EPI in the news

• D.C.’s War Over Restaurant Tips Will Soon Go National

   

  “There has been absolutely no change in tipping practice, to the best of my knowledge, in any of the states that have no tipped minimum wages,” says David Cooper, senior economic analyst for the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that favors 77. “Think about it: When folks cross the border from Arizona to California to go out to eat, do you think that they are aware of the difference in the state’s tipped wage policy and change their tipping behavior? I doubt it.” (Dave and EPI cited throughout)

  City Lab | June 15, 2018
• To Pay Minimum Wage or Not? Debate Over Tipped Workers Heads to D.C.

   

  According to research from the Economic Policy Institute, tipped employees in states that use the tip credit are twice as likely to live in poverty compared with workers in the seven states where that credit has been abolished.

  Governing | June 15, 2018
• Boeing workers in S.C. have unionized, but Trump’s labor board could abolish it

   

  In December 2017, Trump’s NLRB reversed the decision when ruling that a group of 100 welders at an Oregon company can’t legally organize without the participation of the other employees. “[Corporations] simply want to make it easier for employers to defeat an organizing campaign, by manipulating who is in a bargaining unit,” wrote the Economic Policy Institute’s Associate labor counsel Marni von Wilpert at the time. “By overturning this rule, the Trump administration has once again shown that it wants to make it harder for workers to organize and join unions.” This May, an NLRB regional director in Seattle ruled that the welders can establish a union after all, despite the Specialty Healthcare reversal.

  Salon | June 15, 2018
• California dads rank near bottom in social and economic well-being, median income, report says

   

  California ranked a dismal 49th in social and economic well-being and in median family income in this year’s report. It also has one of the highest unemployment rates (4.31 percent) among dads with children ages 17 and younger, and it ranked 43rd in the category of lowest childcare costs. Recent figures from the Economic Policy Institute reveal that, despite the state’s overall economic recovery, things are still tight for many residents in Southern California. A family of two adults and two children in L.A. County, for example, needs to earn $92,295 a year to meet all of its living expenses, according to the institute’s Family Budget Calculator. That far outstrips the county’s median family income of $66,203 per year.

  The Mercury News | June 13, 2018
• Wage Wars

   

  Subcontractors often fold to avoid wage theft claims, and typically neither the subcontractor nor the contractor is held accountable, according to Marni von Wilpert, an analyst with the Economic Policy Institute. “What happens so often is the bigger company is off the hook,” she said. “The smaller companies committing the violations, which are kind of fly-by-night, are much harder to track down.” … Texas has a wage theft problem. In 2017, analyzing just one form of wage theft, the Economic Policy Institute found that around 11 percent of low-income Texans are effectively paid less than minimum wage — a collective theft of almost $1.2 billion a year. Texas is also unique among the country’s five most populous states in requiring employers to pay only the federal minimum of $7.25, so when the Lone Star State’s poorest workers are robbed, it hurts them more than a poor Californian or New Yorker. (EPI chart included)

  The Texas Observer | June 13, 2018
• Summer Set to Start, Minimum Wages Set to Rise

   

  The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009, but state and local governments have enacted higher wage floors in recent years. Typically, they include specific annual raises for the first few years and then increases annually in amounts tied to inflation. “2013 is really when the current wave started,” David Cooper, a senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “There were already seven states that had automatic adjustments for inflation, primarily on the west coast.” Cooper’s organization general supports minimum wage hikes.

  Bloomberg BNA | June 13, 2018
• D.C. servers and bartenders say the tipped wage system isn’t working for them

   

  Many places have already gotten rid of the subminimum wage for tipped workers, including California, Minnesota, Hawaii, Montana, Oregon, Alaska, Washington, and Nevada, and a number of cities. According to the Economic Policy Institute, poverty rates for servers and bartenders are much lower in states that don’t allow a subminimum wage.

  Think Progress | June 13, 2018

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