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.
June 6, 2023
Williams started at $8 an hour, and a 2021 report from the Economic Policy Institute found that 92 percent of the company’s employees made less than $15 an hour; 22 percent made less than $10 an hour. The company is currently the United States’ fastest-growing retailer, opening around one thousand stores a year and employing more than 170,000 people.
Jacobin
June 5, 2023
In March, the unemployment rate for people aged 16 to 24, who are already benefiting from pre-pandemic labor market conditions, marked a 70-year low at 7.5%, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In April, it dipped further for that age group, to 6.5%.
June 5, 2023
In the past two years, according to a recent report from the Economic Policy Institute, at least fourteen states have enacted or proposed laws rolling back child-labor protections. Typically, the new laws extend work hours for minors, lift restrictions on hazardous work, lower the age at which kids can bus tables where alcohol is served, or introduce new sub-minimum wages. In Iowa, a new law allows children as young as fourteen to work in industrial laundries, and, with approval from a state agency, allows sixteen-year-olds to work in roofing, excavation, demolition, the operation of power-driven machinery, and other dangerous occupations. Jennifer Sherer, a co-author of the E.P.I. report, said, “Iowa’s new law contains multiple provisions that conflict with federal prohibitions on ‘oppressive child labor.’ ” It also limits employer liability for the injury, illness, or death of a child on the job. Adolescents are almost twice as likely as adults to be injured at work.
The New Yorker
June 5, 2023
Income weighs heavily for those who identify as working class, but jobs and family history matter, too.
That focus is no surprise, Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told the Deseret News. “The vast majority of Americans under 65 get their income from work. So how the labor market is doing, how their wages are and how they’re able to make ends meet is easily the most important issue.”
Deseret News
June 5, 2023
Congress last raised the federal minimum wage in 2009 to $7.25 per hour. Since then the U.S. dollar has lost nearly 30 percent of purchasing power, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Tennessean
June 5, 2023
And according to a 2019 analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, some work creates more economic ripples, including jobs in information, utilities and certain manufacturing sectors. One hundred jobs in durable manufacturing, for example, indirectly support 744.1 others. While 100 retail jobs indirectly add 122.1.
The Colorado Sun
June 5, 2023
The bottom 10% of earners saw their inflation-adjusted wages rise 9% between 2019 and 2022, a bigger gain by percentage than any other income bracket, according to a March report by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. High demand for traditionally low-paid jobs such as restaurant workers amid the recovery from the pandemic has helped drive pay up.
Investopedia
June 5, 2023
A 2017 study by the Economic Policy Institute found that in the 10 most populous states wage theft among minimum wage workers totaled $8 billion a year. Extrapolating out across the rest of the country and accounting for other forms of wage theft, the researchers estimate more than $50 billion is stolen from workers annually.
Fast Company
June 5, 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.
June 5, 2023
Job growth was particularly strong in education and health services (+97,000), professional and business services (+64,000), government (+56,000) and leisure and hospitality (+44,000). Economist Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute wrote that “gains in both leisure and hospitality and government employment are particularly welcome news as they remain the sectors with the largest job shortfalls since before the pandemic,” adding that “those deficits are steadily shrinking month after month.”
The Fiscal Times
June 5, 2023
Here & Now’s Deepa Fernandes talks with Samantha Sanders, director of government affairs and advocacy for the Economic Policy Institute, about who is affected by the potential deal to avoid default on the debt ceiling.
This segment aired on May 30, 2023.
WBUR Here and Now
June 2, 2023
A recent economics report is setting off an alarm about children in America in the workforce. It says that across the country, states are trying to weaken child labor laws.
The headline from the Economic Policy Institute says “child labor laws are under attack.” And, that violations of the current laws are rising.
Fox 5 Atlanta
June 2, 2023
A December 2022 report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) showed that about 96 percent of all public K–12 teachers have at least a four-year college degree, while about 56 percent had advanced degrees. Previously existing national teacher shortages were heavily exacerbated by the pandemic, further impacting educators who had already been worried about poor compensation and stress levels.
Newsweek
June 2, 2023
Bloomberg Law
June 2, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute notes that Black Americans are just over half as likely as white Americans to have a college degree. Yet college degrees are key drivers of social mobility, helping those who need it find a path out of poverty.
