Voters turned out for economic justice: A review of key ballot measures from the 2022 midterm elections
In this year’s midterm elections, voters showed a strong level of support for progressive ballot measures across the country. These victories were tempered by the defeat of worthwhile ballot measures in some states and the uncertainty of progress under a divided Congress. Nonetheless, voters across the country approved minimum wage increases, protected access to abortion, supported cannabis legalization, and approved measures to increase housing affordability and promote good union jobs.
Though much work remains to be done to enact a progressive economic agenda, this midterm election showed clear signs of support for a policy agenda that prioritizes economic, racial, and gender justice for working families.
Minimum wage
Nebraska: Voters approved Initiative 433, which will increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 by 2026.
Nevada: Voters approved Question 2, which will increase the state’s minimum wage to $12 in July 2024. The measure also removed a provision that allows employers to pay workers $1 less if they offer health insurance.
Labor market showed more signs of cooling in October: Wage growth continues to decelerate
Below, EPI economists offer their initial insights on the jobs report released this morning, which showed 261,000 jobs added in October.
From EPI senior economist, Elise Gould (@eliselgould):
Read the full Twitter thread here.
In October, there were notable gains in Education and health services, Profession and business services, and Leisure and hospitality. And, finally, finally!, some signs of life in public sector employment. pic.twitter.com/Z7uVFVP55D
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) November 4, 2022
Moving beyond fake education debates to focus on student success: Time to deal with lagging teacher pay, shortages, and rising stress among students and teachers
There are a great deal of systemic issues plaguing the public education system today that require systemic solutions. To do so, the nation needs to move beyond fake education debates and find ways to address the teacher pay gap, one cause of worsening shortages in education, and the growing stress among students and teachers, which has only been exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic.
That was the consensus among a recent gathering of parent and educator experts, focused on what matters most for student success this school year and into the future.
A recent Economic Policy Institute (EPI) webinar featured Becky Pringle, President, National Education Association; Randi Weingarten, President, the American Federation of Teachers; Ailen Arreaza, Co-Director, ParentsTogether; and Heidi Shierholz, President, EPI. During the virtual discussion, they focused on how we can come together to ensure student success in the classroom and beyond.
Below we include excerpts of their perspectives, including solutions that will drive student success. (You can also view the full webinar here.)
Heidi Shierholz
“How much less do teachers make than their peers? That pay penalty was large in 1979 at 7.1%, but it more than tripled to 23.5% over the following four-plus decades. So young people who may have gone into teaching knowing they would make just 7% less than their peers may understandably be unlikely to go into teaching when they know they will make 23.5% less than their peers.
“This problem is poised to get worse if nothing is changed. There’s been a large drop in the number of people completing teacher preparation programs over the last 15 years.
“What can be done?
- Most immediately, COVID relief and federal relief and recovery funds, which include a substantial amount of aid to states and localities, can and should be used to raise pay for teachers and other education staff so that schools can attract and retain the staff that they need.
- In the longer run, we need to change school funding so that, among other things, teachers and other education staff can be paid fairly.
- Public-sector collective bargaining should be expanded in places where it’s restricted. Unions help bolster job quality for teachers and advocate for adequate school resources so teachers can teach effectively.”
Becky Pringle
“When we talk about a 24% wage gap for teachers, it’s gotten worse but it’s not new. So, as we think about the why, you know the systemic issues around the why, the fact that this is a predominantly overly super majority female profession, we can’t ignore that.
“When we think about the rising costs of higher education and the fact that we’re asking our young people to choose a profession that already has a wage gap and saddle them with all kinds of debt, especially for our Black and brown and indigenous students of color who we know don’t have that generational wealth that would allow them to choose teaching and stay in teaching.
“It’s not one issue with one solution. There are things that we can take steps on right away, but we’ve got to do it from a systemic place and we have to acknowledge that it is our shared responsibility, to make sure when we say every student is excelling, and everyone knows it; every educator is excelling, and everyone knows it; every school is excelling, and everyone knows it.
“That’s the story I would want them to tell so that we work toward those solutions. We know it has to be systemic, and it has to be sustained, and we have to collaborate to do it.”
Randi Weingarten
“There’s a whole bunch of investment things that can be done, but at the root what we need to do right now is reestablish relationships, confidence, and a sense of joy; and I don’t mean going back to a status quo. I mean a sense that people can work together, play together, learn together, want to be in school together, trying to create that hope that is the antidote to anxiety, that hope and transparency, which is the antidote to anxiety and to trauma.
“That’s why we have a mental health crisis right now. We had one before COVID, but the isolation exacerbated it. That’s why really being intentional about relationship building is really important.
