There will also be data from the Labor Department, starting with the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, also known as JOLTS.
Elise Gould, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, is interested in the “turnover” part.
“The kind of churn that we’ve been seeing in the labor market as people have quit their jobs in search of better ones.” She’ll also be checking whether layoffs are extending beyond the tech sector.
Marketplace
December 1, 2022
Stephanie Kelton: Daniel Costa is an attorney and the Director of Immigration Law and Policy Research at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank based in Washington DC.
Daniel Costa: An employer can seek out a worker from abroad using permanent residence, so essentially apply for a worker who would come in with lawful permanent residence status, most commonly referred to as a Green Card. Workers arrive almost with all the same rights as a US citizen and are on their way to becoming a US citizen.
MarketWatch
December 1, 2022
Under these circumstances of COVID-lockdown and war-related supply shortages, corporations in turn seized the opportunity to mark up their prices and pad their profits margins. Focusing on the U.S. economy, the Financial Times reported on November 28 that, “Margins of retailers and wholesalers have exploded in the past two years. The basic story here is that a combination of broken supply chains, rising input costs, and high demand created pricing power for producers, who raised mark-ups. Those mark-ups … are fueling inflation.” The economist Josh Bivens at the Economic Policy Institute has confirmed this pattern for the U.S., calculating that 54 percent of the price increases for corporations has been due to rising profit margins.
Truthout
December 1, 2022
Joelle Gamble is the current chief economist at the US Department of Labor; Heidi Shierholz (now the president of the Economic Policy Institute) was its chief economist between 2014 and 2017.
Together, they talk with Felicia and Michael about how the shifts in economic policy thinking over the last decade helped produce today’s record-breaking recovery.
Roosevelt Institute
December 1, 2022
The fact that this figure hasn’t changed since 2009 (in spite of record-high inflation) caused wages to reach their lowest real value (when accounting for inflation) in 66 years, according to the Economic Policy Institute. But, per the investigation, Krispy Kreme failed to meet this less-than-$11 compensation for 516 employees working overtime. (Yikes.)
Tasting Table
November 23, 2022
The number of quits has now exceeded the pre-pandemic high for 19 consecutive months, as more than 4 million Americans voluntarily left their jobs in 17 of the past 19 months. Meanwhile employers, especially in low-wage sectors, are still struggling to fill open positions. The reasons for this trend are of course manifold, but one major driver appears to be that many workers are no longer willing to put up with the pay and/or working conditions they (perhaps grudgingly) accepted prior to the pandemic. “I certainly think that the pandemic has led many people to reevaluate their work and their priorities and what they want to do,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute said in a statement to Business Insider.
World Economic Forum
November 23, 2022
According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), “many voices in this debate have implicitly or explicitly argued that recession and inflation cause equivalent damage, or that inflation actually causes worse damage than recession. This view is clearly wrong — the economic damage wrought by recessions is far greater than that by single-digit inflation rates. Inflation, on the other hand, is pure redistribution in the short run, but does not directly reduce incomes in the aggregate.”
Monroe News
November 23, 2022
According to Economic Policy Institute, or EPI, a number of factors have contributed to staffing issues in schools around the country for teachers, paraprofessionals, substitutes, bus drivers, food service and custodial workers. One larger contributing factor is pay for those in public K-12 professions, with EPI reporting, “…school teachers are paid 19.2% less than similar workers in other occupations.”
Jefferson Star
November 23, 2022
Residents of Michigan should welcome such a repeal because right-to-work laws hurt workers. According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, workers’ wages in right-to-work states are 3.1 percent lower than in non-right-to-work states, after adjusting for differences in the cost of living. Put another way: a worker’s wages are, on average, some $1,600 lower per year.
Detroit Free Press
November 23, 2022
According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, the high-road scenario for cannabis legalization offers the industry an opportunity to be a model of good jobs. Through unionization, the report outlines how existing unionized cannabis businesses are benefiting from a formalized workers’ voice.
Forbes
November 23, 2022
The other concern offered by opponents to the minimum wage increase is that it is inflationary, and we are already having a problem with inflation. Open Sky cites research from the Economic Policy Institute, showing that raising the minimum wage to $15 over five years would increase overall price levels by less than 0.1% per year.
Star-Herald
November 23, 2022
Features Heidi discussing what sweeping tech layoffs mean for the economy.
Today Show
November 23, 2022
It’s things like this—the decades-long trend of companies shifting the finances of retirement off their balance sheets and onto the backs of their workers—that mean millions have to keep working whether they’d like to or not. However, notes a sweeping report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, “many face barriers to working longer and lack access to decent jobs with decent pay. Older workers who cannot afford to retire often face diminishing job quality and earnings as a result of loss of bargaining power.”
MarketWatch
November 23, 2022
The Fed policies increase “the cost of a home loan mainly through increasing the monthly payment that a family will have to pay, which is just exacerbating an affordability crisis that we’ve already had,” Kyle Moore, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy, told theGrio.
