Republicans have blamed the perceived labor shortages on unemployment benefits, despite economists dismissing the benefits as a driving factor, with data showing labor shortages are confined to the leisure and hospitality sector and show no signs of spilling over to other industries or reducing growth within the leisure and hospitality sector, according to a recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.
The Guardian
May 21, 2021
CEO compensation soared around 1,200% from 1978 to 2019, far outpacing stock market returns (the S&P 500 Index of large US stocks rallied 740% during that span) and the take home pay for workers, which increased by about 14%, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Soaring CEO pay spills into the pay for other executives, resulting in inflated paychecks for a handful of people at the top of the corporate pyramid that doesn’t trickle down to lower-ranked workers, said Lawrence Mishel, distinguished fellow at EPI. This kind of unbalanced renumeration also seeps into the nonprofit sector and universities.
“Executive pay has been the single largest driver of excessive income growth at the very top,” Mishel said. CEOs in particular make six times as much as the top 0.1% of wage earners.
It wasn’t always this way. For the largest public companies, the ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker compensation was 320-to-1 in 2019, but the ratio was more like 61-to-1 in 1989 and was 21-to-1 in 1965.
Quartz
May 21, 2021
While the business groups believe the extra federal jobless benefit is discouraging some people from taking jobs, government surveys also show people are reluctant to look for work because they fear contracting COVID-19. In addition, other groups say many women have dropped out of the workforce to care for children and some people are searching for higher paying jobs with benefits.
The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute argued in a recent commentary that policymakers shouldn’t rein in the unemployment benefits.
“Cutting pandemic (unemployment) benefits now, as some states have done or are considering, will not just hurt workers who are depending on federal benefits while they cannot find work or are unable to work, it will also drag on the economy, as those benefits are supporting spending,” the organization said in the post.
Associated Press
May 21, 2021
The nonpartisan, left-leaning Economic Policy Institute said in a blog post last week that some labor shortages have occurred for hospitality and leisure businesses, where wages are typically low, but that they shouldn’t spill into other industries. Furthermore, it said, cutting off the extra benefits could hurt the economy, adding that goal shouldn’t be to “chase” as many adults into jobs as possible but “to provide good options and economic security for all.”
The Associated Press
May 21, 2021
A growing number of prosecutors around the nation are beginning to treat wage theft and other offenses by employers as a criminal matter, instead of relegating enforcement to civil suits and regulatory agencies.
The law-enforcement system is very effective at pressing charges “if someone were to steal an individual’s cell phone, Michael Dougherty, district attorney of Colorado’s Boulder County, said during an online seminar organized by the Economic Policy Institute May 18. “Wage theft has a far greater effect on the individual.”
Labor Press
May 21, 2021
If Colorado’s discoveries are any indication of a national trend, wage theft, especially from low-wage workers of color, is much more pervasive than people realize—and, increasingly, local District Attorneys and state Attorneys General are stepping up enforcement against such corporate thieves.
So says Michael Dougherty, DA for Boulder, Colo., and one of four DAs from around the U.S. whom the Economic Policy Institute convened on May 17 to discuss the issue and a new EPI report on its extent. They also discussed increasing enforcement measures in their areas.
People’s World
May 21, 2021
To understand what’s actually going on in the economy and discuss why a restaurant labor shortage could be welcome news for workers, I spoke with Heidi Shierholz, the director of policy and a senior economist at the progressive Economic Policy Institute. Before rejoining EPI in 2017, Shierholz served as the chief economist at the Department of Labor.
Mother Jones
May 21, 2021
Northwest Indiana is the largest steel-producing region in the United States, and supporters of the industry say keeping the 2018 steel tariffs in place will be critical for post-pandemic recovery.
A report from the Economic Policy Institute outlined how a 25% tariff on steel imports under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act has provided relief to steel-producers facing prices undercut by foreign imports.
Public News Service
May 21, 2021
Another recent report from the Economic Policy Institute, a national think tank, found low-wage workers in the 10 most populous states, including California, reported losing an average of $3,300 in wages per year due to wage theft and other crimes committed against workers by their employers. The report argues that criminal action brought by district attorneys or other prosecutors would likely deter wage theft and other similar crimes. There’s no reason to believe the violations have abated since the national study was conducted in 2008. The Center on Policy Initiatives interviewed hundreds of workers in 2017 and found that formal complaints are rare and typically only happen when the theft rises to an egregious level.
Voice of San Diego
May 21, 2021
San Diego Democratic Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez’s office is calling attention to a new report published by the Economic Policy Institute, which “sheds light on the need for district attorneys and other public prosecutors to bring forward cases involving wage theft and other employer-committed crimes against workers,” according to her office.
“We need to actually enforce labor laws in this country and address the crimes committed against ordinary workers every single day with the urgency it deserves,” Gonzalez said in a statement.
The report found that minimum wage violations in the 10 most populous states, including California, affected approximately 2.4 million low-income employees, who lost an average of $3,300 a year, or nearly a quarter of their earned wages.
Sacramento Bee
May 21, 2021