Media clips
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Since the jobs report is so important and such a recurring feature of the news cycle, it’s probably time that you understood what the heck it is. We reached out to Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and an avid reader of the monthly jobs report, for some answers.
HowStuffWorks June 4, 2021 -
Over the past four years, temporary worker programs have increased, while opportunities for permanent residency have declined, a shift that was accelerated by the Trump administration during the coronavirus pandemic. The shift has allowed for greater economic opportunities for migrants while also increasing instances of corporate exploitation of migrant labor, according to the progressive Economic Policy Institute.
USA Today June 4, 2021 -
“Nearly all the states cutting [unemployment insurance] still have significantly fewer jobs than before the pandemic,” David Cooper of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute noted in a blog post. “The country is simply not at a place yet where states should be cutting off supports to unemployed workers.”
CBS Moneywatch June 4, 2021 -
For tipped workers like servers, base pay in Kentucky is $2.13 an hour and has been since 1991.
Dave Cooper, senior analyst with the Economic Policy Institute, says that is the real problem.
“Kentucky is one of only about 20 states that still use the federal standard for minimum wages,” said Cooper. “So if you’re a server in California, you’re making $14 an hour out of your paycheck, plus tips on top of that, whereas someone in Lexington, might only be making $2.13 an hour, and hopefully tips are getting up, getting them up to at least 7.25 but, you know in a lot of cases even that doesn’t.”
Cooper says the argument that prices may increase is valid- but could be worth it in the long run.
“There’s a lot of research that shows that when you raise wages, businesses, see some savings from lower turnover workers stay on the job longer, maybe they get better at their jobs,” said Cooper.
LEX-TV June 4, 2021 -
Somehow, we are all supposed to forget that the Obama era was defined by one of the largest drops in workers’ share of corporate income in the modern history of the United States, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute:
That decline was punctuated by huge Democratic electoral losses — which strongly suggests not coincidence but causation. It suggests that the Obama-led Democratic Party kicking the working class in the face while enriching finance billionaires prompted a political backlash that ended up (misguidedly) benefiting the GOP.
Jacobin June 4, 2021 -
At the start of the pandemic, some CEOs announced, to much fanfare, that they’d give up their salaries in order to protect their companies from layoffs or closures. But those gestures did little to curb the trend of soaring CEO earnings (because salary is often just one component of CEO compensation). In 2020, what CEOs took home rose nearly 16%, according to preliminary data, while the average worker’s compensation rose just 1.8%.
Those figures come from a preliminary report from the Economic Policy Institute, which each year reports on CEO compensation trends based on data from the 350 largest firms. That annual report uses information these firms file by June, but 281 of those 350 firms have already reported their CEO compensation for 2020, so Lawrence Mishel, distinguished fellow at and former president of the EPI, decided to put out some analysis early. “We think this is a proper early look at what we can expect,” he says. And what he’s expecting is fast CEO compensation growth: “We would estimate that CEO compensation will hit, by far, its historic peak in 2020.”
Fast Company June 4, 2021 -
Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the Economic Policy Institute, calculated that wages in leisure and hospitality increased at an annualized rate of nearly 18% in the past three months. But she said that mostly just made up for declines in the earlier part of the recession.
“We’ve had a big acceleration in recent months, but in no way are wages out of whack,” she said. “They’re roughly what you would expect if COVID hadn’t happened. They are still extremely low. It’s the lowest wage sector by far in our economy.”
Minneapolis Star Tribune June 4, 2021 -
This much is clear: A California family’s infant care costs average about $17,400 a year, the third highest cost in the nation. The price of child care for a 4-year-old averages about $11,475 annually, according to data from the White House and the Economic Policy Institute, which compiles statistics from several sources.
Fresno Bee June 4, 2021 -
Heidi Shierholz, a former chief economist at the Department of Labor and the current senior economist and policy director at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute think tank, pointed to a caregiving crisis, lingering health fears and low wages as contributing to the restaurant industry’s staffing issues. She added, however, that the sector’s “isolated” labor shortage is “not driving things economy-wide.”
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Some restaurant workers may also still be shell-shocked from the economic and health toll the pandemic took on the industry and its workers seemingly overnight, as their sector bore the brunt of initial job losses while many of their office-working peers had the privilege of continuing work remotely. Finally, wages in leisure and hospitality remain “extraordinarily low, even with the recent acceleration,” Shierholz added, which might not be seen as enough for worker’s to risk their health or pay for alternative childcare.
Shierholz slammed the decisions of some Republican governors to cut back jobless aid because of the labor shortage in the restaurant industry, lamenting how quickly people shifted from calling workers heroes to calling them lazy.
“It’s like we went from, ‘These are essential workers, they’re keeping us going,’” she said. “And now there’s a ‘We are going to make sure that you are so desperate that you have no choice but to take a job, even if it’s dangerous for you, even if wages are very suppressed, even if that means you have an enormous amount of stress and strain added to your life because of trying to cobble together fragmented too-expensive childcare.’”
ABC News June 4, 2021 -
It is unclear how successful cutting off the extra benefits will be at getting people back to work, says Josh Bivens, research director at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “These have become a lot less desirable jobs because of the pandemic,” says Bivens. “If someone has to show up in a pretty crowded restaurant, they might not feel great about that still, and I think that’s pretty rational.”
Financial Times June 4, 2021