The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute has found that 21 million workers make below $15 an hour….
Business Insider
July 27, 2023
Despite these obstacles, a labor resurgence seems to be gaining momentum nationally, particularly among young and immigrant workers. In some service and other low-wage industries, organizing drives are proliferating. High-profile union campaigns at Starbucks, Amazon, Trader Joe’s, Recreational Equipment, and other major employers are making headlines. [Shierholz 1/19/2023]
Counterpunch
July 27, 2023
The story comes amid a landscape in which CEOs earn much more than their employees. According to an Economic Policy Institute report, “In 2021, the ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker compensation was 399-to-1 under the realized measure of CEO pay; that is up from 366-to-1 in 2020 and a big increase from 20-to-1 in 1965 and 59-to-1 in 1989.”
The Daily Dot
July 27, 2023
Abortion-rights advocates have long pointed to the economic consequences of restricting access to safe abortions and reproductive care as one of myriad reasons the procedure should be protected. The Economic Policy Institute concurs, stating in a report that “in states where abortion has been banned or restricted, abortion restrictions constitute an additional piece in a sustained project of economic subjugation and disempowerment.”
Baltimore Fishbowl
July 27, 2023
A full 70% of U.S. Labor Wage and Hour Division investigations of farms stem from contractors. And the violations investigated are more outrageous, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute.
“A relative handful of ‘bad apples’ account for a large share of all violations and the back wages owed,” the report’s authors note. Those authors are an impressive lineup — Daniel Costa, Director of Immigration Law and Policy Research at EPI, Philip Martin, Professor of Agriculture and Resource Economics at the University of California, Davis, and Zachariah Rutledge, an applied economist with a Ph.D. from UC Davis.
Growing Produce
July 27, 2023
After studying the top 15 H-2B occupations that include the leisure industry, the Economic Policy Institute concluded that persistently flat wages undermine the claim that labor shortages exist.
Palm Beach Post
July 27, 2023
During this summer of heat, smoke, and flash flooding, food delivery workers have been braving the streets to bring New Yorkers our food. Biblical weather isn’t delivery workers’ only challenge, though: their pay in New York City averages around $7 per hour without tips, and there’s a high rate of workplace fatalities, after which survivors generally get little or no help from the apps.
It was welcome news, then, that New York City in June set a rule establishing a pay floor for delivery workers of $17.96 per hour, a rate that would land workers around minimum wage, accounting for expenses, unpaid wait time, and other factors. This rule was passed pursuant to a hard-fought law sought by a worker group, Los Deliveristas Unidos.
New York Daily News
July 27, 2023
There are at least nine states — including Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, New Mexico, Alabama, Wisconsin, and Idaho — that have enacted or introduced laws that would allow minors ages 14 to 17 to serve alcohol, according to a report from Economic Policy Institute.
Business Insider
July 27, 2023
In the last fiscal year, the federal agency found 835 businesses violating child labor laws. Its fines and penalties averaged about $5,300 each. Do you think that’s stringent enough to dissuade would-be violators? Me neither.
What’s worse, “these numbers represent just a tiny fraction of violations, most of which go unreported and uninvestigated,” the labor-affiliated Economic Policy Institute observes.
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What’s the big deal with allowing teens to serve alcohol? “Numerous studies have found that underage servers are more likely to sell alcohol to underage buyers,” reports Nina Mast of the Economic Policy Institute. “In general, greater access to alcohol is associated with higher rates of underage consumption. Permitting younger workers to serve alcohol will provide underage youth — both workers and customers — with increased proximity to direct and indirect alcohol-related harms that are especially acute for young people.”
LA Times
July 27, 2023
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the top 1% of Americans make over 26 times more than the bottom 99% and hold 21% of the nation’s total income.
Business Insider
July 27, 2023
Euclid City Council has voted to enhance wage theft protections.
The ordinance, unanimously approved July 17, will stop Euclid from conducting business with any company that was found to have participated in any form of wage theft in the past three years.
The ordinance would protect some of the estimated 213,000 Ohioans that according to Policy Matters Ohio have been paid below the minimum wage. Nationally, according to the Economic Policy Institute, workers lose an estimated $15 billion per year, which also causes states and local governments to lose out on the tax dollars associated with those payments.
News Herald (Ohio)
July 27, 2023
Forty-four states have at least one law preempting localities from regulating the minimum wage, scheduling, paid leave or other work-related issues, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that tracks the laws.
The Washington Post
July 27, 2023
More states are letting teenagers serve alcohol in bars and restaurants as they roll back child labor protection laws, reports my colleague Nathaniel Meyersohn.
