“No one wants to work!” Are we over that yet? Things are shifting, but there’s still a media mountain to move about the very idea that workers choosing their conditions is something more than a “month” or a “moment”—and might just be a fundamental question of human rights. We spoke with David Cooper, senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, and deputy director of EARN, the Economic Analysis and Research Network.
FAIR Counterspin
January 7, 2022
The bill passed both chambers of the Legislature unanimously but has drawn some criticism and created headaches for working families who were counting on their children entering kindergarten based on the previous eligibility requirements. For those parents, the change might result in them paying an additional year of private preschool or daycare costs, which for a 4-year-old in Nevada averages $9,050 annually, or $754 per month, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Nevada Current
January 7, 2022
Economic Policy Institute cited research saying that “modest increases in the minimum wage have not led to detectable job losses.”
MassLive.com
January 7, 2022
According to a tracker from the Economic Policy Institute, the 25 states include:
- $11: Arkansas
- $10.34: Alaska
- $10.10: Hawaii
- $9: Nebraska
- $8.75: West Virginia
- $7.25: Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming
Newsweek
January 7, 2022
In total, 25 states will see boosts to their minimum hourly pay requirement in 2022, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute and the National Conference of State Legislatures. Four states—Oregon, Florida, Nevada, and Connecticut—will phase in their increases later in the year.
Bloomberg Law
January 7, 2022
23 with a 65.1% rise in six-figure jobs, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank. The bad news?
Charlotte Business Journal
January 7, 2022
NEW YORK — Workers earning minimum wage in more than two dozen states can expect a raise in 2022. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the following states and Washington, D.C. are set to raise their minimum wage at various points through the new year:
ABC 7 News
January 7, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute reports most of American workers’ earnings growth since 1979 has gone to the top earners; the top 1 percent wage grew 179% since 1979, while wages for the bottom 90 percent grew only 28%.
Forbes
January 7, 2022
“What we’ve seen over the last four and a half decades is just huge erosion of worker leverage in a way that’s led to just incredibly low job quality for huge swaths of our labor market: low wages, low benefits, bad hours, bad working conditions,” according to Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist at the U.S. Labor Department. She goes on to say, “we know that the quality of these [independent] jobs they say they’re choosing are often just incredibly bad, and that means their other [traditional] choices are really, really bad.”
Employee Benefit News
January 7, 2022
More workers were hired in November than those that quit, suggesting restaurant employees are finding better opportunities at other jobs within the industry, according to Elise Gould, a senior economist with Economic Policy Institute.
QSR Magazine
January 7, 2022