Job openings declined in April while layoffs hit a series low

Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her initial insights on today’s release of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for April. Read the full Twitter thread here. 

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The future of work depends on stopping Amazon’s union busting: Shareholders and policymakers must all play a role in protecting Amazon workers’ rights

This week’s Amazon shareholder meeting provides an important opportunity to consider urgent steps shareholders and policymakers can take to protect the threatened rights of unionizing Amazon workers and counter the company’s growing impact on income inequality, racial and gender disparities, and the degradation of work across the labor market.

The agenda for the May 25th annual meeting includes the election of company directors, approval of executive compensation, and several shareholder resolutions concerning Amazon’s employment practices and labor law violations. While Amazon opposes all these resolutions, shareholders should take the opportunity to reject excessive pay for Amazon’s CEO and support resolutions calling for audits of worker health and safety, racial equity and racial and gender pay gaps, employee turnover, and Amazon policies and practices affecting workers’ rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. Meanwhile, state and federal policymakers should take note of the policy priorities the resolutions suggest for ensuring that Amazon’s anti-union, high-risk, high-turnover business model isn’t allowed to dictate the future of work in the United States and across the globe.

Amazon’s use of a wide range of legal and illegal tactics to prevent workers from unionizing has been well documented. Amazon engaged in months of coercion, intimidation, vote gerrymandering, and retaliation against Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse workers in the lead-up to their 2021 union election. Aggressive company surveillance led many workers to believe the company was monitoring their secret ballot votes—an offense so egregious it led the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to order a brand-new election (the 2022 outcome of which remains too close to call).

In April, Amazon workers at the JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island overcame similar obstacles, including numerous Amazon labor law violations, to win a decisive union election victory. In response, Amazon has refused to recognize the new Amazon Labor Union, instead dragging out legal challenges and refusing to meet with workers to start bargaining a contract. A new report published last week further documents the failure of Amazon’s corporate policies and practices to meet international human rights standards for respecting workers’ rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining.

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Guest post: Food insufficiency in families with children increased after expiration of Child Tax Credit monthly payments

Amidst the continuing COVID-19 pandemic and increased inflation, 15% of households with children reported food insufficiency in March–April 2022. The reports of food insufficiency—sometimes or often not having enough food to eat in the past week—are from the nationally representative Household Pulse Survey (HPS), an internet survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Food insufficiency among families with children poses a short- and long-term moral and economic threat to the United States. Even brief disruptions in access to food can have lasting consequences. Not having enough to eat often disrupts children’s cognitive and emotional development and education. This was the case for a child who disclosed that the reason she was fidgeting and not paying attention in class was that she did not have enough food to eat. There may be lifelong ramifications of not having enough to eat in childhood, including increased likelihood of poor health outcomes and avoidable medical expenditures across the lifespan.

Fortunately, Congress can help. Several studies indicate that advance Child Tax Credit (CTC) payments, expanded under the American Rescue Plan Act, were associated with reduced poverty and food insufficiency in households with children.

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Following Dr. Lisa Cook’s historic confirmation to the Federal Reserve Board, we must acknowledge the importance of Black economists for public policy and the economy

Earlier this year, President Biden nominated two Black economists, Dr. Lisa Cook and Dr. Philip Jefferson, to serve as members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. On May 10, 2022, Dr. Cook was confirmed in a 51–50 party-line vote, which made her the first Black woman to sit on the Board in its 108-year history. The following day, Dr. Jefferson was confirmed on a 91–7 bipartisan vote, making him the fourth Black man to sit on the Board, but marking the first time two Black governors will serve simultaneously.

Despite this tremendous accomplishment, the nomination of Dr. Cook faced great scrutiny and criticism, with several Senate members questioning her qualifications and expertise despite her years of professional and academic experience in economic development, financial institutions and markets, economic history, and international relations. Sadly, this isn’t new for Black professionals, and specifically not for Black women.

Within the workplace and historically, Black women’s skills and contributions are often undermined, underappreciated, and devalued. These discriminatory roots have led to intersectional gender and racial inequities in the kinds of jobs Black women are hired for as well as the wages and benefits they receive. However, another glaring detail we can glean from the captious confirmation process of Dr. Cook—and the exclusion of Black women from the Federal Reserve Board’s panel for over a century—is how Black economists are broadly underrepresented and their essential view on racial economic inequality is often discounted.

