Newly minted college graduates considering the teaching profession probably don’t expect lucrative salaries. But they might not realize how big a financial hit they face: Teachers now earn about 20 percent less than other college-educated workers, according to a new report by the Economic Policy Institute, a union-backed think tank. (whole story)
Chalkbeat | September 5, 2018
This is according to an extensive report on inequality from economists Estelle Sommeiller and Mark Price, published in July by the Economic Policy Institute. The authors built on top of research from economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez and used IRS data, finding that in 2015, five states, 30 metro areas, and 78 counties had exceeded the previous national record for share of income by the 1%, at 23.9% – a record set in 1929, on the eve of the Great Depression.
The divide between the rich and poor in the US has continued on an upward trend since the 1970s, and we live in a time where economic growth is disproportionately benefitting the wealthiest Americans. (whole story)
Business Insider | September 4, 2018
The top 1 per cent – it is a phrase you hear a lot, especially since politicians like Bernie Sanders began repeating it at rallies. But what does being in the exclusive club actually look like? Researchers from the Economic Policy Institute found out the minimum a person would have to earn to count themselves among the top percent in each state, and uncovered a discrepancy even among the very richest. Mississippi is where the bar to entry drops lowest, with someone having to earn just over $250,000 per year to qualify as among the most valuable in the state. (whole story)
The Daily Mail | September 4, 2018
With Democrats looking primed to retake the House, there could be a new—and rare—opportunity to rethink labor laws in the next session of Congress. Numerous policy proposals are already making the rounds, but as progressive Democrats shop around for new labor reforms, where will they turn? Last week, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released a 15-point policy agenda to reverse the decades-long erosion of workers’ rights in the U.S. Celine McNicholas, director of labor law and policy at EPI and one of the coauthors of the agenda, says that instead of the “magic bullet” reform that lawmakers might be searching for, there is no quick-fix solution. Getting decent wages back into the pockets of workers and giving workers more power at the bargaining table will take a comprehensive reform package, she says. (whole story)
The American Prospect | August 31, 2018
“There are a lot of people who have been working very hard on the renegotiation of Nafta,” said Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think-tank that draws some of its funding from labor unions. “But I don’t think that’s going to bring jobs home in vast numbers. I just don’t see it.”
Bloomberg | August 29, 2018
Such agreements have all come under harsher scrutiny in recent years amid the rise of the #MeToo movement and the sluggishness of wage growth. Last week, the Economic Policy Institute, whose board is chaired by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, released a proposed workplace reform agendafor Congress that includes banning forced arbitration, as well as almost all non-competes.
Bloomberg | August 29, 2018
Overall, a separate study from the Economic Policy Institute found that in 2017 “average compensation for CEOs of the top 350 publicly traded firms increased 17.6 percent to $18.9 million” and that for those firms, “the ratio of CEO-to-worker compensation rose to 312-to-1—far greater than the 20-to-1 ratio in 1965 and more than five times greater than the 58-to-1 ratio in 1989.”
Capital & Main | August 29, 2018
A recent report from the Economic Policy Institute, a non-partisan Washington think-tank, states that the heads of the 350 largest U.S. Corporations had a raise in salary of 17.6 percent in 2017 which resulted in an average of $18.9 million in take-home pay. The average worker’s salary barely moved last year with an average increase of just 0.3 percent. This means that the big boss to worker compensation ratio in that country is 312 to 1, which is 5 times higher than the 58 to 1 ratio of 1989. Executive pay packets in the United States have grown almost 72 percent since 2009. Executive pay is rising faster than stock prices or corporative profits, having increased by 1,070 percent between 1978 and 2017, compared to a 637 percent hike in the S & P Index.
