According to the Economic Policy Institute, one of the most egregious rollbacks was recently signed into law by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Truthout
May 19, 2023
A recent study from the Economic Policy Institute shows the Class of 2023 is graduating into a stronger labor market for young workers, as measured by lower unemployment and underemployment rates, than the year prior’s graduating class. The youth unemployment rate for young people, ages 16 to 24, hit 7.5% in March, a 70-year low, the study found. The figure also reflects a downtick in the overall U.S. unemployment rate, which fell to 3.5% during the same period, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.
“The very low [youth] unemployment rate now is incredibly striking,” EPI Senior Economist Elise Gould told CBS MoneyWatch.
CBS News
May 19, 2023
“The indication is that the White House is not giving up,” said Celine McNicholas, a lobbyist for the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Bloomberg Law
May 19, 2023
Crain's Detroit Business
May 19, 2023
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the unemployment rate among Hispanic workers as of the end of 2022 in Pennsylvania was 6.7% — which was the second highest in the country.
Lancaster Online
May 19, 2023
A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute found that the large-scale introduction of electric vehicles could trigger the loss of over 250,000 jobs in automobile assembly and parts production.
These job losses could be offset by a significant strengthening of industries in the EV supply chain.
Jacobin
May 19, 2023
According to the Economic Policy Institute, in 2021 that gap was 23.5%. Teachers earned an average of 76.5 cents for every dollar that other professionals with the same level of education earned.
WKBW (Buffalo)
May 19, 2023
(Paywall). Quotes Jennifer Sherer.
Law360
May 19, 2023
NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe asks Samantha Sanders of the Economic Policy Institute how not raising the debt ceiling would affect the average American.
NPR Weekend Edition
May 19, 2023
“The best indication of the quality of the jobs out there for the blue-collar economy, if you want to call it that, is that it looks like we’re going to have a summer of strikes across the country,” Adam Hersh, a senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, told Insider.
Business Insider
May 19, 2023
A default would be felt first by Americans who receive payments either directly from the federal government or programs funded by it — like Social Security, military and veterans benefits, housing assistance and food stamps — says Samantha Sanders, the director of government affairs and advocacy at the Economic Policy Institute.
And, as she told NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, the economic effects would ripple outward from there.
People in low- and medium-income ranges could struggle to pay their bills and cut back on spending. The Treasury could delay payments, rattling financial markets and wiping out household wealth. And people could see higher rates for things like mortgages and credit card interest.
NPR Morning Edition
May 19, 2023
According to the Economic Policy Institute, about 217,000 Ohioans are victims of wage theft each year, costing each worker an average of $2,800 annually.
Spectrum News
May 19, 2023
Speaking of work requirements, more and more older Americans are being forced by economic necessity to work in dangerous jobs. According to a new report by the Economic Policy Institute, nearly half of older workers (ages 50–70) experience physically demanding jobs (50.3%), environmental hazards (54.2%), difficult schedules (53.7%), high-pressure jobs (46.1%), or limited autonomy over work decisions (45.9%). In addition, one-in-seven older workers (14.1%) are on the receiving end of abusive and violent behavior.
Counterpunch
May 19, 2023
A slight majority of Americans over the age of 50 now report having physically demanding jobs, meaning they feel their work is either physically taxing, stress-inducing or outright dangerous.
In fact, according to a major new analysis and accompanying chart book published by the Economic Policy Institute, some 50.3% of older workers say they have physically demanding jobs, while an even larger majority (54.2%) of older workers report being exposed to unhealthy or hazardous conditions at work.
Think Advisor
May 19, 2023
Then there was the report from the Economic Policy Institute which revealed workers at Kroger and Albertsons, and other grocery stores, could lose a total of over $330 million annually if the deal goes through.
Kroger immediately dismissed the claim, stating the following in a email to Supermarket News:
Supermarket News
May 19, 2023
Also, the nonprofit organization Economic Policy Institute spoke out against the merger and said workers stand to lose more than a combined $300million a year if the deal goes through.
It would lower wages for 746,000 grocery employees, according to the research.
The U.S. Sun
May 19, 2023
A report from the Economic Policy Institute reveals the deal could lead to lower grocery store employee wages.