The underrepresentation of Black scholars in the field of economics can be traced to the low numbers of Black students pursuing degrees in economics. In the academic year 2019–2020, there were more than 1,200 doctoral degrees awarded to students in economics. However, less than 2% of doctoral degrees were awarded to Black economics students overall and less than 1% were awarded to Black women. For undergraduate students, Black students overall accounted for 4.1% of bachelor’s degrees awarded in economics and Black women accounted for only 1.5%.

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Abortion rights are economic rights: Overturning Roe v. Wade would be an economic catastrophe for millions of women

A leaked draft of a majority opinion authored by Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito strongly suggests that the court will rule to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the two landmark cases that have upheld the right to an abortion nationwide for the last half century. If the final ruling largely follows what is sketched out in the leaked draft, abortion services will be drastically curtailed, if not outright banned, in over half the country.

Abortion is often framed as a “culture-war” issue, distinct from material “bread and butter” economic issues. In reality, abortion rights and economic progress are deeply interconnected, and the imminent loss of abortion rights means the loss of economic security, independence, and mobility for millions of women. The fall of Roe will be an additional economic blow, as women in the 26 states likely to ban abortion already face an economic landscape of lower wages, worker power, and access to health care.

Women’s economic lives, livelihoods, and mobility are at the heart of the reasoning to overrule Roe.

In the draft majority opinion, Justice Alito dismissed the argument in Casey that women had organized their lives, relationships, and careers with the availability of abortions services, writing “that form of reliance depends on an empirical question that is hard for anyone—and in particular, for a court—to assess, namely the effect of the abortion right on society and in particular on the lives of women.” In fact, this empirical question has been definitively assessed and answered. A rich and rigorous social science literature has examined both the detrimental effect of a denied abortion on women’s lives, as well as the individual and societal economic benefits of abortion legalization, as detailed in the thorough amicus brief filed in Dobbs on behalf of over 100 economists.

Some of the economic consequences of being denied an abortion include a higher chance of being in poverty even four years after; a lower likelihood of being employed full time; and an increase in unpaid debts and financial distress lasting years. Laws that restrict abortion providers, so-called “TRAP” laws (targeted regulation of abortion providers), have led to women in those states being less likely to move into higher-paying occupations.

On the flip side, environments in which abortion is legal and accessible have lower rates of teen first births and marriages. Abortion legalization has also been associated with reduced maternal mortality for Black women. The ability to delay having a child has been found to translate to significantly increased wages and labor earnings, especially among Black women, as well as increased likelihood of educational attainment. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen concluded that “eliminating the rights of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades.”

The draft opinion of this overtly partisan Supreme Court ignores the rigorous data and empirical studies demonstrating the significant economic consequences of this decision. In doing so, it lays bare the cruel and misogynistic politics that motivate it. Justice Alito’s dismissal of claims that forcing women to bear an unwanted pregnancy imposes a heavy burden is shockingly glib, as he simply asserts “that federal and state laws ban discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, that leave for pregnancy and childbirth are now guaranteed by law in many cases, that the costs of medical care associated with pregnancy are covered by insurance or government assistance….”

Every statement in this casual litany is wildly misleading. Women are still routinely fired for being pregnant, close to 9 in 10 workers lacked paid leave in 2020, the costs of maternity care with insurance have risen sharply and constitute a serious economic burden for even middle-income families. And many of the states certain or likely to ban abortion after the fall of Roe have not expanded Medicaid, leaving women without insurance facing much steeper costs—particularly in the immediate post-partum period. And, of course, our failed health care system often imposes the ultimate cost of all on pregnant women: The U.S. rate of maternal mortality, especially for Black women, ranks last among similarly wealthy countries. In short, the potential costs of bearing a child are high indeed, and it is women who should decide if and when they wish to shoulder them.

