Janine Jackson interviewed Economic Policy Institute’s David Cooper about the “we all quit” phenomenon for the August 6, 2021, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Joining us with a different angle is David Cooper, senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, and deputy director of EARN, the Economic Analysis and Research Network, a national network of state-level policy research and advocacy organizations. He joins us now by phone. Welcome to CounterSpin, David Cooper.
FAIR Counterspin
August 13, 2021
Since the late 1960s, wages have made up an increasingly smaller share of the US’s gross domestic product, even as the economy grew. In the meantime, CEO pay has grown by 1,322% between 1978 and 2020, according to a report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Business Insider
August 13, 2021
Some wage inflation for workers is fine, according to Josh Bivens at the Economic Policy Institute.
“People are going out to restaurants again, and wages and employment are both rising. And until we see evidence that the fast wage growth is like choking off employment growth, I think we just have to say, ‘That’s really good. Restaurant workers actually have some bargaining power they traditionally do not have,’” Bivens said.
Marketplace
August 13, 2021
According to the National Educational Association, Kentucky ranks 42nd in the nation for starting salaries, with new teachers averaging about $37,000 per year. The overall salary for educators is a little better, at nearly $54,000 per year, but teachers are still only making 78 cents for every dollar someone with similar education and experience in a different field can make, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Salaries aren’t the only point of contention for Kentucky teachers. According to the Economic Policy Institute, teachers in Kentucky on average spend more than $400 of their own money every year to provide supplies for their students and classrooms.
WHAS 11
August 13, 2021
The use of arbitration clauses in employment agreements has increased dramatically in the last 20 years, from only 2% of workers subject to forced arbitration in 1992 compared with 56% in 2018, according to a study from the Economic Policy Institute. The left-leaning think tank projects that this number will increase to 80% by 2024.
Bloomberg Law
August 13, 2021
A new report issued by the Economic Policy Institute has tracked CEO pay back to 1978 and says that the average chief executive’s pay has grown 1,322% in that time period. And while that’s certainly a long span of time — more than 40 years — the average worker’s pay has grown a mere 18 percent during that same time period.
This means the average CEO makes $351 for every dollar the average worker does… and though a recent report in Forbes says wealth increased for the ultra-wealthy to the tune of $5 trillion during the pandemic, EPI points out that the CEO-to-worker pay ratio isn’t even the highest it’s ever been. That happened in 2000, when it was 366-to-1.
Manufacturing.net
August 13, 2021
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
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
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
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