EPI in the news

• Americans Love Unions. The Supreme Court’s Conservatives Are Gutting Them

  he predictions have proven prescient: Just a year after the decision, the Economic Policy Institute found that the rate of arbitration agreements, which was already on the rise before Epic Systems, had accelerated following the decision. EPI predicted that by 2024, 80 percent of non-union workers would be subjected to forced arbitration clauses. 

  Balls and Strikes | May 23, 2023
• These 19 Executives Pay Themselves More Than $150 Million a Year

  A study released last year by the Economic Policy Institute examined realized annual income, a measure that includes stock options found that CEOs at the top 350 publicly traded companies were paid $27.8 million on average in 2021, or 399 times more than a typical worker – up from 366-to-1 in 2020 and way up from 59-to-1 in 1989.

  24/7 Wall St. | May 23, 2023
• Pay continued to grow for many top waste and recycling CEOs in 2022

  The Economic Policy Institute, which tends to publish its data in the fall of each year, reviewed a broader range of 350 U.S. companies and estimated the average ratio was 399:1 in 2021. This was up from 351:1 in 2020.

  Waste Dive | May 23, 2023
• Workers’ rights groups protest restaurant industry convention at McCormick Place

  Bills to relax child labor laws were introduced in at least 10 states over the last two years, all backed by a mix of business groups, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  Chicago Sun Times | May 23, 2023
• Solving The Telecoms Labor Shortage: How Workforce Development Fills the Gap for Skilled Workers

  Research by the Economic Policy Institute found that over the course of the last four decades, the share of younger telecom workers has fallen from around 19% to 7%. 

  The Fast Mode | May 23, 2023
• The Troubling ‘Patchwork’ of U.S. Child Labor Laws

  In the last few decades, labor educators like Jennifer Sherer have analyzed child labor issues in other countries. Now, in her work at the Economic Policy Institute, she has been forced to refocus on domestic issues. Proposed legislation rolling back child labor laws “is an emerging and really accelerating trend,” Sherer told Future of the American Child fellows in Cleveland. “This question of how we will or whether we should regulate child labor has never been settled.”

  National Press Foundation | May 23, 2023
• Food Prices Are Still High. What Role Do Corporate Profits Play?

  Right now, the price of food doesn’t reflect any of those factors. In fact, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, corporate profits accounted for 54 percent of food price increases between 2020 and 2021. For the four decades prior, only 11 percent was attributed to corporate profits, the rest to the cost of labor.

  Civil Eats | May 23, 2023

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