Figure A

States likely to ban abortion are more likely to have higher incarceration rates and lag in wages, worker rights, and access to health care

State Minimum wage Incarceration rate (per 100k) Abortion status Right to Work key Medicaid Expansion Right to Work Medicaid Expansion key  Abortion status key
Alabama $7.25 419 Pre-Roe ban or bans/extreme limits RTW No Expansion 1 1 2
Alaska $10.34 243 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
Arizona $12.80 556 Pre-Roe ban or bans/extreme limits RTW Adopted Expansion 1 0 2
Arkansas $11.00 585 Trigger ban RTW Adopted Expansion 1 0 1
California $14.00 310 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
Colorado $12.56 342 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
Connecticut $13.00 246 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
Delaware $10.50 380 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
Washington D.C. $15.20 N/A No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
Florida $10.00 444 Likely to ban RTW No Expansion 1 1 3
Georgia $7.25 507 Pre-Roe ban or bans/extreme limits RTW No Expansion 1 1 2
Hawaii $10.10 215 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
Idaho $7.25 474 Trigger ban RTW Adopted Expansion 1 0 1
Illinois $12.00 303 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
Indiana $7.25 400 Likely to ban RTW Adopted Expansion 1 0 3
Iowa $7.25 293 Pre-Roe ban or bans/extreme limits RTW Adopted Expansion 1 0 2
Kansas $7.25 342 No change RTW No Expansion 1 1 0
Kentucky $7.25 515 Trigger ban RTW Adopted Expansion 1 0 1
Louisiana $7.25 678 Trigger ban RTW Adopted Expansion 1 0 1
Maine $12.75 146 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
Maryland $12.50 305 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
Massachusetts $14.25 133 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
Michigan $9.87 381 Pre-Roe ban or bans/extreme limits RTW Adopted Expansion 1 0 2
Minnesota $10.33 177 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
Mississippi $7.25 636 Trigger ban RTW No Expansion 1 1 1
Missouri $11.15 423 Trigger ban Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 1
Montana $9.20 439 Likely to ban Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 3
Nebraska $9.00 289 Likely to ban RTW Adopted Expansion 1 0 3
Nevada $9.75 412 No change RTW Adopted Expansion 1 0 0
New Hampshire $7.25 197 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
New Jersey $13.00 209 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
New Mexico $11.50 315 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
New York $13.20 224 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
North Carolina $7.25 313 No change RTW No Expansion 1 1 0
North Dakota $7.25 231 Trigger ban RTW Adopted Expansion 1 0 1
Ohio $9.30 430 Pre-Roe ban or bans/extreme limits Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 2
Oklahoma $7.25 621 Trigger ban RTW Adopted Expansion 1 0 1
Oregon $12.75 353 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
Pennsylvania $7.25 355 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
Rhode Island $12.25 156 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
South Carolina $7.25 352 Pre-Roe ban or bans/extreme limits RTW No Expansion 1 1 2
South Dakota $9.95 426 Trigger ban RTW No Expansion 1 1 1
Tennessee $7.25 384 Trigger ban RTW No Expansion 1 1 1
Texas $7.25 529 Trigger ban RTW No Expansion 1 1 1
Utah $7.25 207 Trigger ban RTW Adopted Expansion 1 0 1
Vermont $12.55 182 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
Virginia $11.00 421 No change RTW Adopted Expansion 1 0 0
Washington $14.49 250 No change Not RTW Adopted Expansion 0 0 0
West Virginia $8.75 380 Pre-Roe ban or bans/extreme limits RTW Adopted Expansion 1 0 2
Wisconsin $7.25 378 Pre-Roe ban or bans/extreme limits RTW No Expansion 1 1 2
Wyoming $7.25 426 Trigger ban RTW No Expansion 1 1 1

Source: Elizabeth Nash and Lauren Cross, “26 States Are Certain or Likely to Ban Abortion without Roe: Here’s Which Ones and Why,” The Guttmacher Institute, October 2021; “State Minimum Wage Laws, Department of Labor, Updated January 2022; Kaiser Family Fund, “Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions,” April 26, 2022; E. Ann Carson, "Prisoners in 2020 -- Statistical Tables," U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, December 2020; "Right-to-Work States," National Conference of State Legislatures, Updated 2017.

