It’s the kind of energy and enthusiasm that can ripple beyond unions, per Margaret Poydock, a policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute.
“So, you know, if there are unionized workers who are going on strike and they get their demands of increased wages and certain benefits, research shows that unions have spillover effects,” she said.
In other words, if a big airline, retailer or restaurant chain improves working conditions or increases pay, other companies in those industries may follow.
Marketplace
June 30, 2023
Between 2019 and 2022, the inflation-adjusted wages of workers in the tenth percentile of the wage distribution increased by nine per cent, according to a study published earlier this year by Elise Gould, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, in Washington, D.C. When I spoke to Gould on Tuesday, she said that, based on wage data from industries such as leisure and hospitality, which employ a lot of low-wage workers, it appears that this trend has kept up into 2023. “Low-wage workers have had a bit more leverage, and that is reflected in the wage data,” Gould said. “They are doing better than before.”
The New Yorker
June 30, 2023
The move drew sharp criticism from labor advocates. The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning labor think tank, called the bill “one of the most dangerous rollbacks of child labor laws in the country” and asserted that much of the law violates federal labor law.
Over the past two years, lawmakers in at least 10 states — most recently in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Missouri — have passed or introduced legislation to weaken child labor protections.
…
“There is a focus for them right now, particularly on the state level, on policies that erode investments in public education, increase the desperation of the poorest families by restricting access to Medicaid or food assistance, while also, of course, taking down guardrails on excessive hours or hazardous work for children,” said Jennifer Sherer, the senior state policy coordinator at the Economic Policy Institute.
The American Independent
June 30, 2023
In March, the Economic Policy Institute’s Josh Bivens wrote that “in normal times, corporate profits contribute about 13% to prices.”
“Since the second quarter of 2020, they have instead contributed more than a third of price growth, or more than twice as much as they normally do,” Bivens estimated.
Common Dreams
June 30, 2023
International expert, Adam Hersh, will address the opportunities and challenges presented by Australia’s renewable energy revolution at the National Manufacturing Summit in Canberra on 2 and 3 August.
Mirage NEws
June 30, 2023
Workers at childcare facilities also rarely receive health insurance benefits. As reported by the Economic Policy Institute, “Just 15.0 percent of childcare workers have employer-sponsored health insurance through their own job, compared with 49.9 percent of workers in other occupations.”
Nonprofit Quarterly
June 30, 2023
Independent workers making low wages aren’t so happy with their pay. A 2020 survey of hundreds of gig workers analyzed by researchers at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank focused on policy around low- and middle-income workers, found those working for digital platform companies like Uber, Instacart or DoorDash often reported poor working conditions and low pay. One in five gig workers often couldn’t afford enough food to eat, the survey found.
Wall Street Journal
June 30, 2023
A study last fall from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute said the U.S. could lose 75,000 auto jobs if EVs become half of all cars sold by 2030. But the report also said different jobs will be created, and the U.S. could gain 150,000 jobs from the transition if policy focuses on domestic market share and assembling vehicles here.
Bridge Michigan
June 30, 2023
All of this is exacerbated by the widespread layoffs, which are also shining a light on the precarity that foreign workers are forced to endure. An Economic Policy Institute publication states that:
- The H-1B visa program was created to fill labor shortages in professional fields and could be a valuable temporary work visa program, but new data show it is being subverted by employers that are not facing labor shortages and by outsourcing firms.
Tech HQ
June 30, 2023
Wage theft—in which employers skimp on overtime or regular pay, and sometimes simply fail to pay at all—costs US workers approximately $50 billion annually, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
MIT Technology Review
June 30, 2023
Richard Rothstein is a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Policy Institute and a Senior Fellow (emeritus) at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Below, Leah and Richard share 5 key insights from their new book, Just Action: How to Challenge Segregation Enacted Under the Color of Law.
Next Big Idea Club
June 30, 2023
For example, while wages fell far behind the growth of economic productivity from 1979 onward, Turchin cites analysis from the Economic Policy Institute indicating that three-fourths of that gap was due to elite-driven policy shifts: weakened labor standards, the erosion of collective bargaining, corporate globalization and so-called fiscal austerity.
Salon
June 30, 2023
According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, the median hourly wage for servers in the United States, including tips, was $11.42 in 2019, while the median hourly wage for non-tipped workers was $18.58. However, the report notes that the tipped minimum wage has not kept pace with inflation, resulting in a decline in purchasing power for tipped workers.
The Georgia Sun
June 30, 2023
Some H-1B visa holders in the U.S. have been among the thousands of tech workers laid off this year, sending them scrambling to find new employers within a 60-day “grace period” or return to their home country.
Reuters
June 30, 2023
State legislatures including Iowa and Arkansas are rolling back child labor law protections. Ultra conservative groups, including the National Restaurant Association, are pushing bills that allow 14-year-olds to work the night shift cleaning meat packing plants and 15-year-olds to work on assembly lines. We’ll ask guests from the Economic Policy Institute why, what can be done, and ask how weakening child labor laws impacts and exploits some of our most vulnerable children, immigrants.
