Media clips

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• One-off tax on $5.5 trillion Covid profits of world’s richest would pay for world to be vaccinated and give unemployed $20k

  An August report from progressive think tank Economic Policy Institute found that corporate boards have awarded America’s top executives compensation packages that radically outpace stock market growth and worker pay, while the nation’s federally set hourly minimum wage has remained at $7.25 for more than a decade.

  The Independent August 13, 2021
• Ballot campaign seeks to raise Nebraska minimum wage to $15

  Twenty-five other states increased their minimum wage on Jan. 1, according to the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute. The current highest rate is $15.20 an hour, in the District of Columbia, although some states have adopted annual indexing that increases their rates automatically each year.

  Associated Press August 13, 2021
• CEO pay has soared 1,322 per cent since 1978

  These outsize compensation packages have grown faster than the stock market, and the pay of typical workers, college graduates, and even the top 0.1 per cent, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  “Exorbitant CEO pay is a major contributor to rising inequality that we could safely do away with,” write authors Lawrence Mishell, a distinguished fellow, and research assistant Jori Kandra.

  “CEOs are getting more because of their power to set pay and because so much of their pay (more than 80 per cent) is stock-related, not because they are increasing their productivity or possess specific, high-demand skills.”

  During the same period, the pay of the typical worker increased 18 per cent.

  The Independent (via Yahoo! News) August 13, 2021
• Retail Workers Are Quitting At A Record Pace. But Stores Are Rapidly Hiring, Too

  Meanwhile, inflation is erasing the buying power of those new raises. I talked to Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, and she says if this was a big change that’s giving workers a new kind of long-term power, wage growth would be much higher. And she worries over time, wages might simply get frozen again while prices continue rising.

  NPR August 13, 2021
• Millennials make up the largest share of homebuyers in California. How do they do it?

  While housing costs doubled or tripled, wages didn’t. Compensation rose 17.2% since 1979, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  Sacramento Bee August 13, 2021
• Wages rise in US as companies scramble for staff

  “For the first time since the late 1990s, low-wage workers have a little more leverage to demand higher pay,” said David Cooper, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive Washington think tank.

  AFP (via Yahoo! News) August 13, 2021
• Since 1978, CEO Pay Has Risen 1,322%. Typical Worker Pay? Just 18%

  A new analysis released Tuesday by the Economic Policy Institute finds that CEO pay in the United States rose by a staggering 1,322% between 1978 and 2020—a sharp contrast to the pay increase of the typical worker, which was just 18% during that same period.

  In 2020, a year of pandemic and widespread economic dislocation, the top executives at the largest public firms in the U.S. were paid 351 times as much as the typical worker, with CEO pay measured by salary, bonuses, long-term incentive payouts, and exercised stock options.

  Common Dreams August 13, 2021
• CEO pay at big companies rose nearly 19% last year to $24 million, report finds

  The chief executives at major U.S. corporations received millions of dollars in bonuses or raises last year even as many companies saw slumping sales and job cuts because of the pandemic, a new analysis shows.

  CEO compensation at the top 350 companies jumped nearly 19% in 2020 to an average $24.2 million, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal-leaning think tank. By comparison, pay for rank-and-file workers last year rose roughly 4%. The typical corporate leader at big companies in 2020 made $351 for every dollar earned by a typical employee, up from a ratio of 307-to-1 in 2019, according to EPI.

  Economist Lawrence Mishel, who co-authored the report, said some companies touted reductions in pay for top executives to reflect the pandemic’s impact on business, but had little impact. “CEOs offering pay cuts during the pandemic yielded favorable headlines, but were symbolic at best and a head fake at worst,” he said in a statement.

  CBS August 13, 2021
• Another 3.9 million people quit their jobs in June—and many are getting higher-paying roles

  If all these workers were taken into account, July’s unemployment rate would be 8.1% instead of the reported 5.4%, according to Heidi Shierholz, the director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute.

  CNBC August 13, 2021
• Amazon forewent incentives to build massive facilities

  Still, all numbers considered, the Impact DataSource analysis shows that the benefits outweigh the costs. But there may be more to consider than just the numbers: An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a nonprofit think tank, found that while Amazon fulfillment centers clearly create warehouse jobs, the new employment is “likely offset by job losses in other [local] industries.”

  “Amazon isn’t only hiring people who don’t have jobs,” explains Ben Zipperer, an economist at EPI who coauthored the analysis on Amazon. “It’s attracting workers from other businesses that already have jobs.”

  These could be people coming from fast food or retail jobs, he says. And while these folks may be able to find higher wages at Amazon, the overall impact on employment in a local area is often minimal.

  “In those places that Amazon builds fulfillment centers, you do see [that] there’s more people working in warehousing,” Zipperer says. But when it comes to the “overall impact on the local economy, we didn’t find any evidence that it [Amazon] significantly increased the number of people working.”

  If Amazon doesn’t necessarily boost local employment, will it at least boost wages across Albuquerque? We won’t know until it happens, but a 2018 article from The Economist explains that in some areas, Amazon warehouse jobs seem to be linked to lower wages for similar occupations across a region. And Zipperer from EPI notes that working conditions are reportedly poor in some Amazon locations. Finally, even if Amazon doesn’t push down wages, their starting pay isn’t especially competitive compared to similar jobs.

  KRQE Media August 13, 2021