“I’ll give you an example of one of the things we’re doing in Medina, Ohio. It’s simple but it’s pretty awesome. A teacher came up with this idea where she has had her students, 7th and 8th graders, read inspirational books. Some of them were about faith, and some of them were about other things. The adult reads the same book, the kids read the same book. They talked to each other.
“What’s happening now is that it has rippled through this whole Medina School District, a rural and pretty conservative school district. They are really doing all the social emotional work. As others are saying, ‘we don’t want teachers to talk to each other or talk to kids about emotional work,’ here you have this really conservative school district where they’re doing it.”
Ailen Arreaza
“When it comes to schools, parents are really concerned about adequate funding, and they’re concerned about safety and security in schools.
“You’ll notice that I didn’t say anything about banning books or censoring what teachers are talking about in the classroom. That’s really not what parents care about. We think that is a strategy that is being used to try to divide and distract parents at a time when parents are feeling really stressed and anxious.
“It’s been two years of COVID, closed schools, and economic insecurity. So these made-up controversies about book bans and censoring history are just a ploy to try to get us distracted from the things that really matter.
“What parents are telling us that they’re feeling anxious about is how to provide for their families. The solutions that they need are things like expanding the child tax credit, for example, and adequately funding schools, and having their kids feel safe in schools.”
Job openings increased in September, partially offsetting the sharp drop in August
Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her initial insights on today’s release of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for September. Read the full Twitter thread here.
Hires decreased in September, with notable declines in manufacturing as well as public sector state and local employment.
Separations also edged down, primarily due to a drop in layoffs and discharges. Quits were little changed, falling mildly in September. pic.twitter.com/PdraWeN6J9
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) November 1, 2022
While the quits rate held steady in September as the hires rate dropped slightly, hiring continues to outpace quits in every major sector as workers seek and find new jobs. pic.twitter.com/U0sEI6hayV
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) November 1, 2022
“Recent data have been encouraging that a soft landing is possible,” writes @joshbivens_DC https://t.co/xBZjLo3M6Z. Policymakers need to pay attention to the substantial disinflation already in the pipeline that will allow inflation to normalize (even in a strong labor market).
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) November 1, 2022
Recent data indicate that a “soft landing” is still in reach—the Fed should try to secure it: Ignoring disinflation signs heightens risk of recession
Last week’s release of data on gross domestic product (GDP) and employer costs are sending a message to the Fed as it meets to set interest rates: There is substantial disinflation in the pipeline that will allow inflation to normalize in coming months even if the labor market remains strong. But securing this “soft landing” will require patience.
- In the most important markets for normalizing inflation, the housing and labor markets, there are signs of noticeable disinflation happening.
- Further, the Fed has not been the only source of macroeconomic policy tightening this year—the fiscal contraction in 2022 has been highly significant and underappreciated. This contraction has, in turn, contributed to the very slow pace of demand growth over the past year.
- Combined, these facts give the Fed some breathing room to slow the pace of rate hikes, even if these disinflationary trends have yet to show up in the consumer price index (CPI). In short, the “soft landing,” wherein inflation normalizes without sabotaging today’s strong labor market, is still possible and the Fed should try hard to secure it.
Victory on overtime for New York farmworkers
After a long and hard struggle, farmworkers in New York State recently won the right to overtime pay after a 40-hour workweek. There is still, however, a long path to economic fairness for these critically important workers.
Without a doubt, the overtime pay increase is a substantial victory that was a long time coming. Once fully phased in, it will give farm laborers a raise of $34 to $95 per week.
Overtime pay will also nudge farm owners onto the economic high road, as Immigration Research Initiative and Economic Policy Institute have argued. By raising wages, it will reduce turnover and save significantly on recruiting and training costs. Where farm owners have the option, it will also nudge them toward more effective use of work time and investments in equipment that increase productivity, making farming in New York more sustainable in the long run.
Not So Free to Contract: The Law, Philosophy, and Economics of Unequal Workplace Power
Note: This blog is cross-posted to the Law and Political Economy blog.
Running through the fields of employment law, philosophy, political science, and economics is the pervasive assumption that employers and employees share equal power. This assumption, which distorts employment law so as to undercut worker protections, contradicts common sense, and evidence as well as any reasonable interpretation of recent history. Despite notable gains in worker power over the past two years, the erosion of worker power and the suppression of wages during the preceding four decades is well–documented. Substantial evidence shows that employer power is pervasive, especially relative to those without college degrees, minorities, and women—in other words, the vast majority of workers.
This blog post draws upon and serves to introduce a new issue of the Journal of Law and Political Economy, which aims to elaborate the role that the equal-power assumption plays in employment law and policy, and to provide new social science evidence challenging that assumption. The essays contained in this issue, as I describe below, demonstrate that the power to quit does not prevent worker exploitation and that the circumstances that inhibit workers from quitting contribute to substantial, systematic employer power over wages and working conditions. They also show that restricting the power of management—through minimum wage policies, collective bargaining, and codetermination—benefits workers without causing adverse economic outcomes for firms or the economy, contrary to oft-made claims made by jurists.
