Media clips

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• Why Americans aren’t giving Biden credit on improving economy, according to experts

  “There’s been this unprecedented gap between what the data shows us is going on in the economy and what people think is going on in the economy,” Heidi Shierholz, president of the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, told ABC News.

  ABC News July 14, 2023
• Minimum wage gets a mini increase in some states

  Nineteen states, cities and counties are raising the minimum wage this summer, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute.

  …

  About 765,000 people will get a raise this summer because of minimum wage increases. Even though they’re small, “Those wage increases are really valuable for low-wage workers who are dealing with the impacts of inflation,” said Sebastian Martinez Hickey at EPI.

  Marketplace July 14, 2023
• Economy adds more jobs in June even as hiring slows

  “In excess of 200,000, you’re easily pulling more workers off the sideline and you’re keeping up with the population growth. It’s strong. It’s not hot, but it’s also not cool. I think we’re in a good place right now,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

  States Newsroom July 14, 2023
• US manufacturing jobs at highest levels since 2008 but growth is slowing

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  However, other economists are more optimistic about the outlook in light of the support provided by the Biden administration. “Historically, these manufacturing industries are more interest-rate sensitive than services sector industries, but I think there is enough going on with policy support and private sector investments that will be [supportive] regardless of what is going on in these areas,” said Adam Hersh, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think-tank. “It’s really creating the demand to drive this forward.”

  Financial Times July 14, 2023
• Why child care costs in Milwaukee County prompt parents to leave the workforce

  The median Wisconsin child care worker must spend 59% of their earnings to put their own child in infant care, the Economic Policy Institute found.

  PBS Wisconsin July 14, 2023
• Estos son los lugares de EEUU donde aumentará el salario mínimo este verano

  El salario mínimo subirá en 15 estados y localidades este verano en un intento de paliar los efectos de la inflación por parte de las legislaturas estatales o de las ciudades afectadas.

  Los aumentos beneficiarán directamente a unos 765,000 trabajadores, de los que el 31% son latinos, de acuerdo con una estimación del Economic Policy Institute (EPI) publicada en un informe el 30 de junio.

  Univision July 14, 2023
• New Economic Initiative Would Require Companies Go Back To Naming Products What They Do Plus ‘O-Matic’

  In an attempt by the think tank to find a model for sustainable growth of the U.S. economy, a new initiative proposed Thursday by the Economic Policy Institute would require companies to go back to naming products by combining what they do with the suffix “O-Matic.” “Our research shows that businesses create more value for the American economy when they take a word that describes what they do—say, investing—and then, in that case, make their brand name Invest-O-Matic,” said EPI senior fellow Ronald Wong, who found the suffix could increase company revenues by 400% within the first year after its adoption, and sometimes more if the number 5000 was placed at the end of the name.

  The Onion July 14, 2023
• Confronting Segregation With Grassroots Energy

  Her solutions matrix has its origins in more than two decades of experience of working with affordable-housing developers and local government officials. She co-wrote the book with her father Richard Rothstein, a distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute. Their work is a sequel to the elder Rothstein’s The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.

  American Prospect July 14, 2023
• Teen boy dies following industrial accident at northern Wisconsin sawmill

  The death comes amid a push over the last two years to loosen regulations governing what jobs minors can perform in the workplace. Lawmakers in 14 states — including Wisconsin — have proposed rolling back child labor laws, according to the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute. 

  “The trend reflects a coordinated multi-industry push to expand employer access to low-wage labor and weaken state child labor laws in ways that contradict federal protections,” the organization wrote in a May blog post. “And the recent uptick in state legislative activity is linked to longer-term industry-backed goals to rewrite federal child labor laws and other worker protections for the whole country.”

  Wausau Pilot and Review July 14, 2023
• West Hollywood will have the nation’s highest minimum wage. Business owners are not happy

  Experts differ on what constitutes a living wage. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that an individual needs to make $49,000 a year to live in metropolitan Los Angeles. MIT’s living wage calculator lists an average for one childless adult at $21.53 an hour. A recent federal report said workers “earning the federal or prevailing state or local minimum wage” cannot afford a modest two-bedroom rental home at fair market rent anywhere in the United States.

