EPI in the news

• H-1B visa: Bay Area tech giants fight new Trump administration rules

  Research released in May by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which was cited in the federal rule-making, suggested that “most H-1B employers … are taking advantage of a flawed H-1B prevailing wage rule to underpay their workers … resulting in major savings in labor costs for companies that use the H-1B.”

  Silicon Valley | November 5, 2020
• Corporate media reverse reality by blaming BLM protesters for everything

  From these sensationalist stories, it’s easy to lose track of the fact that the biggest thieves in the country have consistently been employers stealing from their employees’ wages. The Economic Policy Institute (9/18/14, 5/10/17) found that wage theft is a much bigger problem than all other forms of criminal property theft like burglaries, larceny and motor vehicle theft combined, with minimum wage violations alone potentially exceeding all other forms of theft put together.

  Nation of Change | November 5, 2020
• Did the Hourly Minimum Wage Go Up in Florida?

  In a report that used a simulation model developed by Economic Policy Institute, the Florida Policy Institute shared that the boost is expected to impact about 2.5 million Floridians, or more than 26% of its workforce, who work in a variety of roles including as personal care aides, janitors and waiters, as well as delivery drivers and retail store workers.

  Footwear News | November 5, 2020
• Florida voters approve $15-an-hour minimum wage

  David Cooper, senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, said states are passing these measures because lawmakers in D.C. haven’t. The House passed a similar bill last year, but it didn’t go anywhere in the Senate.

  “In the absence of federal legislation, it’s good that states are taking this up,” he said. “But I think, unfortunately, there are going to be many states that are probably not going to take up this issue unless they’re required to either by voters or by the federal government.”

  Marketplace | November 5, 2020
• Tracking Medicaid Enrollment Growth During COVID-19 Databook

  1 J. Bivens and B. Zipperer, “Health Insurance and the COVID-19 Shock,” Economic Policy Institute, August 26, 2020, available at https://files.epi.org/pdf/206003.pdf.

  JD Supra | November 5, 2020
• Trump made gains with Black voters in some states. Here’s why.

  As the Economic Policy Institute’s Valerie Wilson has explained, wages for all ethnic groups have risen since the beginning of the Great Recession; Black wages rose the least, by 6.3 percent. Those increases began before Trump was president and were driven largely by rising minimum wages at the state and local levels, as well as a more competitive labor market.

  VOX | November 5, 2020
• Prop 22 passes in California, exempting Uber and Lyft from classifying drivers as employees
  Terri Gerstein of the Harvard Labor and Worklife Program and Economic Policy Institute said in an email to CNN Business that the result will “leave thousands of California workers in a precarious and perilous position, without basic rights like workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, or the right to a safe workplace.”
  CNN | November 5, 2020

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