At least nine states have introduced bills to lower the minimum age for serving alcohol since 2021, according to a report released Thursday by the Economic Policy Institute.
Seven states have enacted those bills, with more looking to follow suit.
CNN
July 27, 2023
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a worker paid the $7.25 federal minimum wage earns 27.4% less in inflation-adjusted terms than what their counterpart was paid in July 2009 when the minimum wage was last increased, and 40.2% less than a minimum wage worker in February 1968, the historical high point of the minimum wage’s value.
The Guardian
July 27, 2023
Unemployment is hovering around 3.6%, meaning it’s relatively easy for people to find a job. Inflation has fallen significantly from its peak in June of 2022, making prices more reasonable at the grocery store. And the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank based in Washington, estimates that wages are up 4.7% over the past year.
Kansas City Star
July 27, 2023
Others counter that the disparities in racial and ethnic achievement in the workplace remain so large that they need to remain a focus for employers. For example, the typical Black worker earned 24% less than their white counterpart in 2019, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank based in Washington. And that gap was larger than the 16% gap in 1979, even though African Americans have narrowed the Black-white gap in high school and college completion during that time.
Christian Science Monitor
July 27, 2023
Since 2021, seven states have passed laws to lower the minimum age for serving alcohol in restaurants. Some of those laws decrease the threshold to 16, 17 or 18. There’s now a proposal in Wisconsin to lower the age all the way to 14. So where is this coming from?
“The restaurant industry was hit pretty hard during the pandemic,” said Nina Mast, an analyst at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. She recently authored a report about states lowering age limits for alcohol service positions.
“And employers are really looking for ways to fill these positions in the industry with younger workers and workers they can pay lower wages,” she said.
Mast means teens. Her organization has tracked ways the food service industry has already violated child labor laws — from overly long hours to hazardous working conditions. Millions of young people are already working in the industry.
Marketplace
July 27, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute published data that suggests these aberrations to employees’ scheduled times aren’t just inconvenient for workers, but that they may just lead to higher levels of burnout, stress, and at-home strife.
“Employees who work irregular shift times, in contrast with those with more standard, regular shift times, experience greater work-family conflict, and sometimes experience greater work stress,” the article states.
The Daily Dot
July 21, 2023
CEOs earned 399 times as much as a typical worker in 2021, the Economic Policy Institute reported in October.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
July 21, 2023
Public educators have long complained about stagnant wages. Adjusted for inflation, teachers’ average weekly pay has increased by only $29 between 1996 and 2021, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The wage problem has contributed to a public-school teacher shortage in some parts of the country.
The Wall Street Journal
July 21, 2023
The number of minors employed in violation of child labor laws has increased by 37% within the last year, according to a March report by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute in Washington. The report identified 10 states that have introduced or passed bills within the last two years that would weaken child labor standards.
Huffpost
July 21, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute reports the number of workers involved in major strikes increased by nearly 50% last year, and that doesn’t include smaller-scale work stoppages.
NBC Boston
July 21, 2023
An analysis published by the Economic Policy Institute in 2021 suggests that while earners in all income levels experience wage theft, most are independent contractors and hourly workers.
Business Insider
July 21, 2023
But even as the number of platform gig workers soared, wages did not: A 2022 analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, found that one in seven gig workers earned less than the federal minimum hourly wage of $7.25 an hour; just 38% made between $10 and $14.99 an hour, compared to over half of W-2 service workers. And 29% of gig workers made less than their state’s minimum wage.
Business Insider
July 21, 2023
State legislatures across the South are weakening child labor protections even as the number of minors employed in violation of child labor laws is increasing. Violations were up in 2022 by 37% since 2021 and 283% since 2015, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of Department of Labor data
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The DLL is required to investigate employers only if they receive a complaint of a violation. And Act 687 is only effective if the state agency demonstrates its willingness to “proactively” use its enforcement authority, especially in industries where child labor is most prevalent, said Jennifer Sherer, senior state policy coordinator at the Economic Policy Institute.
“Passing the law itself gives them a new tool, but we don’t know yet whether they will actually use it,” Sherer said.
Facing South
July 21, 2023
The AFL-CIO, Communications Workers of America, National Employment Law Project and the Economic Policy Institute also have endorsed both bills, Casey’s office said.
NBC News
July 21, 2023
Employers struggled to attract and retain warehouse workers early in the pandemic, which caused a shift in spending from services to goods, said Monique Morrissey, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
Non-college-educated workers had found new leverage by quitting and moving to better-paying or easier jobs, forcing Amazon and its competitors to respond with sign-on bonuses and wage increases. White saw ads from Walmart and Target last year advertising warehouse jobs that started in the $20 to $24 range.
Jacobin
July 21, 2023