LA Times
June 2, 2023
That volatility is the big story in the May jobs report, said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
“It’s important when we look at something like that to pay attention to the longer-term trend, because every month there can be a lot of movement,” Gould said.
“The longer-term trend suggests that the Black unemployment rate has been coming down,” she added. “So it’s about where it was three months ago. Yes, it was lower last month. It ticked up, but I think that probably it will resolve down again next month.”
CNBC
June 2, 2023
But money saved from productivity gains doesn’t always end up in workers’ pockets. Since 1979, US worker-productivity growth has outpaced hourly-pay growth by 3.7 times, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, which attributes the divergence to a stagnant minimum wage, the decline of unions, and the scaling back of antitrust policy, among other factors.
Insider
June 2, 2023
The groups, which include the American Economic Liberties Project, the Economic Policy Institute and the Open Markets Institute, said Biden should deploy a “whole-of-government approach” to the noncompete issue.
Huffpost
June 2, 2023
Monique Morrissey – senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute – said in addition to cognitive decline, some older workers aren’t healthy enough to do their jobs safely.
She added that a significant number of older Americans are trapped in jobs that might put them at risk, but are unable to afford retirement.
“Slower reflexes and other age-related factors make it harder for older workers to avoid hazards,” said Morrissey. “As a result, workers aged 65 and older have more than doubled the fatality rate of workers overall.”
Ohio News Service
June 2, 2023
The law is part of a broader effort by states to loosen child labor laws. Arkansas’s governor signed a bill in March that allows youth under the age of 16 to be employed without a work certificate, and New Jersey and New Hampshire have enacted laws to extend work hours. Several states, including Minnesota and Missouri, have also recently introduced similar bills, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
CNN
June 2, 2023
According to the Economic Policy Institute, in 2021 a CEO at one of the top 350 US firms was paid $15.6 million on average, up 9.6 percent since 2020. The ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker compensation was 399 to 1, up from 366 to 1 in 2020, and from 20 to 1 in 1965.
WIRED
June 2, 2023
osh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told Insider that “an actual default would affect every single sector,” adding that “it would be a mammoth across the board kind of recession.”
“I think the first round effects are just people who rely on either direct payments from the government or payments from government employees,” Bivens said, which can include the healthcare sector and “people who run national parks.”
Insider
June 2, 2023
A 2021 report from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, found that, across the nation, more than $3 billion in stolen wages was recovered between 2017 to 2020 by federal and state labor departments, prosecutors, and through litigation. During that four-year period, New York recovered nearly $130 million.
Lohud
June 2, 2023
Twenty-six states preempt local governments from passing their own minimum wages, according to research from the Economic Policy Institute. Louisiana passed the first minimum wage preemption in 1997, and Florida and Texas each enacted the same restriction in 2003.
Bloomberg Law
June 2, 2023
The unemployment rate for young workers is the lowest in 70 years, according to the Economic Policy Institute, yet nearly 40% of Generation Z workers already in or entering the workforce cultivate a side hustle. That partly reflects the cost of living: Most young people worry they won’t make enough in one job to make ends meet. But that’s not the only reason. Many prioritize values-based factors over salary – like diversity in the workplace, mental health benefits, and flexibility to develop creative projects they see as important to their quality of life and future well-being.
Christian Science Monitor
June 2, 2023
According to WiseVoter, Wisconsin’s average starting teacher salary is $38,961, below the national average of $41,868. Using MIT’s living wage calculator, Wisconsin’s starting average is less than what an individual with children must make to support a family. Research from the Economic Policy Institute shows that teacher salaries have remained flat for nearly 30 years when accounting for inflation.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
June 2, 2023
Then, President Biden and House Speaker McCarthy reached a proposed deal on the debt ceiling debate. The House Rules Committee will consider it. Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD), who helped negotiate the deal, joins us. And Samantha Sanders, director of government affairs and advocacy for the Economic Policy Institute, joins us to talk about who will be most affected by this proposed deal.
NPR
June 2, 2023
A recent report from the Economic Policy Institute found that the number of minors employed in violation of child labor laws increased 37% in the last year. This is particularly alarming as many young Virginians are already deprived of opportunities to flourish socially and economically through pathways that are entirely legal.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
June 2, 2023