According to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute think tank, the Romney-Cotton plan would leave 27 million fewer American workers with a pay increase in comparison to Democrats’ proposal—with 11 million fewer Black and Hispanic workers and 16 million fewer women benefiting from the GOP plan. What’s more, it would continue the trend that has seen the federal minimum wage steadily decline in recent decades when adjusted for inflation, according to the think tank.
“Romney-Cotton’s $10 target by 2025 is the equivalent of $9.19 per hour in today’s dollars, about 13% less than what the minimum wage was at its high-water mark in 1968,” the EPI’s Ben Zipperer and Daniel Costa wrote in a blog post Wednesday. “It is unconscionable that we should pay the lowest-wage workers today less than what they earned five decades ago, while the economy’s productivity has more than doubled over the last 50 years.”
Fortune
February 26, 2021
The better measurement, however, is the median wage. It indicates what the typical worker makes. The median marks the halfway point in wages with half of workers making more, half less. The median wage grew 6.9%, a new report by the Economic Policy Institute shows.
DC Report
February 25, 2021
The disparities widen when broken down by race, even for those with the same level of education. A report from the Economic Policy Institute showed that at every level of education, the Black unemployment rate is much higher than the white unemployment rate.
National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators
February 25, 2021
The median net worth of Black families is $142,330 — or just one-seventh of the $980,550 in wealth accumulated by white Americans, according to a new study from LendingTree that draws on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 2020 Economic Policy Institute report, and various Federal Reserve reports. The difference can have long-lasting impacts.
Yahoo
February 25, 2021
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a $15 federal minimum wage could substantially reduce racial and gender pay gaps. Nearly 60% of the workers who would see a pay hike are women, and about one-third of African American workers and one-quarter of Latino workers would get a raise.
WSBT
February 25, 2021
Outdated unemployment insurance systems in some states collapsed from the influx of applicants who lost their job during the pandemic. As a result, only 71% of applicants received benefits by April 11, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Independent
February 25, 2021
Meanwhile, the $10 increase proposed by Romney and Cotton would only boost wages for 4.9 million workers, or 3.2% of the workforce, according to a report released Thursday from the Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
February 25, 2021
That hypothetical worker, however, likely couldn’t sue in court to begin with given that “more than half—53.9 percent—of nonunion private-sector employers have mandatory arbitration procedures,” according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Stranger
February 25, 2021
While both proposals would of course raise wages for millions of workers, the Democrats‘ Raise the Wage Act would go much further to benefit working Americans. Just 3.2 percent of workers would see additional money in their paychecks by 2025 under Romney’s and Cotton’s plan, compared to 21.2 percent of workers under the Democratic bill, according to an analysis published Wednesday by the Economic Policy Institute. In different terms, the Democratic plan would give a raise to 32.2 million workers and the Republican proposal would provide a wage hike to just 4.9 million workers.
Newsweek
February 25, 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 25, 2021