According to Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, the impact of the pandemic has revealed that African-American women, Latinas, as well as Asian women are in the greatest economic lag , since, for the most part, they have jobs in the service industry.
La Opinion
March 8, 2021
Employers steal billions of dollars from American workers’ paychecks every year, according to a 2017 study by the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit think tank.
Researchers looked at 10 states, including Illinois, and found “2.4 million workers lose $8 billion annually from being paid at an effective hourly rate lower than the states’ minimum wage,” the institute reported. “These findings suggest that employers across the country are pocketing over $15 billion each year that is owed to their employees.”
Chicago Sun Times
March 8, 2021
The Raise the Wage Act would raise wages for nearly 32 million workers — the majority of whom are women (59 percent, or nearly 19 million) — according to analyses by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and the National Employment Law Project (NELP). Findings in the reports paint a clear and compelling picture: nearly one-third (31 percent) of African Americans and one-quarter of Latinos would get a raise if the federal minimum wage were increased to $15; and nearly 23 percent of all workers who would see a raise are Black or Latina women. According to the EPI report, African Americans and Latinos are paid 10-15 percent less than white workers with the same characteristics, concluding that the Raise the Wage Act would deliver the largest benefits to Black and Latino workers at roughly $3,500 annually for a year-round worker.
The Hill
March 8, 2021
Part of the reason for the shortage has to do with pay and working conditions. On average, teachers make roughly 20% less than other college graduates, according to research from the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that focuses on worker issues.
Savannah Morning News
March 8, 2021
Black workers make up about 1 in 6 of all front-line industry workers and, according to the Economic Policy Institute, represent higher employment in retail jobs and those such as public transit, warehouses and child care. Hispanic workers also make up a large sector of essential jobs.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
March 8, 2021
Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, calculated that employers would need to add an additional 2.4 million jobs to make up for those that would have been gained if COVID-19 had not derailed the economy.
Axios
March 8, 2021
“In the United States, there’s a clear gender story here, but in the aggregate, it’s not about white women,” noted Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, in a blog post. “Black and Hispanic women experienced the most significant and disproportionate job losses in the pandemic recession.”
CBS Moneywatch
March 8, 2021
Not coincidently, CEO compensation packages became linked to share price, further rewarding short-term financial machinations to boost quarterly earnings, rather than making more strategic investments in plant, equipment and worker training. For management, this shift in priorities, often referred to as the era of “shareholder preeminence,” has paid off handsomely: According to the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute, since 1978, inflation-adjusted CEO compensation has risen by over 900 percent, but the average American worker has realized an increase of just under 11 percent. Yet when Americans begin to protest the inequality, “socialist” labels are quickly employed to create wedges between those most impacted, effectively discouraging the formation of electorally significant coalitions of workers.
Holland Sentinel
March 8, 2021
Women of color make up 52 percent of the domestic labor force, which numbers about 2 million in the U.S., including caregivers, cleaners, nannies and other workers, according to a report last year from the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute. Undocumented immigrants are also about 20 percent of the workforce, which the report suggested could be an undercount.
NBC News
March 8, 2021
Young workers are more likely to earn a minimum wage compared to older workers. But the vast majority of people who would benefit from an increase are adults ages 18 and older, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). That includes the parents of 14.4 million children, the agency says.
Money
March 5, 2021