Guests Today: Quincy Krosby of LPL Financial, Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute, Michael Lewis of Truist Securities, Steven Meier, New York City Retirement System CIO, Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth, Kevin Kelly, Kelly ETFS CEO, Nancy Tengler of Laffer Tengler Investments, Alan Binder of Princeton University, Stacy Rasgon of Bernstein Research and Nick Bunker of Indeed.
Bloomberg TV
September 1, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute claims employers routinely underpay farm workers, but federal investigations into this problem have dropped to an all-time low thanks to funding and staffing constraints.
Since 2000, the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, with only 810 investigators to protect 165 million workers, has seen investigations drop by more than 60%.
Agribusiness
September 1, 2023
As the Economic Policy Institute has explained, the FLSA mandates that the DOL set the salary level below which workers qualify for overtime pay –– a hugely important metric, because a too-low threshold that does not account for inflation contributes to wage stagnation for workers
On Labor
September 1, 2023
Under the proposed rules, 27% of full-time salaried workers would get overtime, the Department of Labor estimated.3 As of 2019, 15% were eligible, down from 60% in 1975, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank.
Investopedia
September 1, 2023
Wage growth has been particularly strong for low-paid workers since March 2020, when the pandemic shut down the U.S. economy, said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. Because of government stimulus such as expanded unemployment benefits, low-paid workers had a stronger safety net as they looked for better-paying jobs. As a result, many employers have boosted pay during the past three years.
Despite those gains, millions of workers are still struggling to pay the bills, with almost 4 in 10 Americans recently telling the U.S. Census that they were having difficulties meeting their household expenses. Although though pay increase are staying ahead of inflation this year, low- and middle-wage workers have generally not kept up with the cost of living over the prior four decades, according to EPI research.
“Low and middle-wage workers continue to struggle to make ends meet, even thought there have been some gains that we’d love to see continue for lower wage workers,” Gould told CBS MoneyWatch. “Many people have seen very little increase in the last five decades.”
CBS Moneywatch
September 1, 2023
While the drop in job openings was significant, the reduction is due to little turnover, said Elise Gould, a senior economist at The Economic Policy Institute. The elevated amount of job openings observed in the past few years was not necessarily signaling an overheated job market, but rather a higher rate of “churn” as people quit and found new jobs at a faster rate, she said.
However, as that churn declines, so will the number of job openings.
“It’s not because things are necessarily contracting, it’s just normalizing somewhat,” she said of the labor market.
CNBC
September 1, 2023
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the gender pay gap amounts to over $530,000 in lifetime lost wages for an average female worker. But, that number gets far more dramatic when you consider the average female with a college education. She loses nearly $800,000 of income across her career.
Motley Fool
September 1, 2023
Auto employment in the Great Lakes region, while still nearly double that of southern states, has slid 34% in the last two decades to 382,000 workers as of 2021, according to analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics done by the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank. The decline has been driven in part by Detroit car companies downsizing and by plant closures during the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009.
Wall Street Journal
September 1, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute, in a testimony by Elise Gould in support of the 2023 Fair Wage Act that raises the minimum wage in Maryland to $15 per hour, found that raising the minimum wage advances gender and racial justice.
The Daily Record
September 1, 2023
Paying people a living wage may also boost the economy: The Economic Policy Institute estimated that raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025 could save taxpayers between $13.4 billion and $31.0 billion annually on major public assistance expenditures, all while increasing tax revenues since people are making more money.
Forbes
September 1, 2023
While Lyft and Uber report drivers earned approximately $35 per utilized hour in the second half of 2022, including tips and bonuses, an Economic Policy Institute report in 2022 revealed about 14% of all gig workers using digital platforms earned less than the $7.25 federal minimum wage on an hourly basis.
Beaver County Times
September 1, 2023
Yet, while the workforce has grown over the last four decades, Wage and Hour’s team of investigators has shrunk from a high of 1,232 in 1978 to 810 at the end of last year, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
American Prospect
September 1, 2023
Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, said current TPS holders have high labor force participation rates and contribute billions to the U.S. economy every year.
“TPS raises wages through the provision of work authorization for people who don’t have it. … Higher wages also mean more spending back in the economy, which creates more jobs,” he said.
Voice of America
September 1, 2023
The push to strengthen the enforcement of labor laws comes on the heels of a push by lawmakers in some states to loosen child labor regulations amid high demand for workers. In the past two years, at least 10 states have introduced or passed laws that ease workplace protections for minors, according to a March report published by the Economic Policy Institute. Mississippi was not among those states.
Associated Press
September 1, 2023
The new rule would raise the proportion of salaried workers guaranteed overtime pay from 15 percent, as estimated by the Economic Policy Institute, to 27 percent, according to labor officials.
Truthout
September 1, 2023
Some experts speculate that the transition to EV could cause massive job losses. The Economic Policy Institute put out a report in September 2021 estimating that it could cost roughly 75,000 U.S. auto industry jobs by 2030, but could also create 150,000 if subsidies were provided to spur domestic production.
