Heidi Shierholz
Economic Policy Institute
Senior Economist and Director of Policy
Washingtonian Magazine
February 26, 2021
Wage theft isn’t one of the crimes most prosecutors and politicians refer to when they talk about getting ‘tough on crime,’ but it represents a massive portion of all theft committed in the country, according to a 2017 study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
NJ Today
February 26, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute reports that an estimated 146,000 workers would receive wage increases if a $15 per hour minimum wage is passed by Congress and signed into law. Of those 146,000 workers, 80,000 are women and 66,000 are Black. 12th District workers benefiting from the legislation would see an average annual wage increase of 18% or approximately $4,200 in 2020 dollars.
Rep. Alma Adams
February 26, 2021
The Center for Economic and Policy Research notes that the wage gap between white and Black workers is narrower among postal workers than among private sector employees. The Economic Policy Institute has found that Black workers’ share of USPS jobs is significantly higher than their share of all public sector jobs.
Inequality.org
February 26, 2021
The findings in this column are based on CAP’s analysis of 2020 Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotational Groups (CPS-ORG) data extracts made publicly available by the Economic Policy Institute. The analysis includes workers ages 16 and older who were in the labor force and employed and were not self-employed.
Center for American Progress
February 26, 2021
An analysis from the Economic Policy Institute called the report’s predicted impacts to job losses “just wrong and inappropriately inflated relative to what cutting-edge economics literature would indicate”.
The Independent
February 26, 2021
More than 1.3 million workers are subject to the tipped minimum wage, which allows employers to pay below minimum wage under the assumption that tips will bring up the total hourly pay, and make up the difference with a “tip credit.” The proposal attracted considerable attention in 2018 during a vicious battle in Washington, D.C., over Initiative 77, a ballot measure that repealed the tip credit only to later be reversed by the D.C. Council. Organizations such as the National Restaurant Association and Restaurant Workers of America, which launched an impressive astroturf campaign in the Initiative 77 fight, have been vocal opponents of a tipped wage repeal. Proponents of the tipped minimum wage argue that a repeal would be damaging to the restaurant industry, resulting in job losses, increased prices, or even closures. But analysis by the Economic Policy Institute does not support these claims and One Fair Wage notes that in states lacking a tipped minimum wage, the restaurant industry is actually experiencing growth.
In These Times
February 26, 2021
David Cooper, “Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would lift pay for nearly 40 million workers,” Economic Policy Institute, February 5, 2019, available at https://www.epi.org/publication/raising-the-federal-minimum-wage-to-15-by-2024-would-lift-pay-for-nearly-40-million-workers/. ↩
Center for American Progress
February 26, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute reported that the minimum wage, if adjusted for inflation, should have exceeded $15 by 2020.
“Yet since the late 1960s, lawmakers have let the value of the minimum wage erode, allowing inflation to gradually reduce the buying power of a minimum wage income,” according to a 2019 report.
The Independent
February 26, 2021