Media clips

• Pennsylvania’s minimum wage to stay $7.25 while neighboring states see increases in January

  “It has not been this low in value since February 1956, since the time Elvis Pressley had his first number one hit, Heartbreak Hotel, February 1956,” said Dave Kamper with the Economic Policy Institute. 

  “There is no place in this country where you can meet the standard of living of an adult and a child on a minimum wage job in this country. None,” Kamper said.    

  “Real wages for workers, which is what a worker’s wages is actually worth in terms of what they can buy, have fallen through the pandemic rather than actually gone up. Indexing minimum wage to inflation is a way to make up for that,” said Kamper. 

   

  CBS September 8, 2022
• State and Local Jobs May Take Until 2026 to Recoup Pandemic Losses

  For Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute, part of the challenge for local governments involves raising the appeal of public-sector employment, whether it’s by enhancing benefits, improving working conditions or boosting salaries.

  Bloomberg September 8, 2022
• For Sen. Sherrod Brown, ‘dignity of work’ is essential to life

  Brown, Walsh, and Valerie Wilson, director of the Race, Ethnicity and the Economy Program at the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute, hit those themes in their interviews. Brown plans to pursue them legislatively if he returns to the panel’s top job after the November election, assuming Democrats hold the Senate this fall.

  Walsh made many of the same points. Both EPI’s Wilson and Walsh, a Laborers Local 223 member, emphasized such measures must reach those who have been left out and left behind, even in the current fast recovery from the coronavirus-caused depression.

  The anti-coronavirus laws Biden, Brown and Walsh pushed through “create a pathway to middle-class jobs, especially for workers of color” and people with disabilities, the Labor Secretary said. They need it, Wilson added.

  And DOL now will award job creation grants “and make sure we measure the outcomes” for those hardest-hit workers, the secretary promised.

  The worst damage from the pandemic was to Black woman workers, Wilson elaborated. They got hit two ways. Many of the occupations they were forced into, and which already were low-paying, such as home health care and restaurant servers, suffered the worst job losses. And even if jobs remained, the pandemic-caused national closure of schools forced thousands of working women to reluctantly quit, to take care of their own kids.

  “This continues to be a problem and a challenge,” Wilson said of the future facing those working women. “And it’s due to the larger structural problems” in the economy and society, she added—a polite way, though she didn’t say so, of endemic structural racism.

  People's Weekly World September 8, 2022
• Transcript: Future of Work: Economic Mobility
  Washington Post deputy business editor Damian Paletta speaks with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), David Madland, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and Valerie Wilson, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute, about the economic drivers and disparities that impact mobility in the labor market. Conversation recorded on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022.

  See article for full transcript of Valerie’s comments.

  The Washington Post September 8, 2022
• What the number of involuntary part-time workers tells us about the economy

  The measure of involuntary part-time employment gives us a sense of how much slack or unmet potential is in the labor market, per Elise Gould, senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute.

  “When that number is lower” — like it’s been in the last couple of years — “it means that there are more opportunities and fewer people are scrambling to get additional hours,” Gould said.

  That’s good news for workers, who have lots of options and additional leverage vis-a-vis employers, Gould said.

  Marketplace September 8, 2022
• Experts on the impact of economic disparities on worker mobility

  Join Washington Post Live for a special series that explores how the labor market is responding to dramatic disruptions brought on by inflation, automation, gigification and the pandemic. Part one of the series unpacks the economic drivers and disparities that impact mobility in the labor market, featuring Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), David Madland, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and Valerie Wilson, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute.

  The Washington Post September 7, 2022
• State and Local Jobs May Take Until 2026 to Recoup Pandemic Losses

  Join Washington Post Live for a special series that explores how the labor market is responding to dramatic disruptions brought on by inflation, automation, gigification and the pandemic. Part one of the series unpacks the economic drivers and disparities that impact mobility in the labor market, featuring Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), David Madland, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and Valerie Wilson, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute.

  The Washington Post September 7, 2022
• Recession could cause more workers to ‘quiet quit,’ start a business, freelance
  A recent survey from the Illinois Economic Policy Institute found that a little more than half of nurses are considering leaving the… (paywall).
  Business Insider September 2, 2022
• TikToker explains what he thinks older generations miss when they criticize young people for ‘quiet quitting’: ‘Incredibly discouraging’

  To act as though people aren’t working hard enough is also disingenuous. According to the Economic Policy Institute, in the U.S., workers’ productivity increased 3.5 times as much as pay between 1979 and 2020. Why would you work three times harder if you’re not getting three times the salary?

  Yahoo! Life September 2, 2022
• It’s hard to find workers in Michigan.
  There has been strong payroll employment growth nationally, said Elise Gould, a senior economist for the Economic Policy Institute (paywall).
  Lansing State Journal September 2, 2022