Cumberland News Now | August 29, 2018
Income creates a disparity in every U.S. city, but the gap is markedly bigger in some areas versus others. A 2018 study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) recently identified U.S. states, cities and counties most divided by wealth. The principal factors among many the were average income of the top 1%, the average income of the bottom 99% and the ratio of the top’s income to the bottom’s. Of the more than 900 metro areas in the EPI study, we narrowed the list down to only those with populations greater than 100,000. There are definitely some noticeable patterns. Of the top 13 metropolitan areas on the list, six of them are in Florida. Another three of the 13 are located in California. Two are located in the greater New York City metro area. And the last two don’t fall into a bucket: Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, Ark.-Mo. And Las Vegas. No cities have the exact same income discrepancy — aka top-to-bottom ratio — but the underlying problem is apparent in every one: a withering middle class. (whole story)
Forbes | August 29, 2018
Whether this will be enough to satisfy longtime critics of the trade pact remains to be seen. Longtime NAFTA skeptic Robert Scott of the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute told me there was little sign Trump’s team had made progress on key issues: “It’s a press release in search of a real deal.” To sell it, Trump stuck mostly to bluster and hyperbole during his brief talk. The president got things started by announcing that it was a “big day” for trade, then puzzlingly suggested that NAFTA was ready for a name change. “They used to call it NAFTA. We’re going to call it the United States–Mexico Trade Agreement,” he said. “We’ll get rid of the name NAFTA. It has a bad connotation because the United States was hurt badly by NAFTA for many years. And now it’s a very good deal for both countries.”
Slate | August 28, 2018
But critics of the deal suggest it has led to significant job losses within the US market, with companies shifting operations to Mexico due to lower production costs. According to the US-based Economic Policy Institute, about 700,000 jobs have been lost nationwide due to growing trade deficits with Mexico caused by NAFTA.
Al Jazeera | August 28, 2018
The Economic Policy Institute reported earlier this month that the average CEO of the 350 largest firms in the U.S. pocketed $18.9 million in 2017, a 17.6 percent pay increase over 2016. At the same time, typical worker compensation remained flat, rising merely 0.3 percent. If you do some quick math, dividing 17.6 percent by 0.3 percent, you might conclude that CEO pay in 2017 increased about 60 times faster than worker pay. (whole story)
Inequality.org | August 28, 2018
But a report by the Economic Policy Institute found earlier this year that the economic boom a city expects from Amazon warehouses–job growth and more consumer spending–don’t seem to pay off. “What we found is that it is true that Amazon create warehousing jobs. But that doesn’t translate into a net addition or total number of jobs added to the economy,” Ben Zipperer, co-author of the February 2018 EPI report entitled “Unfulfilled Promises.” (Ben quoted throughout)
Bakersfield Now | August 28, 2018
Average compensation for top U.S. executives exploded to nearly $19 million in 2017, up almost 18 percent from 2016, a new report says. If you don’t remember getting an 18 percent raise last year, it’s because you probably didn’t. The report by the liberal Economic Policy Institute shows typical wages remained virtually unchanged during that time. This has driven the pay difference between people at the top and those who work for them to its widest gap in a decade. (Whole editorial)
St. Louis Post Dispatch | August 27, 2018
California, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania have passed legislation that puts them on a path to reach a $15 minimum wage for state employees, but none have reached that goal yet. The North Carolina decision is “unexpected,” says David Cooper, senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute and an expert on minimum wage issues. “You don’t expect to hear about minimum wage increases happening in conservative places.” (Dave quoted throughout)
Governing | August 27, 2018
Meanwhile, the average CEO pay among America’s 350 largest publicly-held companies jumped to $19 million in 2017, an 18 percent raise over 2016, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The S&P 500 only went up 14.5 percent during the same period, while the average America saw a 2 percent raise. (CEO pay data cited throughout)
The Houston Chronicle | August 27, 2018
Labor law in the U.S. has been broken down over the past several decades until you might think it nearly nonexistent. And yet a new wave of worker resistance and political interest in labor makes it a good time to push for a reimagining and rebuilding of the laws that govern the workplace. The Economic Policy Institute has just published a new agenda for doing just that—called “First Day Fairness.” I talked with Celine McNicholas, one of the authors of the report, about the movement that will be necessary to rewrite the rules to give workers an equal chance.
The Progressive | August 27, 2018
A new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows that compensation for chief executive officers at the top 350 publicly traded companies in the U.S. soared last year by 17.6 percent to almost $19 million a year. That’s 312 times what the average worker at those companies made in 2017. If you’re wondering, the compensation of rank-and-file worker rose only 0.3 percent at these firms.
Teamsters | August 27, 2018
The Washington Post | August 27, 2018
Today we bring you a conversation with Celine McNicholas, the director of labor law and policy at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). In this interview, McNicholas discusses EPI’s latest report, which provides a blueprint for protecting all workers, whose rights are being attacked at every opportunity.