  LA Times July 14, 2023
• GOP Education Censorship Laws Intensify Economic Inequality

  In the wake of Black Lives Matter protests calling for justice following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, right-wing backlash has taken concrete form in highly coordinated campaigns against books, programs, or curricular resources designed to analyze and address systemic racism, sexism, and homophobia. Over the past two years in state legislatures across the United States, campaigns targeting a caricatured version of “critical race theory” (CRT) have evolved into intertwined attacks on truth itself and the workplace rights of teachers, librarians, and other educators.

  Common Dreams July 14, 2023
• What’s the Smartest Way to Take Retirement Income From My Portfolio?

  And is your portfolio size large enough for this strategy to succeed? The Economic Policy Institute recently reported that the median retirement savings for Americans was about $95,000. That amount of money would not produce nearly enough dividend or interest income to provide what ChatGPT calls a “steady cash flow while potentially preserving your principal.”

  The Street July 14, 2023
• What’s behind the hotel workers’ strike days before national holiday

  Last year 120,600 workers nationwide participated in major strikes (work stoppages involving 1,000 workers or more), a 50% increase over 2021 but a fraction of the strike activity during its height in the 1970s, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  CalMatters July 14, 2023
• Where Affirmative Action Succeeded—and Where It Fell Short

  Quotes Valerie Wilson. [Paywall].

  The Wall Street Journal July 14, 2023
• Starbucks union proposal arises as state’s rate of organized labor hits historic low

  George said more union interest is emerging among workers. A 2023 report by the Economic Policy Institute found an uptick in union-organizing activity nationally in 2022. The report says there is evidence many more workers would like to form a union but face barriers doing so.

  Dakota News Now July 14, 2023
• There is no America without Black Folk

  For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Economic Policy Institute found that 17% of people considered to be frontline workers were black. They were the transit, healthcare, delivery and grocery store workers who kept our country going at great risk for themselves and their families, all while struggling with more pre-existing conditions that made them especially vulnerable to the virus.

  MSNBC July 14, 2023
• Revealed: Healthcare jobs are the best-paid careers in more than 40 states – so what should YOU be doing to earn more than your neighbors?

  The Economic Policy Institute found that 65.1 percent of workers do not have a college degree.

  The Daily Mail July 14, 2023
• H1-B visa program still popular among tech employers even as they cut back

  Large tech companies remain the biggest beneficiaries of the H1-B foreign worker visa program. Here’s why. [Paywall].

  The Business Journals July 14, 2023
• No Summer Vacation? You’re Not Alone

  According to Elise Gould, an economist at the Washington-based non-profit the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), workers on lower incomes generally take fewer vacations.

  “Vacation time in this country is incredibly skewed towards people with higher incomes, so that it is much less likely that somebody who makes lower wages gets it,” she told Newsweek. “About 95 percent of the highest-wage workers actually do get paid vacation days and only 44 percent—less than half—of lower-wage workers get any paid vacation days.”

  Newsweek July 14, 2023
• Black women are finding better jobs than ever. A recession could reverse that.

  In Pennsylvania, Black workers have seen some of the largest gains in employment, with the Black unemployment rate falling by nearly 17 percent since the second quarter of 2020, an Economic Policy Institute analysis found. 

  The Washington Post July 14, 2023
• We’re older than we used to be — especially in these states

  Others work because they can’t afford retirement. According to the Economic Policy Institute, roughly one-third of workers aged 55 to 64 don’t have access to a retirement savings plan. Those who rely solely on Social Security benefits may find they don’t cover all of their living expenses. Major unplanned expenses like medical bills can also keep people in the workforce.

  Stateline July 14, 2023
• What’s keeping rental car prices so high?

  Indeed, a report from the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, suggests that corporate profits contributed more to overall inflation in 2020 and 2021 than labor or material costs. Higher rental car prices and corporate profits may be part of this trend.