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Recognizing that abortion is an economic issue is an important step in building support for protecting women’s right of access. But this recognition also allows us to see the potential fall of Roe v. Wade as a key piece in a broader politics and economics of control. Twenty-six states currently have laws or constitutional amendments on their books that ban abortion. If Roe is declared overruled, these bans will go into effect. Low- and middle-income women, especially Black and Brown women, will bear the brunt of the impact. Many of the states with preexisting abortion bans held at bay by Roe are also states that have created an economic policy architecture of low wages, barely functional or funded public services, at-will employment, and no paid leave or parental support. In these states, the denial of abortion services is one more piece in a sustained project of economic subjugation and disempowerment.

Figure A shows the 26 states that have “trigger bans” that will set in immediately after the SCOTUS decision, pre-Roe bans or extreme limits, and likely bans. Figure A also shows the minimum wage in that state, whether that state is a so-called “right-to-work” state that makes it harder for workers to collectively bargain and unionize, whether the state has expanded Medicaid, and the rate of incarceration per 100,000 people in that state. While wages and access to health care (through Medicaid) are relatively obvious measures of well-being, so-called “right-to-work” laws are also useful to look at as worker power and unionization also have strong connections to economic, social, and physical health. Mass incarceration and the criminal justice system are also deeply intertwined with racial and economic inequality, from the impact of a criminal record on employment and earnings, to the intergenerational effects on families and communities.

It is no coincidence that the states that will ban abortion first are also largely the states with the lowest minimum wages, states less likely to have expanded Medicaid, states more likely to be anti-union “Right-to-Work” states, and states with higher-than-average incarceration rates. For example, among the states which will ban abortion, the average minimum wage is $8.39, compared with $11.48 in the states that have abortion access. Similarly, 10 of the 26 anti-abortion states have not expanded Medicaid, and all but two of the states are anti-union “right-to-work” states. While the nationwide rate of incarceration is 419 per 100,000 people, in the 26 anti-abortion states the average incarceration rate is 439 per 100,000 people, compared with 272 for the states without abortion restrictions. The consequences of low wages and lack of access to health care, including abortion services, falls especially hard on Black women in many of these states. There is a long history of racism motivating political organization, like the rise of “right-to-work” legislation in the Jim Crow south, or the complicated combination of anti-abortion politics and backlash against desegregation efforts during the political realignment of the 1970s.

Policymakers and advocates must recognize that the fall of Roe is an economic issue and would be one more victory for the economics of control and disempowerment—low wages, little worker power, and rising disinvestment. Reproductive justice is key to economic justice and protects women’s humanity, dignity, and the right to exert freedom over their own choices in the economy.

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Ignoring the role of profits makes inflation analyses a lot weaker

Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell wrote last week that those pointing to the role of fatter profit margins in driving price inflation are engaged in “conspiracy theories,” and argued that the conspiracy theorists are distracting attention from things that could really lead to lower inflation: faster immigration and removing import tariffs. It’s a pretty unconvincing column all around.

First, the alleged inflation cures that attention is being pulled away from are really weak tea. The case for faster immigration helping to quell inflation runs through its effect on labor markets. If faster immigration increases labor supply this could in theory dampen wage growth. But wage growth has not been the source of the current inflation. And recent readings on wage growth have it roughly consistent with relatively normal rates of inflation. Putting further downward pressure on wage growth that is already lagging far behind inflation would just increase the burden of adjustment to more normal inflation that will be borne by workers.

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No more union-busting. It’s time for companies to give their workers what they deserve

This is an excerpt from an op-ed in CNN Business. Read the full op-ed here.

This year, workers at Amazon, Starbucks and other major corporations are winning a wave of union elections, often in the face of long odds and employer resistance. These wins are showing it’s possible for determined groups of workers to break through powerful employers’ use of union-busting tactics, ranging from alleged retaliatory firings to alleged surveillance and forced attendance at anti-union “captive audience meetings.” But workers should not have to confront so many obstacles to exercising a guaranteed legal right to unionize and bargain for improvements in their work lives and livelihoods.

There are good reasons to believe workers’ organizing momentum will continue (union election filings are already up 57% during the first six months of this fiscal year). Frontline workers are asserting their worth after more than two years of risking their health during an ongoing pandemic while watching corporate profits and CEO pay continue to soar.

