Reduced working hours have long been a demand from labor; unions won reductions from six days a week to five in the early 20th century, and the US Fair Labor Standards Act enshrined the 40-hour workweek in law in 1938. But while productivity has shot up roughly threefold since then, pay has risen by only about half that amount, according to the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute. The length of the workweek has stayed largely the same.
WIRED
February 4, 2022
The three nominees “having better qualifications than dozens of past nominees and eventual board governors,” the Economic Policy Institute’s Josh Bivens wrote last week, proved no buffer to resistance from the fossil fuel sector and Republicans. He said that “organized opposition… mostly settled into a focus on Cook and Raskin.
Common Dreams
February 4, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute’s Elise Gould said on Twitter: “The hires rate remains higher than the quits rate in every major industry. This indicates that when workers quit, they are taking other jobs-likely in the same sector-not dropping out of the labor force altogether.”
Business Insider
February 4, 2022
The Obama Labor Department tried to fix all this. It made a practical decision to leave intact the dog’s breakfast that Bush had made of the duties test but doubled the wage ceiling from $23,660 to $47,476. If you earned less than $47,476, it didn’t matter what your boss said your duties were, he owed you overtime whenever you worked more than 40 hours. In future years the ceiling would be “indexed” to inflation, thereby preventing another post-1975 slide. The Obama rule expanded overtime coverage from 7 percent of workers to 23 percent, according to calculations by the Economic Policy Institute.
The New Republic
February 4, 2022
A 2013 study by the Economic Policy Institute on three cities that were under mayor control — Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago (paywall).
San Francisco Chronicle
February 4, 2022
“Public officials should seize this moment of greater fiscal flexibility to begin making the reforms needed to attract, keep safe, and retain high-quality teachers and support staff,” the Economic Policy Institute’s David Cooper and co-author of a new report said per a press release. “That means raising pay, enacting strong COVID protections, investing in teacher development programs, and finding ways to support part-time and part-year staff when school is not in session.”
Business Insider
February 4, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute says in 33 states, day care for a 1-year-old costs more than in-state college tuition.
Poynter
February 4, 2022
The child care crunch hits new parents particularly hard, because few day care centers accept infants younger than 6 weeks. Infant care is staggeringly expensive. Wisconsin ranks 20th among states and the District of Columbia for most expensive infant care — with an average annual cost of nearly $12,600, according to the Economic Policy Institute. A minimum wage worker in Wisconsin would need to work full time for 43 weeks to pay that bill.
Wisconsin Watch
February 4, 2022
In 2020, 60 years after the Brown decision, the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, reported that Black youth are twice as likely to attend segregated, high-poverty schools as their white counterparts.
Journal Courier
February 4, 2022
Companies often tout globalization as the necessary means to compete in a hyper-competitive economy, but new research from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) suggests many people of color — including Black workers — have paid a heavy price during the past few decades
Triple Pundit
February 4, 2022