Media clips

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• Minimum Wage Workers Earn 21 Percent Less Than Their Counterparts 12 Years Ago: Report

  A new report published Thursday by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found the $7.25 minimum wage has lost roughly one-fifth of its value since July 2009, after adjusting for inflation.

  The value of minimum wage in 2009 would be equivalent to $9.17 per hour today. Minimum wage hit its peak in 1986, according to EPI, as it would be worth $11.12 in today’s dollars.

  …

  “That’s a really remarkable finding, that more than 50 years ago we paid the lowest wage workers in this economy substantially more than what we pay them today,” Ben Zipperer, an economist at EPI, told Newsweek.

  “Maybe the minimum wage hasn’t changed, but the cost of living has increased over that period,” Zipperer added. “It’s more expensive to pay rent, it’s more expensive to buy food and it’s more expensive to pay for healthcare.”

  …

  Zipperer noted the United States has the economic capacity to pay employees higher wages but has primarily only done so for those who are already at the top of the wage distribution.

  “But for a low-wage worker that essentially means that you can’t afford a decent standard of living,” he said.
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  He added, “A single adult with no kids is going to need at least a $15 an hour job today in order to afford basic necessities like rent, food, transportation expenses and taxes.”

  Newsweek July 23, 2021
• ‘WE ALL QUIT’: How America’s Workers Are Taking Back Their Power

  Employment benefits have given workers a little more time and higher expectations to find better jobs. “Workers have seen during the pandemic that when lawmakers choose to step in and act and protect people [via stimulus checks, unemployment benefits, healthcare], work doesn’t have to suck as much. When workers are asked to do tough jobs, they want to be paid more,” David Cooper, senior policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute said. “For the first time since the late 1990s, low wages workers have the leverage to demand higher pay. The workers who walk out of Burger King are using this to their advantage.”

  …

  While some professionals are quitting because of burnout or existential crises, according to a New York Times article about the phenomenon from April, low wage workers don’t have the savings or other financial cushion to leave the job market for extended periods of time to explore passion projects and travel, Cooper says.

  But people are finding better jobs in the same industries, or entirely new ones. Cooper says the expanded social safety net has left workers wanting and expecting more, and has allowed them to spend a little more time out of the workforce looking for the right job. “In general, unemployment benefits give workers the ability to wait for better jobs and better working conditions,” said Cooper. “They’re taking time to pick the right jobs. Those jobs might be closer to their interests, closer to what they studied, jobs that are a career rather than a means to pay the bills.”

  …

  “Flexibility to look for better jobs has been eroded intentionally through policy choices and campaigns to undermine workers’ leverage and ability to expect more from employers,” said Cooper.

   

  VICE July 23, 2021
• Woodstock votes yes on short-term rental moratorium

  Meanwhile, 2019 analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank created to address the needs of low- and middle-income workers, recognized some economic benefits of Airbnbs but concluded that those benefits do not outweigh the costs to local jurisdictions in the form of tax revenue and potentially higher housing costs for local residents if enough properties for long-term housing were converted to short-term accommodations. The analysis also concluded that those benefiting from short-term rentals were disproportionately white and high-wealth households.

  Albany Times Union July 21, 2021
• Daybreak July 21: Lawmakers look at revising ag disaster program

  By the way: Farmworkers continued to make less in 2020 than workers with even minimal education, the Economic Policy Institute says in an analysis of wage data. Ag workers made $14.62 per hour on average, and H-2A workers made less — $13.68 per hour, writes EPI’s director of Immigration Law and Policy Research, Daniel Costa.

   

  Agri-Pulse July 21, 2021
• State Department’s Federal Au Pair Oversight Plan Draws Critics

  Au pair hours can be difficult to confine to the one-day 10-hour maximum or the 45-hour weekly cap, especially if they’re on call to take care of babies crying all night, said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute.

  “When you’re having people come and work 40 to 80 hours a week, I think the Labor Department should be involved,” he said.

  Bloomberg Law July 16, 2021
• CBS News

  Heidi Shierholz / sr. economist and director of policy, economic policy institute) we know that non compete agreements suppress workers wages and so banning them will remove that wage suppressing effect and actually increase workers wages.

  CBS News July 16, 2021
• #MeToo exposed how forced arbitration protects harassers. A bipartisan group of lawmakers wants to ban it

  The Federal Arbitration Act is a 100-year-old law that was initially designed to be a cost effective way for business entities to resolve disputes. A series of Supreme Court decisions beginning in the 1990s expanded its scope. In 1992, just 2 percent of U.S. workers were subject to mandatory arbitration clauses. By 2018, more than 56 percent were, or roughly 60 million workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  The 19th July 16, 2021
• What Biden’s executive order on noncompete agreements means for tech workers

  This executive order comes as noncompetes are on the rise across the country, with anywhere between 27% and 46% of all private-sector workers subject to the agreements, according to a 2019 survey by the Economic Policy Institute. Though broadly intended to discourage employees from taking trade secrets along with them when they switch jobs, noncompete clauses are increasingly worked into jobs across the economic scale.

  LA Times July 16, 2021
• New data shows how white top companies are

  Black workers are especially underrepresented in industries and occupations with the fastest growth in pay. Valerie Rawlston Wilson…[Paywall]

  USA Today July 16, 2021
• President Biden’s Recent Executive Order Takes Aim At Non-Competes

  According to a 2019 report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), 31.8% of private-sector businesses that responded to EPI’s survey (a total of 634 respondents were surveyed) reported that all of their employees had to sign a non-compete agreement, regardless of their job duties or compensation. And of the respondents that had an average wage of less than $13.00, 29% of them required all their workers to enter into non-compete agreements.

  Forbes July 16, 2021