That’s just one page from the epic tale of American industrial job loss. Nearly 5 million net manufacturing jobs have disappeared since 1997, according to the Economic Policy Institute—roughly one out of every four. Though automation has played a dominant role in those job losses, critics also blame free-trade policies such as the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement. The decline of American manufacturing jobs has helped shrink the middle class and worsen U.S. income inequality. Political scientists, moreover, have found strong links between the loss of those good jobs and the rise of political extremism in the U.S.
Fortune
April 30, 2021
Faced with management’s intimidation campaigns, many pro-union workers become wary of expressing their support publicly — and not without reason. Research from the pro-labor think tank Economic Policy Institute shows that workers are fired in 1 out of 5 union election campaigns.
Clearly the election process needs to be fixed. But doing so leaves unanswered a more fundamental question: Why are employers allowed to intervene in union elections at all?
Washington Post
April 30, 2021
According to an analysis by Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research for the progressive Economic Policy Institute, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act would tweak the complicated system for setting minimum pay rates for H-2A workers in ways that will likely lower wages for most of them—a major goal of the agribusiness lobby.
On top of the wage change, the bill would open the H-2A program to more kinds of farms. Currently, the H-2A program only grants seasonal visas; it’s designed to draw in workers to, say, handle a region’s strawberry harvest. It leaves out operations that rely on steady year-round work, like plant nurseries and dairy farms, which now rely heavily on undocumented labor. These interests “have been clamoring for years for Congress to allow them to hire temporary H-2A workers for many of these 419,000 permanent, year-round jobs,” writes Costa.
Mother Jones
April 30, 2021
The gap between executive compensation and average worker pay has been growing for decades. Chief executives of big companies now make, on average, 320 times as much as their typical worker, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In 1989, that ratio was 61 to 1. From 1978 to 2019, compensation grew 14 percent for typical workers. It rose 1,167 percent for C.E.O.s.
New York Times
April 30, 2021
Instead of another round of broad checks, lawmakers should focus on extending unemployment benefits and the child tax credit because they could provide “longer-run fixes” for American households, according to Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute.
USA Today
April 28, 2021
For many Americans, that might sound like an ominous proposal as it would mean things like groceries, restaurant bills, and leisure activities would all cost more, but Robert Scott, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, says higher inflation is actually a good thing.
“A tight labor market and a rapidly growing economy, if we can get there, is going to sustain higher levels of wage increase,” explained Scott. “So, you might be paying more: 2-3% a year more for your food, and groceries, and rent, but your wages might be rising at 3% or 4% or 5% a year. That’s good news. If wages are rising more than prices, you’re going to see a rising standard of living.”
Scripps National News
April 28, 2021
Taken altogether, the proposals mark a “meaningful investment in care, in paid leave, that will help many workers in the formal labor market,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “That will absolutely be good for economic growth.”
Bloomberg
April 28, 2021
Under Biden’s executive order, an estimated 390,000 workers will directly benefit, which about half are women and the rest are Black or Hispanic, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Arizona Republic
April 28, 2021
Another AFL-CIO alum and Drake’s former boss, Thea Lee, who is president of the labor-friendly Economic Policy Institute, will also be joining the Biden administration in a yet undisclosed role.
Politico
April 28, 2021