Media clips

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• The Wealth Inequality Virus Persists

  Reported in an April 21 New York Times article  with the headline:  C.E.O. Pay Remains Stratospheric, Even at Companies Battered by Pandemic

  “Chief executives of big companies now make, on average, 320 times as much as their typical worker, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In 1989, that ratio was 61 to 1. From 1978 to 2019, compensation grew 14 percent for typical workers. It rose 1,167 percent for C.E.O.s.”

  Counterpunch July 9, 2021
• Biden Has A Chance To Boost Unions With New Labor Board Appointments

  Celine McNicholas, labor counsel at the Economic Policy Institute, said the NLRB can change the landscape for workers’ bargaining power only so much within the current system.

  But even in its limited capacities, McNicholas said the direction of the labor board affects workers all across the country. She pointed to the Trump board’s memo on excluding Uber’s tens of thousands of drivers from collective bargaining law.

  “There are certain things the agency can do that make a great deal of difference,” she said. “They can certainly look for ways, when those cases present themselves, to either uplift workers’ rights or really decimate them.”

  Huffpost July 9, 2021
• Employers are turning to signing bonuses to try and lure in new workers

  While one-time bonuses might be one way to temporarily address the problem, Heidi Shierholz, the director of policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, previously told Insider there could be a more simple, compensation-based solution: Raising wages altogether.

  Business Insider July 9, 2021
• Hiring bonuses no substitute for higher wages

  Ben Zipperer: The Economic Policy Institute says hiring bonuses in no way substitute for higher wages.

  Scripps National News July 9, 2021
• Jobs Up, Pay Up: Breaking Down the June Jobs Report
  Cheddar July 9, 2021
• There’s a Way to Get More People Vaccinated—and It Doesn’t Involve the Lottery

  Terri Gerstein is the director of the State and Local Enforcement Project at the Harvard Labor and Worklife Program and a senior fellow at the Economic Policy Institute. Previously, she was the Labor Bureau chief in the New York State Attorney General’s Office and a deputy commissioner in the New York State Department of Labor.

  The Nation July 9, 2021
• Jobs report

  Payroll growth over the last three months in the US has been ‘huge’, says Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute (and former chief economist at the Department of Labor)

  The Guardian July 9, 2021
• Scott Walker’s Wisconsin Paved the Way for Donald Trump’s America

  While Joe Biden narrowly won back Wisconsin and Michigan last year, the states are increasingly polarized, a trend that has been exacerbated by labor’s demise. As the Economic Policy Institute has shown, the decline in union membership correlates with a rise in income inequality. It is also a central culprit in America’s political dysfunction and in the atomization of the electorate; studies have shown that union members are more active in civil society, more likely to vote and less prone to racial resentment.

  New York Times July 9, 2021
• The Supreme Court Just Dealt a Blow to Farmworkers — And All Other Workers, Too

  The rule that gives California unions access to private property was put in place for good reason. “It takes account of who farmworkers are, how they work, and the fact that they are really hard to reach,” says Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute.

  Costa says that many farmworkers live on the premises where they work, meaning that in order to speak to them at all, union organizers need to be able to access private agricultural property. In other cases, such as at Cedar Point, workers live in housing that is rented out and therefore effectively controlled by their employer.

  On top of being physically hard to reach, Costa says there are often language barriers, with many workers speaking a primary Indigenous language rather than Spanish or English. “They also sometimes work unusual hours because of the heat, and usually live and work in far-off rural places,” says Costa.

  Jacobin July 9, 2021
• Employers are turning to signing bonuses to try and lure in new workers

  While one-time bonuses might be one way to temporarily address the problem, Heidi Shierholz, the director of policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, previously told Insider there could be a more simple, compensation-based solution: Raising wages altogether.

  Business Insider July 9, 2021