Power Initiative at EPI.
Wisconsin Examiner
December 15, 2023
“We’re still seeing the effects — and I think some of it’s still invisible — of the COVID relief wrap-up,” he said.
Those programs kept millions of Americans out of poverty before they were ended, according to analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, a-left-leaning think tank.
WMRA Public Radio
December 15, 2023
Inflation can have many roots. Typically, it’s caused by “a macroeconomic excess of spending over the economy’s relative ability to produce goods and services,” said Josh Bivens, the director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank based in Washington D.C.
That means more people are wanting items and services than there is adequate supply, leading producers to raise prices.
USA Today
December 15, 2023
“The household survey confirms the strength exhibited by the payroll survey,” the Economic Policy Institute’s Elise Gould wrote Friday. “Here, we can look under the hood of the labor market data and explore differences by gender, age, and race/ethnicity. As the unemployment rate dropped, the prime-age employment rate ticked up to 80.7%.”
CNN Business
December 15, 2023
The measure to loosen child labor laws is part of a trend in certain states around the country. Florida is now the 16th state to introduce legislation rolling back child labor protections in the past two years and the 13th to do so this year, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C.
Florida Phoenix
December 15, 2023
Governments have until the end of next year to finalize their ARPA plans. According to the latest numbers from the Treasury Department, state governments have yet to allocate about 30 percent of their funds. They’ve only spent about half of it — and local governments have done even less. That has to happen by 2026. Dave Kamper, a senior state policy coordinator and analyst, has been watching the data for the Economic Policy Institute.
“State and local governments are not used to having this much unspecified money. And I think we’ve seen a lot of decision paralysis on the part of, especially, local governments — where they just have so many things they could spend the money on, that they’re having hard time deciding,” says Kamper.
WAMC Northeast Public Radio
December 15, 2023
“Labor law remains so incredibly weak that it’s still a massive impediment to union organizing,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute. “Employers still have enormous power to crush union organizing.”
The situation especially presents an uphill battle for newly formed unions seeking to sign a contract. But it also threatens established organized labor, Shierholz said.
Bloomberg Law
December 15, 2023
Minneapolis Star Tribune
December 15, 2023
Wheeler says workers in leisure and hospitality and wholesale and retail trade — who are more likely to be involuntarily part time — have been finding full-time work.
And the Economic Policy Institute’s Elise Gould says: “That can make a meaningful difference in how much money they have to spend and how they can provide for themselves and their families.”
Marketplace
December 15, 2023
“While the Fed watches decelerating nominal wage growth, real (inflation-adjusted) wages for workers continue to rise as price growth falls faster than nominal wage growth,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
U.S. News & World Report
December 15, 2023
On the other hand, Asian Americans saw a 0.4 percentage-point jump in the unemployment rate to 3.5%. This was accompanied by a decline in the participation rate for Asian workers to 65% from 65.3% in October.
“That uptick in unemployment is not because more Asian workers are flooding into the labor market, feeling optimistic about getting jobs. It’s actually accompanied by a fall in participation as well as a fall in employment,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told CNBC.
CNBC
December 15, 2023
A study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) showed that “Revenue replacement accounts for $19.8 billion (62%) of the $32 billion cities and counties have spent, compared with 45% of spending at the state level. Almost one in eight local governments have only spent funds on revenue replacement so far.” The study was released on March 21. The EPI, said that local and state governments need to continue to “build upon ARPA’s successes of the past two years.”
KELO
December 8, 2023
Between 1979 and 2021, the wages of Americans in the top 1% grew by 206%, after adjusting for inflation, according to an analysis by the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute. In the same years, wages for the bottom 90% grew by only 29%.
USA Today
December 8, 2023
“Race-blind admissions processes will further exacerbate existing inequalities and undermine the recognition of the unique challenges that Black, Hispanic, and Native American students encounter throughout the admissions process,” the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, warned.
BET.com
December 8, 2023
Violations of workers’ right to organize and form unions in the workplace isn’t uncommon. Employers are charged with breaking federal law in roughly 4 in 10 union elections, an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute found, which commonly happens in the form of disciplining or firing workers, or changing terms of their employment, in retaliation for organizing or for being vocally pro-union.
Orlando Weekly
December 8, 2023