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
Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, countered that multiple academic studies of state and local minimum wage mandates show few job losses. Without pay raises, Shierholz added, low-income Americans continue to fall further and further behind as income inequality grows.
Star Tribune
February 25, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute estimates that passing the increase would benefit around 40 million Americans, over 38 million adults, nearly 24 million full-time workers, 23 million women, over 11 million parents, 5.4 million single parents and the parents of 14.4 million children. In 2019, the EPI estimated that this would benefit 255,000 workers in West Virginia.
Charleston Gazette-Mail
February 25, 2021
Romney and Cotton’s plan would only raise wages for around 3 percent of American workers, compared to 21.2 percent of workers under the Democratic proposal, according to an analysis published Wednesday by the Economic Policy Institute.
Newsweek
February 25, 2021
According to projections based on the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) “Family Budget Calculator,” in larger metro areas of the South and Southwest a single adult without children will require more than $15 an hour by 2025. The EPI calculator projects that, in order to get by, a single adult without children would need an hourly wage of $20.03 in Fort Worth, Texas, $21.12 in Phoenix, Arizona, and $20.95 in Miami, Florida.
World Socialist Web Site
February 25, 2021
The organizing drive still underway by workers at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Bessemer, Ala., reveals some of the many ways our current labor law gives employers too much power to stand in the way of workers trying to gain a collective voice.
The Nation
February 25, 2021
Elise Gould, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, agrees.
“States that rely more heavily on the harder-hit industries, like tourism, could be seeing a more acute difficulty from this time,” Gould told Insider.
Business Insider
February 25, 2021
12 million workers had likely lost employer-sponsored health insurance during the pandemic as of August 26, 2020. [Economic Policy Institute]
Inequality.org
February 25, 2021
Education is an important key in continuing to address issues such as why incarceration and sentences are higher for Blacks, and finding solutions to the rising wage gaps between Blacks and whites, which were higher in 2019 than 2000, according to the Economic Policy Institute’s 2019 wage report.
The Collegian
February 25, 2021