  NerdWallet July 14, 2023
• An Iowa law rolling back child labor protections has come into effect

  It’s not just Iowa. At least fourteen states have sought to weaken regulations against the employment of children over the past two years, the Economic Policy Institute recently noted, even as violations of those laws have been on the rise. The Department of Labor (DOL) identified over 3,800 cases of child labor violations in the 2022 fiscal year after investigating some 835 businesses, the highest level of incidents since 2008. Among the violators were McDonald’s franchisees, slaughterhouse cleaning company Packers Sanitation Services, and a Hyundai and Kia plant in Alabama.

  Quartz July 14, 2023
• Minimum wage workers in these states and localities just got a raise

  Lots of low-wage workers just received a boost in pay, as more than a dozen states and localities increased their minimum wages.

  Oregon beefed up its hourly minimum wage by 70 cents to $14.20 as of July 1, while Nevada increased its minimum wage by 75 cents to $11.25, according to a tally by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Washington, DC, raised its minimum wage by 90 cents to $17.

  CNN July 14, 2023
• Amazon and McDonald’s have largest wage gaps between CEOs and employees

  The U.S middle class, which once accounted for the majority of Americans, has been shrinking, while the salaries of top CEOs have increased by over 1,400% since the 1970s; in comparison, the average worker salary grew by just 18.1% in the same period, according to the Economic Policy Institute. 

  Employee Benefit News July 14, 2023
• Retailers, beware: Resumption of student loan payments could lead some buyers to pull back

  Even if all that won’t be enough to weaken overall economic growth, the shift in spending by many young adults could inject further uncertainty into an economy already beset by uncertainties, from whether the Fed will manage to tame inflation and halt its interest rate hikes to whether a recession is destined to strike by next year, as many economists still fear.

  Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute think tank, suggested that the likely hit to the economy might amount to perhaps one-third of a percentage point of gross domestic product — the nation’s total output of goods and services — or about $85 billion or $90 billion a year.

  It’s “not trivial, but it’s not huge,’’ Bivens said. “At the macro level, my guess is that it won’t be a game-changer.’’

  Associated Press July 14, 2023
• It’s Hamiltonian! It’s Jeffersonian! It’s Bidenomics!

  As the major U.S. corporations began offshoring their production or their suppliers in the 1980s and ’90s, only a relative handful of progressives—among them, Economic Policy Institute founder Jeff Faux, MIT economist Lester Thurow, and my Prospect colleague-to-be Bob Kuttner—argued that this would do long-term harm to the nation generally and its working class in particular. 

  American Prospect July 14, 2023
• Medicaid payment proposal for health aides rankles home health companies

  Home health agencies say they could be driven out of business by a Biden administration proposal that would require them to spend the majority of their Medicaid dollars on higher pay for direct care workers.

  Why it matters: The proposal aims to improve stability in the home- and community-based care workforce, which is shrinking as the demand for services increases.

  • 1 in 6 direct care aides lives below the poverty line, according to a 2022 report from the Economic Policy Institute.
  Axios July 14, 2023
• The places where minimum wages are rising this summer

  Three states and 16 localities raised their minimum wage this summer, many of them through automatic inflation adjustments, the Economic Policy Institute notes in a new report.

  Why it matters: Boosting the wage floor has the downstream effect of raising pay for those who make more than the minimum — as employers have to adjust their wage ladders upward.

  Axios July 14, 2023
• States, cities turn to community organizations to battle wage theft

  Funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, the federal government’s response to the economic and health ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic, allowed more states and cities to experiment with using community groups to connect with workers as Minneapolis did. That’s according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School.

  …

  The report highlighted efforts in several cities and states.

  In 2021, Maine started a program with $1 million in ARPA funds for job training, help accessing unemployment benefits, and worker outreach with the support of community organizations, the AFL-CIO, and a legal aid group, according to the EPI report. In Seattle, the city’s Office of Labor Standards staff have monthly and quarterly meetings with community-based organizations. Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco also have close partnerships with community organizations as do San Diego and Santa Clara counties in California.

  In Iowa, the cities of Coralville, North Liberty, and Iowa City and Johnson County allocated $322,000 in ARPA funds over five years to the Center for Worker Justice in Eastern Iowa, which investigates wage theft cases and helps put community pressure on employers to pay their employees, and has assisted workers in recovering lost wages.

  States Newsroom July 14, 2023