In These Times
September 1, 2023
Roughly 15% of salaried workers are now entitled to overtime pay, the AP reports citing data from the Economic Policy Institute. If the new rule passes, nearly 30% of salaried workers would become eligible for overtime, though that’s far lower than the 60% of salaried workers who were entitled to overtime pay in the 1970s, per the EPI. Since then, the threshold has not kept pace with wage growth, experts say.
CNBC
September 1, 2023
Guests Today: Quincy Krosby of LPL Financial, Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute, Michael Lewis of Truist Securities, Steven Meier, New York City Retirement System CIO, Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth, Kevin Kelly, Kelly ETFS CEO, Nancy Tengler of Laffer Tengler Investments, Alan Binder of Princeton University, Stacy Rasgon of Bernstein Research and Nick Bunker of Indeed.
Bloomberg TV
September 1, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute claims employers routinely underpay farm workers, but federal investigations into this problem have dropped to an all-time low thanks to funding and staffing constraints.
Since 2000, the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, with only 810 investigators to protect 165 million workers, has seen investigations drop by more than 60%.
Agribusiness
September 1, 2023
Economic Policy Institute president Heidi Shierholz—a former DOL chief economist—similarly praised the proposal, saying that “EPI is encouraged to see this important regulation move forward. The overtime threshold has not been properly updated for nearly 50 years, robbing millions of workers of their basic wage and hour rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act.”
Common Dreams
September 1, 2023
As the Economic Policy Institute has explained, the FLSA mandates that the DOL set the salary level below which workers qualify for overtime pay –– a hugely important metric, because a too-low threshold that does not account for inflation contributes to wage stagnation for workers
On Labor
September 1, 2023
“This proposal would ensure that employers have ‘skin in the game’ when they ask these workers to work long hours,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank.
The Connecticut Mirror
September 1, 2023
Under the proposed rules, 27% of full-time salaried workers would get overtime, the Department of Labor estimated.3 As of 2019, 15% were eligible, down from 60% in 1975, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank.
Investopedia
September 1, 2023
That brings us to the other side of the coin on workplace crime, wage theft. That’s been estimated as high as $50 billion a year by the Economic Policy Institute, which extrapolated from a 2008 survey of low-wage front-line workers in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.
LA Times
September 1, 2023
Wage growth has been particularly strong for low-paid workers since March 2020, when the pandemic shut down the U.S. economy, said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. Because of government stimulus such as expanded unemployment benefits, low-paid workers had a stronger safety net as they looked for better-paying jobs. As a result, many employers have boosted pay during the past three years.
Despite those gains, millions of workers are still struggling to pay the bills, with almost 4 in 10 Americans recently telling the U.S. Census that they were having difficulties meeting their household expenses. Although though pay increase are staying ahead of inflation this year, low- and middle-wage workers have generally not kept up with the cost of living over the prior four decades, according to EPI research.
“Low and middle-wage workers continue to struggle to make ends meet, even thought there have been some gains that we’d love to see continue for lower wage workers,” Gould told CBS MoneyWatch. “Many people have seen very little increase in the last five decades.”
CBS Moneywatch
September 1, 2023
Yet as corporate profits and CEO pay have skyrocketed in recent years, worker benefits have remained flat, or in some cases declined. From 1978 to 2021, CEO pay increased 1,460% while average worker pay rose by just 18%, according to the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute.
Yakima Herald
September 1, 2023
While the drop in job openings was significant, the reduction is due to little turnover, said Elise Gould, a senior economist at The Economic Policy Institute. The elevated amount of job openings observed in the past few years was not necessarily signaling an overheated job market, but rather a higher rate of “churn” as people quit and found new jobs at a faster rate, she said.
However, as that churn declines, so will the number of job openings.
“It’s not because things are necessarily contracting, it’s just normalizing somewhat,” she said of the labor market.
CNBC
September 1, 2023
The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute has estimated that about 15% of full-time salaried workers are entitled to overtime pay under the Trump-era policy. The new rule would almost double that to nearly 30%, according to Labor Department figures.
That’s still fewer than the more than 60% of salaried workers who were entitled to overtime pay in the 1970s, according to the liberal Economic Policy Institute. The overtime rule has only been sporadically updated over the past decades, with the Trump increase being the first since 2004. The Labor Department’s new rule attempts to change that pattern by adopting automatic increases to the salary threshold every three years.
“This is long overdue. It’s decades overdue, and it’s really important step,” said Economic Policy Institute Heidi Shierholz, who was the chief economist at the Labor Department when the Obama administration tried to enact its overtime rule.
Associated Press
September 1, 2023
However, Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, suggested that Tuesday’s numbers are still consistent with a good labor market for workers.
“Even as hires have softened, hiring remains above the quits rate in every sector,” Gould said in a statement. “The great reshuffling isn’t what it was two years ago, but it continues as workers look and find better job opportunities.”
The Hill
September 1, 2023