KKFI
June 30, 2023
Additionally, new data from the Economic Policy Institute reaffirms the current strength of the job market for young workers. The study found the youth unemployment rate for workers between 16 and 24 tumbled to 7.5 percent in March. While that is nearly double the national rate of 3.7 percent, it also marks the lowest level since 1953.
Bank Rate
June 30, 2023
Deutsch, campaign director for the California Coalition for Worker Power
and Gerstein, director for the State and Local Enforcement Project at the
Harvard Law School Center for Labor and a Just Economy, detail the
importance of community enforcement programs in holding employers
accountable for wage violations. It’s detailed in their report “Power in
partnership,” which was published on June 8 by the Economic Policy
Institute and Harvard Law School’s CLJE.
Law360
June 30, 2023
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, overtime work can increase the likelihood of having an irregular schedule and working split shifts. The food website Mashed reported that McDonald’s has been flagged for not paying workers overtime pay. In 2016, McDonald’s agreed to pay $1.75 million in backpay and $2 million in lawyer fees to settle a lawsuit where 800 workers alleged the food chain giant violated California law by not paying overtime.
The Daily Dot
June 30, 2023
On June 21, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee voted to advance the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act), the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Healthy Families Act on June 21. All three pieces of legislation have companion bills in the U.S. House.
Democrats mostly hailed the bills as beneficial for average workers, while Republicans mostly criticized the bills as being too pro-union.
The bills garnered support from the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Government Employees, the American Federation of Teachers, the American Postal Workers Union, Communication Workers of America, the Economic Policy Institute, the National Urban League, and Oxfam America, according to Committee chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
SHRM
June 30, 2023
The grocery giant’s planned merger with rival Albertsons, which is still in the works, exacerbated concerns. A May report from the Economic Policy Institute…[paywall].
Bloomberg Law
June 30, 2023
That strike is only the most recent and widely reported strike among public employees. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that there was a 50 percent increase in strike activity in 2022 over the previous year.
Jacobin
June 30, 2023
Meanwhile, the national Black jobless rate in May slid to the lowest on record at 4.7%, reaching the narrowest gap with white workers ever.
“It’s good to see improvement overall,” says Kyle Moore, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “But the fact that disparities continue to exist in relative terms in some places means that there can still be work done.”
Crain's Chicago
June 30, 2023
“We’re seeing reinvestment, but the majority of it is going to the South, which in many cases looks like American maquiladoras,” said Adam Hersh, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute at the Chicago Federal Reserve’s annual auto industry outlook conference in January. (Maquiladoras are factories in Mexico run by foreign companies looking to employ cheap labor and avoid tariffs.) He noted that unionization in the South is less than 4 percent, creating a wage gap between the North and the South in the auto sector greater than the 15 percent wage gap for all industries.
Washington Monthly
June 30, 2023
According to studies by the Economic Policy Institute and U.S. Census Bureau, the top 1% of Americans takes home 21% of all income in the country. Meanwhile, the gap in earnings between those with and without college degrees (also known as the college wage premium) has steadily increased since 2000.
San Francisco Chronicle
June 30, 2023
The negotiations at UPS could also help workers who are not union members. Unions cause a spillover effect, achieving gains that later become standard or legally mandated, like benefits for LGBTQ+ workers and their families, as well as the eight-hour work day and days off on weekends. Air-conditioned UPS trucks, for example, will help set a norm that all workers deserve heat protection.
The UPS strike authorization vote also reflects the increasing willingness of workers in a range of industries to exercise collective power to seek better conditions for themselves, their coworkers and future generations. And it’s not just about pay. Railroad workers last fall sought paid sick days. The Amazon Labor Union was formed because of concerns about Covid safety. Kellogg’s workers went on strike in 2021 over a two-tier compensation structure. And on Friday, workers in about 150 Starbucks locations went on strike over the company’s alleged restricting of Pride decorations in some locations.
CNN
June 29, 2023
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
June 29, 2023
It’s the kind of energy and enthusiasm that can ripple beyond unions, per Margaret Poydock, a policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute.
“So, you know, if there are unionized workers who are going on strike and they get their demands of increased wages and certain benefits, research shows that unions have spillover effects,” she said.
In other words, if a big airline, retailer or restaurant chain improves working conditions or increases pay, other companies in those industries may follow.
Marketplace
June 29, 2023
The other side: Critics say gig economy apps like DoorDash leave workers with less than they’d have if they had a steady job.
- About 1 in 7 gig workers earned less than the federal minimum wage as of spring 2020, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Axios
June 29, 2023
Between 2019 and 2022, the inflation-adjusted wages of workers in the tenth percentile of the wage distribution increased by nine per cent, according to a study published earlier this year by Elise Gould, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, in Washington, D.C. When I spoke to Gould on Tuesday, she said that, based on wage data from industries such as leisure and hospitality, which employ a lot of low-wage workers, it appears that this trend has kept up into 2023. “Low-wage workers have had a bit more leverage, and that is reflected in the wage data,” Gould said. “They are doing better than before.”
The New Yorker
June 29, 2023