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
By the early 1970s, the union-avoidance industry had become a big business. Lawyers and consultants have since spent decades finding even more weaknesses in NLRB law and procedures, effectively thwarting the desires of workers to unionize. A 2019 report from the Economic Policy Institute estimated that employers spend $340 million a year on union-avoidance consultants. In 2018, 48 percent of nonunion workers said they would join a union if they could; yet just 10.8 percent of workers belong to a union today. Between those two numbers is the union-avoidance industry doing the bidding of the bosses.
Jacobin
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
“Low wages hurt all workers and are particularly harmful to Black workers and other workers of color, especially women of color who make up a disproportionate share of workers who are severely underpaid,” reports an Economic Policy Institute fact sheet on the minimum wage. “This is the result of structural racism and sexism, with an economic system rooted in chattel slavery in which workers of color — and especially women of color — have been and continue to be shunted into the most underpaid jobs.”
A bipartisan coalition in the U.S. Senate just voted to keep it that way.
Salon
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
Many economists have also roundly rejected the idea that the extra unemployment checks discourage people from finding work. Josh Bivens, a research director at the progressive Economic Policy Institute, wrote in a blog last year that, “In normal times, economists and policymakers have focused a lot of attention (almost surely too much) on the incentive effects of [unemployment insurance] benefits.” But studies have found that, “The negative economic impacts of these incentive effects have always been exaggerated,” says Bivens, and that they’re negligible, especially under the exigent circumstances caused by the pandemic.
Truthout
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
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
The Biden proposal will make federal resources available to address both. It has the potential to create millions of new jobs in this country, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Jobs building the material that will make up our infrastructure are the kind that pay a premium wage to workers with less than a four-year degree. They’re precisely the kind the market needs more of right now.
Bay to Bay News
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