EPI in the news

• Is a higher minimum wage worth job losses?

   

  While the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour has remained unchanged since 2009, 21 states have changed their minimum wage laws since January 2014, according to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, 41 localities have adopted minimum wages above their state minimum wage. The biggest argument against increasing the minimum wage is that it will hurt the economy and result in fewer jobs. But according to a new EPI paper, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of minimum wage hikes should focus on costs and benefits for low-wage employees, not job loss. (whole story)

  MultiBriefs | April 20, 2018
• Trump blows asylum deal

  RETHINKING THE WAGE FRAME: When people evaluate minimum wage increases, they should take the benefits of raising the earnings of low-wage workers into account, according to a report released Wednesday by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “Focusing on job losses ignores the high degree of churn in the low-wage labor market, giving the misleading impression that a given pool of workers would lose their jobs and have no earnings over an entire year,” according to EPI. Dig through the findings here.

  Politico Pro | April 19, 2018
• Business Group Voices Opposition to Obama-Era Union Rule

   

  “The NLRB’s election system is working well under the Election Rule and should not be overturned,” Economic Policy Institute labor law director Celine McNicholas said when submitting comments to the board. “This attack on working people is unfortunately nothing new. It comes from the same corporate playbook that has worked to push anti-union legislation across the country.”

  Inside Sources | April 19, 2018
• Input Pours In Before NLRB Election Rule Comment Deadline

   

  …and their attorneys since its adoption in 2014. Others, including the Economic Policy Institute, which advocates…

  Law 360 | April 19, 2018
• Muzzled witness could testify if Assembly agrees to unusual request

   

  According to the Economic Policy Institute, more than 60 million workers in the country are barred from filing lawsuits against their employers because of binding-arbitration policies.

  San Francisco Chronicle | April 19, 2018
• We’re Talking About the Minimum Wage All Wrong

  But the entire framing around lost jobs—which centers the conversation around what would be the worst-case scenario for workers, rather than the benefit that the large majority would get from higher wages—is part of the issue. In a new report out today, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute argues that “minimum wage proposals are being evaluated as worthwhile only if researchers can prove that there will be no job loss and no negative costs of the policy for low-wage workers,” which is a standard that is “distinctly different than the conversations evaluating every other type of economic policy.” According to EPI, even the typical image of “job loss”—in which a worker who was adversely affected would have no earnings for the year—is not entirely accurate. “The more likely scenario,” the report’s authors write, “is that what is lost are job hours, and that these lost hours are spread among the affected workers, who work a little less but earn more per year.”

  Splinter News | April 18, 2018
• The Conference Room Is Replacing the Courtroom

  ns of a mounting mandatory arbitration problem, but the picture wasn’t exactly clear. In 1995 the Government Accountability Office found that 7.6 percent of employers required employees to give up their rights to sue in a public court, making it a disturbing but not particularly widespread trend. In 2003, Colvin conducted a limited surveyof the telecommunications industry and found that 14.1 percent of employers required the contracts, indicating the numbers were growing. It was unclear how bad the problem had gotten until Colvin’s new study, which he discussed at an Economic Policy Institute (EPI) panel last week. His research determined that 53.9 percent of private-sector business establishments impose mandatory arbitration on their employees. The majority of nonunion, private-sector employers are working under mandatory arbitration clauses, 40 percent of which were imposed in just the last five years. Ceilidh Gao, an attorney at the National Employment Law Project, joined Colvin on the EPI panel to explain what this looks like for workers on the ground. The upshot is that the conference room has replaced the courtroom — and of course, the conference room belongs to the company. “There’s the arbitrator, and there are the parties and their lawyers,” Gao explains. “There’s no jury, there’s no judge, and there’s no public access.” Arbitration is a private court, not a public court. (Colvin report/event cited throughout)

  Jacobin | April 18, 2018

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