The vocal support from the Biden administration is significant for the future of the legislation, said Celine McNicholas, director of government affairs and labor counsel at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
“We just don’t know what labor law reform is possible with an administration willing to expend critical political capital,” McNicholas said.
Bloomberg Law
March 10, 2021
“There is no paid leave option for the vast majority of workers, and so who is going to take the unpaid leave? Well, the person who is earning less,” said Elise Gould with the Economic Policy Institute.
NPR Marketplace
March 10, 2021
The big picture: The PRO Act would restrict companies like Uber and Lyft from classifying workers as independent contractors and improve protections for workers’ right to strike, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Axios
March 10, 2021
In a meticulous analysis for the respected Economic Policy Institute, Monique Morrissey debunked the Yankee Institute report, revealing it was based on a cherry-picked sample of workers, used nonstandard control variables, and inflated the cost of retiree benefits in the public sector, while minimizing their cost in the private sector. Morrissey concluded that Connecticut public sector workers without college degrees are compensated somewhat more than those in the private sector, while those with college and graduate degrees are compensated somewhat less than in the private sector, even when factoring in more generous public sector benefits. In short, Morrissey writes, “taxpayers are getting a bargain!”
New Canaan Advertiser
March 10, 2021
Minimum wage workers are not just teenagers looking to earn spending money; the average age of people who would stand to benefit from the increased minimum wage is 35 years old, with 88% being over the age of 20 according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Observer
March 10, 2021
In a statement the Economic Policy Institute explained that
The PRO Act helps restore workers’ right to join together to bargain for better wages and working conditions by streamlining the process when workers form a union, ensuring that they are successful in negotiating the first agreement, and holding employers accountable when they violate labor law.
Workday Minnesota
March 10, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute’s “Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025 would lift the pay of 32 million workers” research paper analyzed pay by state, unemployment rate, job type and effect on poverty levels. The foundation of the research was based on the “Raise the Wage Act of 2021,” which had five increases in the minimum wage between now and 2025 when it would reach the $15 threshold.
24/7 Wall St.
March 10, 2021
Beyond this bill, union organizers are seeing glimmers of hope, however. For one thing, a study by the progressive Economic Policy Institute found workers in unions were less likely to get laid off than their non-unionized counterparts during the Covid-19 recession, making a case for more union representation. For another, the administration of President Joe Biden is positioning itself as far friendlier to organized labor than even past Democratic administrations.
VOX
March 10, 2021
The report, published by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI), found that an increase in the minimum wage would affect 22.1 million workers directly, and 10.1 million workers indirectly, by the year 2025 – and together would constitute 21% of the projected U.S. workforce in that year.
Yahoo Finance
March 10, 2021