The Grio
November 23, 2022
The fact that this figure hasn’t changed since 2009 (in spite of record-high inflation) caused wages to reach their lowest real value (when accounting for inflation) in 66 years, according to the Economic Policy Institute. But, per the investigation, Krispy Kreme failed to meet this less-than-$11 compensation for 516 employees working overtime. (Yikes.)
Tasting Table
November 23, 2022
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.
Common Dreams
November 18, 2022
That brings me to the city’s 20,000-unit housing shortage. As landlords chase those higher returns, “the Airbnb effect” on the local market — as studied by the non-partisan U.S. think tank Economic Policy Institute — creates more costs than benefits.
“The costs to local renters and local jurisdictions likely exceed the benefits to travelers and property owners,” the 2019 report found.
Dallas Morning News
November 18, 2022
The Wall Street Journal hosted a panel discussion that featured two advocates who favor expanding the H-1B program and one critic who urges major reforms. The advocates, David Bier, the Cato Institute’s immigration studies associate director, and Theresa Cardinal Brown, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s managing director of immigration and cross-border policy, argued that the H-1B visa cap should be increased and that their labor market presence makes America a more prosperous place.
The critic, Dr. Ron Hira, Howard University, political science associate professor and Economic Policy Institute research associate, countered that the rigged H-1B system is a transfer-of-wealth scam that makes the employers wealthy winners, and the workers, low-wage losers. Dr. Hira added that employers aren’t required to prove that a U.S. worker shortage exists before hiring an H-1B, that H-1B workers’ wages are set too low, and that the compliance system doesn’t hold employers accountable. “Guest-worker programs are supposed to fill domestic labor shortages. The H-1B program does not fill shortages,” Dr. Hira said.
Highland County Press
November 18, 2022
“The 2022 midterms prove that Democrats can beat Republican extremism by fighting for working people and making our democratic values clear,” Warren (D-Mass.) said at EconCon Presents, a meeting co-hosted by Demos Action, Economic Policy Institute Action, Economic Security Project Action, Groundwork Action, Omidyar Network, and Roosevelt Forward.
Common Dreams
November 18, 2022
But the reduction in supply was met with increased demand as Americans started purchasing durable goods to replace the services they used prior to the pandemic, said Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute. “The pandemic put distortions on both the demand and supply side of the US economy,” Bivens said.
CNET
November 18, 2022
In deep red Nebraska, they won a state minimum wage hike to $15 an hour by 2026, up from the current $9 an hour. The National Employment Law Project and the Economic Policy Institute estimate this action will benefit about 150,000 Nebraskans.
Inequality.org
November 18, 2022
Massachusetts voters passed a “millionaires tax” at the ballot box on Election Day in an apparent reaction to the state’s growing income disparities. The Economic Policy Institute ranks the state as the sixth-worst in the country when it comes to income inequality.
Maine Beacon
November 18, 2022
Visa workers must be paid a prevailing wage, which has four tiers. But the prevailing wages allow salaries below the median wage for an occupation. A 2020 study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a think tank in Washington, D.C., found that 60% of H-1B positions certified by the U.S. Dept. of Labor pay wage levels below the local median. Hira and Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at EPI, conducted the research.
Tech Target
November 18, 2022
That 2019 Democratic news release cited a 2015 study from the Economic Policy Institute that found that wages in Right to Work states were 3.2% lower on average than wages in states without the law.
The Center Square
November 18, 2022
That could be because 14% of workers in the US didn’t have access to sick leave as of this March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. When it comes to low-wage employees, over 60% don’t have access to sick leave, according to a September study from the Economic Policy Institute.
Business Insider
November 18, 2022
As McDevitt noted, the telecom workforce had been shrinking for a long time before the pandemic hit. According to data analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute, the number of telecommunications employees as a percentage of the overall U.S. workforce fell from 1.4% in 1983-1986 to 1% in 2003-2006 and just 0.6% in 2016-2019. Or put another way, the number of telecom employees in the country dropped from nearly 1.4 million in 1983-1986 to just under 894,000 in 2016-2019.
Fierce Telecom
November 18, 2022
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.
Common Dreams
November 18, 2022
That brings me to the city’s 20,000-unit housing shortage. As landlords chase those higher returns, “the Airbnb effect” on the local market — as studied by the non-partisan U.S. think tank Economic Policy Institute — creates more costs than benefits.
“The costs to local renters and local jurisdictions likely exceed the benefits to travelers and property owners,” the 2019 report found.
Dallas Morning News
November 18, 2022
In America, the Economic Policy Institute has documented that “erosion of worker bargaining power” has led to lower wages and a “deterioration of labor’s share of income.” Only seven percent of American private sector workers are union members; in contrast, around half of German workers are covered by collective bargaining agreements.
Forbes
November 18, 2022