Labor market strong, but cooling in September: Public-sector employment continues to falter
Below, EPI economists offer their initial insights on the jobs report released this morning, which showed 263,000 jobs added in September.
From EPI senior economist, Elise Gould (@eliselgould):
Read the full Twitter thread here.
The unemployment rate fell to 3.5% in September, back to where it was in July, mostly for the “wrong” reasons as labor force participation declined. Two-thirds of the decline in the unemployment rate was due to the drop in the labor force and one-third from increased employment. pic.twitter.com/snor6FSdKK
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) October 7, 2022
The private sector keeps chugging along while the public sector is faltering. With the September increase, private sector employment is now 0.9% above pre-pandemic levels while state and local jobs remain stubbornly 3.0% below its Feb 2020 level with little recent improvement. pic.twitter.com/txEIaCI29i
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) October 7, 2022
After a troubling rise last month in Black unemployment accompanied by falling labor force and employment the last three months, Black unemployment fell back to 5.8% alongside increasing employment and participation.
Note: volatile series but hopefully a reversal in trend. pic.twitter.com/r1rsTAvWHq
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) October 7, 2022
The fall in Black unemployment and rise in participation in September was experienced by both Black men and Black women. Again, huge disclaimer on data volatility for smaller demographic groups. pic.twitter.com/8Ol83CHmwt
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) October 7, 2022
From EPI president, Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz):
Read the full Twitter thread here.
The unemployment rate dropped to 3.5% in September, but mostly *not* for good reasons—the share of the working age population with a job held steady, while labor force participation dropped. (Though make no mistake, 3.5% unemployment is extremely low.) 2/
— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) October 7, 2022
We’re clearly starting to see the effects of the Fed’s rate hikes, but the labor market is still extremely strong. However, it takes a while for higher interest rates to have a big impact and there’s a huge concern the Fed has overshot and secured a recession in coming months. 4/
— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) October 7, 2022
One thing: there is still a giant gap in state and local govt jobs—they are down 600,000 since Feb ‘20, with over half of that, 317,000, in education. It’s crucial that state and local govts use their ARPA funds to raise pay and refill those jobs. 6/
— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) October 7, 2022
The overall numbers mask big disparities for different groups. Due to the impact of structural racism on the labor market, people of color have much higher unemp rates than white workers. For example, the unemp rate is currently 5.8% for Black workers, 3.1% for white workers. 8/
— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) October 7, 2022
And that’s because, unlike with the Great Recession, Congress did what was needed to spur a robust recovery this time around (namely, CARES and ARPA). And no, those relief and recovery packages are not to blame for inflation. 10/ https://t.co/80YTugXRdp
— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) October 7, 2022
Excellent thread on today’s jobs numbers https://t.co/R7pzfACYUG
— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) October 7, 2022
What to Watch on Jobs Day: Signs of life in stalled public-sector employment?
Over the last few months, we’ve seen signs of labor market cooling (though from a very strong base): the historic decline in job openings in August; moderating wage growth; and employment losses in interest-rate-sensitive jobs.
Private-sector employment rebounded fantastically following the pandemic recession because Congress made fiscal investments at the scale of the problem, and employment in the private sector exceeded pre-pandemic levels by July 2022. While the recovery continues to chug along, with rising labor force participation and prime-age employment-to-population ratio approaching pre-pandemic levels, the one sector that has failed to recover and has actually stalled for much of this year is state and local government employment.
In a year of tremendous legislative gains for California workers, Governor Newsom was wrong to veto a bill to protect 300,000 migrant workers
California’s Governor Gavin Newsom deserves credit and praise for signing into law a number of bills that will improve the lives of workers over the past few weeks. He signed legislation that will expand paid family leave, improve wages and working conditions in the fast food industry, and protect the right to organize for California’s farmworkers. Unfortunately, however, Gov. Newsom vetoed AB 364, a bill that would protect 300,000 temporary migrant workers.
Last month, I published an analysis of the components of AB 364 and its positive impact if it became law, including creating a system of transparency and accountability to prevent fraud and exploitation committed against migrant workers who are vulnerable to abuses by international labor recruiters. The abuses often include wage theft, debt bondage, and human trafficking of the migrant workers recruited to work in California through temporary work visa programs. AB 364 was introduced to combat those abuses in California, the biggest host state for migrants working with temporary visas—with a rapidly increasing population.
Below, I’ll discuss Gov. Newsom’s veto of AB 364 and critique the reasoning behind it.