The report finds the merger could lower wages for over 746,000 grocery store workers in about 50 cities across the country. The total annual loss of wages would be $334 million or an average loss of about $450 per year in wages for workers.
Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, attributes the loss to the increasing trend of concentration among grocery store chains. This trend has led to a decrease in competition, which has allowed grocery store chains to raise prices and reduce wages.
“They will have fewer options. They have or will have less leverage in negotiating, better pay, better working conditions and so forth,” Zipperer said. “And so what that means is that wages tend to get depressed in those kinds of markets where there’s a lot of employer concentration.”
WYSO
May 19, 2023
But farmworkers earn “far less than even some of the lowest-paid workers in the U.S. labor force,” according to the Economic Policy Institute. And the overwhelming majority of farm laborers in the United States are Latine, while more than 40% are undocumented.
YES! Magazine
May 19, 2023
What is feminist economics? A lot of people listening to this show, I think, probably don’t even know that such a discipline or subdiscipline exists. I didn’t know until a few years ago, but I started reading about it and started reading some of Nancy’s work and what she has to say is interesting to me because it fits into this broader category of talking about a new economic paradigm and changes in the economic profession that we have discussed on this show with other guests like Brian Deese, like Heidi Shierholz of Economic Policy Institute. And I think feminist economics in the way it challenges those neoclassical assumptions is an important part of this puzzle.
New Republic
May 18, 2023
“Millions of people are entering their retirement years with insufficient savings to cover basic expenses and medical bills,” the new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) notes. “In response, some policymakers have proposed that older Americans could delay retirement to increase their savings.”
But this ostensible fix “overlooks the large group of older Americans who work in difficult conditions—ranging from the physically demanding to the outright dangerous,” EPI points out. “If older Americans endure difficult conditions that often force earlier exits from the workplace, proposals to delay retirement make little sense.”
Common Dreams
May 18, 2023
The Bureau of Labor Statistics identified three main culprits behind inflation since 2020 — energy price volatility, backlogs resulting from supply-chain issues, and price changes in auto-related industries. Separate pieces of research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute have shown that increased corporate profits have also been contributing to inflation.
Investment News
May 18, 2023
Thus far, most of the regulatory scrutiny has focused on the possibility that reduced competition would mean higher grocery prices for shoppers. But a report released this month by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reveals that the deal could have a major impact on the wages of grocery store workers. According to the EPI report, the proposed merger would “reduce the number of outside employment options available to workers, lowering grocery store workers’ annual wages by a total of $334 million.” That works out to about $450 less annually per worker, which is a significant reduction for a workforce already hovering at or below the poverty line.
Popular Information
May 17, 2023
Thanks to inflation and congressional inaction, the minimum wage now has less purchasing power than any point in time since 1956, according to the Economic Policy Institute. When Congress fails to raise the federal minimum wage despite skyrocketing costs of living, the job falls on state and local governments. At least 30 states and 50 cities and counties have raised the minimum wage past $7.25.
Truthout
May 17, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute, a research group, said the difference between teacher pay and pay for college-educated people in other professions reached a record 23.5 percent in 2021.
Voice of America
May 17, 2023
Now, none of them is saying the Federal Reserve has achieved that elusive soft landing in its effort to balance interest rate increases with economic growth. But Shierholz at the Economic Policy Institute said so far, that does seem to be where we’re headed.
“We see inflation coming down and unemployment not yet going up,” she said.
Marketplace
May 12, 2023
The number of kids employed in direct violation of existing child labor laws, analysts at the Economic Policy Institute this past March reported, has soared 283 percent since 2015 — and 37 percent in just the last year alone. Last week brought the alarming news that three Kentucky-based McDonald’s franchises had kids as young as 10 working at 62 stores in four different states. Some of these under-working age children were working as late as 2 a.m.
Inequality.org
May 12, 2023
“I think that this recovery was tremendous compared to any recovery in recent history because of the scale of the investments that were made by policymakers,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, pointing to the child tax credit as one example that helped fuel the strong recovery. “So I think the incredible bounceback that we saw in employment and wage growth was driven directly from, in large part, to the kinds of investments that policymakers made in things like shoring up the unemployment insurance system, making that stronger, making it a better safety net for many workers.”
States Newsroom
May 12, 2023