“That drop in unemployment is in part because people are getting jobs, but also in part because people are leaving the labor force,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute told the nonprofit news website The19th.
BET
December 22, 2021
Economic Policy Institute (EPI) distinguished fellow Lawrence Mishel—the group’s former president—and research assistant Jori Kandra looked at the Social Security Administration’s newly available wage data for 1979 to 2020.
Common Dreams
December 22, 2021
A quick glance at the workshop’s speakers and agenda makes clear that the current FTC and DOJ appear to favor labor as a political interest group over the efficient functioning of labor markets free of anti-competitive restraints. There was discussion around the “problem” of employer power in the absence of market concentration (in universities of all places!), the need for collective bargaining rights for gig workers, and why restraints on worker mobility were bad. The speakers included the Assistant Secretary of Treasury discussing wage stagnation, the Assistant Secretary of Labor discussing worker protections, and the president of the Economic Policy Institute, a labor union think tank. One entire session was devoted to hearing from the representatives of labor unions.
JD Supra
December 22, 2021
Teachers in South Dakota also spend an average of $349 of their own money on classroom supplies, the Economic Policy Institute found, while the Education Law Center said per-pupil funding came out to $13,847, the 33rd-worst rate in the country and low enough to earn a “D” grade from the center. (The Education Law Center did give South Dakota credit for spreading funding relatively evenly across districts, however.)
Bring Me The News
December 22, 2021
And if the share going to profits is rising, the share going to some other economic components must be falling. Earlier this week, Larry Mishel and Jori Kandra of the Economic Policy Institute published a report on the distribution of wages that noted yet another record set. In 2020, the report concluded, the wages of the bottom 90 percent of wage earners constituted the lowest share of all wages paid in a single year since the government began charting such things in 1937. The bottom 90 percent earned just 60.2 percent of all wage income last year. To be sure, this reflected the pattern of who got laid off and who didn’t in the course of the pandemic, but it also marked the continuation of a long-term trend. Since 1979, the report documents, the wages of the top 1 percent rose by 179 percent (and those of the top 0.1 percent by 389 percent!), while those of the bottom 90 percent crept along with a 28 percent increase.
The American Prospect
December 22, 2021
HCL Technologies paid lower wages to H-1B visa workers compared to similarly employed US workers in the past few years, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Decan Herald
December 22, 2021
An outsourcing loophole in the H-1B visa program has allowed tech companies to get away with underpaying their migrant workers by millions of dollars, according to a new report by the Economic Policy Institute. While the report focuses on the workers under the IT staffing firm HCL Technologies, the tactic of outsourcing labor to migrant workers and paying them less compared to their U.S. born counterparts to save money is all too common, the report claims. We’ll talk with the study’s co-author.
KQED
December 22, 2021
Recent research from the Economic Policy Institute shows farm workers are among the lowest paid workers in the U.S. workforce.
HudsonValley360
December 22, 2021
Noida-based IT services firm HCL Technologies Ltd has been evading H1-B visa rules in the US, according to a report by Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Mint
December 22, 2021
In addition, all workers toil in settings where occupational safety and health laws are inadequate. As the Economic Policy Institute shows, workers do not have a meaningful right to turn down dangerous assignments or protect themselves from hazards due to power imbalances in the workplace. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) lacks the resources and authority to properly enforce laws and promulgate sufficient standards. Even with those constraints, there was a troubling history at Mayfield Consumer Products with 12 health and safety violations issued just in 2019.
Daily Independent
December 22, 2021