Truthout | August 27, 2018
Economic Policy Institute promotes First Day Fairness project:
First Day Fairness is the right of all workers to a fair system of work from their first day on the job. U.S. workers are essential contributors to economic growth in the U.S. and they deserve a fair share of that growth and a fair say in their working conditions. First Day Fairness requires a rebalancing of our current system to ensure that workers’ interests and concerns are served.
Daily Kos | August 27, 2018
Earlier today, the inestimable Meteor Blades gave a shout-out to the Economic Policy Institute’s new “First Day Fairness” project.
It’s a project we should all get behind, in my opinion. By that, I mean: all Daily Kos readers, all elected Democrats, and all soon-to-be elected Democrats. (Can’t wait for November 6!)
If you haven’t had time to read or glance through the detailed proposal, here’s a summary of the main points. Celine McNicholas, Samantha Sanders, and Heidi Shierholz, the authors of the report, argue that if we want to effectively counter our decades-long national slide into worsening inequality and “the erosion of workers’ bargaining power,” we will have to address each of the following problems:
Daily Kos | August 27, 2018
Meanwhile, a report by the Economic Policy Institute found that chief executives, flush with stock options, are making out like bandits. Last year, when stock options were taken into account, the chiefs at the 350 largest U.S. companies received an average of $18.9 million for their services, a nearly 18 percent increase over the previous year, and 72 percent since 2009. Nice work if you can get it.
Washington Post | August 27, 2018
Considering that the Economic Policy Institute estimates that average CEO pay is 271 times the nearly $58,000 annual average pay of the typical American worker, we should hold the C-Suite to a higher personal maintenance standard.
Thrive Global | August 27, 2018
According to the Economic Policy Institute’s cost-of-living calculator, the modern version of my dad wouldn’t do so well in the relatively low-cost Simi Valley area. The area is part of the Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura metro area, where a basket of necessities—that includes the price of fair-market housing, food, childcare, transportation, health care and other core costs—for a family of five is calculated at $11,131 per month. So for a family like ours to attain what the EPI describes as a “modest but adequate standard of living” that is a realistic “measure of economic security in America” in 2017, it would need to earn about $133,600 per year.
Fast Company | August 27, 2018
Family Promise of Forsyth County takes what it calls a “community-based approach” to the situation, partnering with local churches to house families for a week at a time. They provide a place to eat, shower and sleep. They help parents find more consistent or improved work, sometimes tweaking resumes or conducting practice interviews. They find childcare and sometimes provide transportation. Anything to help struggling families in a county that is the second-priciest place to live in Georgia, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute released this past March.
Forsynth County News | August 27, 2018
EPI ROLLS OUT POLICY PLAN: The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute released today a new policy agenda premised on the idea that employment rules are “rigged against working people from their first day on the job.” The agenda calls for an easier path to join a union, a ban on “right to work” laws, a higher minimum wage, and access to paid sick leave, among other demands. “Importantly, this is a practical agenda that progressive candidates could run on and a progressive Congress could pass on Day 1,” the group said in a related announcement. Read the plan here.
Politico Pro | August 22, 2018
EPI TO FED: DON’T RAISE RATES: The Federal Reserve should refrain from hiking interest rates, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute’s Josh Bivens and Ben Zipperer argue in a report released this morning. The pair contend the status quo will drive down unemployment and increase upward pressure on wages. “An extended period of low unemployment — sometimes called a ‘high-pressure labor market’ — could deliver large benefits by boosting wages and healing the economic damage done by the Great Recession and the slow recovery following it,” Bivens and Zipperer write. More from EPI here.
Politico Pro | August 21, 2018
It pays to run a big company. Even in 1965, CEOs of the largest U.S. firms were pulling in an average of $902,000 a year (in 2017 dollars) and, since then, their compensation has skyrocketed. According to a new report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute(EPI), CEO pay peaked in 2000 at $21 million a year (in 2017 dollars). In 2017, CEOs in America’s largest firms made an average of $18.9 million in compensation, or 312 times the annual average pay of the typical worker. That’s “5.5 times as much as the average earner in the top 0.1 percent,” the report notes. (whole story)
CNBC | August 21, 2018
Executive compensation has soared about 1,000 percent since 1978, while real wages for most Americans are up about 11 percent, according to an Aug. 16 report from the Economic Policy Institute. Putting a number to that differential was expected to cause outraged headlines and trigger criticism from investors and consumers on social media. Human resource chiefs, meanwhile, worried the disclosures would sow discontent among the rank and file, particularly those paid even less than the median.
Bloomberg | August 21, 2018