The U.S. tax code functionally rewards corporations who use anti-union consultants: Congress must take action

The U.S. tax system is deeply flawed. While millions of working-class Americans pay their fair share, corporations are dodging more and more of their tax responsibilities. Despite record profits, corporate taxes are way down, as corporations exploit loopholes that allow for offshore profit-shifting and various tax breaks and deductions. Specifically, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) decreased the statutory corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21% and simultaneously introduced new tax loopholes. Consequently, the TCJA has slashed the effective tax rate for corporations almost in half, further damaging the progressivity of the overall federal tax system. In turn, this erosion of corporate liability and the proliferation of tax avoidance have exacerbated inequality, with the working class facing starved social services, reduced household incomes, and lower standards of living.

One proven tool to combat this rise in inequality is unions. By bringing workers’ collective power to the bargaining table, unions are able to win better wages and benefits for working people—reducing income inequality as a result. Yet data show that U.S. employers are willing to use a wide range of legal and illegal tactics to frustrate the rights of workers to form unions and collectively bargain. And much like our overall tax system favors corporations over working people, the tax code functionally rewards corporations for anti-union activities that suppress worker power.

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Wage growth has been dampening inflation all along—and has slowed even more recently

Yesterday’s inflation data for April 2022 was a mixed bag but had some encouraging seeds in it. Measured year-over-year, overall and core inflation (inflation minus the influence of volatile food and energy prices) both ticked down slightly. Measured just over the past month, the overall index decelerated significantly, but the core index rose back up to the level it had plateaued at in the five months before March. This post is about why wage trends—both throughout the inflationary burst and in very recent months—should make us even a bit more encouraged that inflation can be brought back under control without the Federal Reserve having to move interest rates to a radically more contractionary stance. 

There has been a lot of discussion—and confusion—recently about the role of tight labor markets (“the Great Resignation”) in the rise of inflation we’ve seen since early 2021. In this post, we make the following points about the wage/price relationship:

  • To date, the rise of inflation has unambiguously not been driven by tight labor markets pushing up wages.
  • Nominal wage growth has been fast over the past year relative to the past few decades, but it has lagged far behind inflation, meaning that labor costs are dampening—not amplifying—price pressures. Last week’s jobs report showed that average hourly earnings growth over the last quarter was 4.4% (at an annualized rate), with wage growth actually slowing in the last three months to under 4%.
  • If the only change in the economy over the past year had been the acceleration of nominal wage growth relative to the recent past, then inflation would be roughly 2.5–4.5% today, instead of the 8.6% pace it ran through March. In short, nonwage factors are clearly the main drivers of inflation.
  • Claims that the Federal Reserve needs to shift into a much more hawkish mode to keep wages from amplifying inflation and to bring inflation back down to more normal levels are often greatly overstated and understate how much damage this strategy could cause.
    • As long as wage growth is dampening inflation (and it is), then the question of how hawkish the Fed must be is not a question of whether inflation will return to more normal levels, but just how quickly we want that happen.
    • A much quicker return to more normal inflation would require sacrificing important gains that stem from low unemployment, even though a return to more normal inflation is quite likely to occur on its own. This makes the cost of a more hawkish stance (more joblessness) high and the benefits (a few months of slightly lower inflation as we get back to normal) pretty low.

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Strong and equitable unemployment insurance systems require broadening the UI tax base

The COVID-19 pandemic showed how critical unemployment insurance (UI) is for sustaining workers and the economy during times of crisis, while also revealing deep fissures and inequities in UI systems. Federal programs that expanded UI eligibility, benefit levels, and benefit duration kept local economies afloat and became a lifeline for millions during the early stages of the pandemic, but the crush of UI claims at peak levels of unemployment also exposed the poor condition of state UI systems. From backlogs and delays caused by insufficient administrative capacity and outdated technology to inadequate benefit amounts, many state UI systems operate in a chronic state of underfunding that results in inequity and dysfunction.

One of the root causes of these problems is rarely discussed: Lawmakers have structured state UI financing in a way that permanently starves the UI system. UI is currently funded through a combination of federal and state taxes paid by employers, where state UI taxes pay for benefits during normal economic times. However, in most states, the amount of employee wages on which employers pay state UI taxes, i.e., the taxable wage base (TWB), is extremely low. At present, 14 states and Washington, D.C. have taxable wage bases below $10,000 and a remarkable 36 states have their bases set below $25,000. This means that in 71% of states, employers pay UI taxes at most on the first $25,000 of an employee’s annual earnings.

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