The letter from 88 groups was organized by the Center for American Progress, Public Citizen and Americans for Tax Fairness. It was signed by the AFL-CIO and other unions and by think tanks including the Economic Policy Institute and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
The Fiscal Times
February 19, 2021
According to the Economic Policy Institute, nearly 31 percent of Black workers and 26 percent of Latinx workers would immediately benefit with an increase to $15 an hour. Increasing the minimum wage advances the cause of racial justice.
Boston Globe
February 19, 2021
Source: Brookings analysis of American Community Survey 2019 data and Economic Policy Institute Family Budget Calculator data.
Brookings Institution
February 19, 2021
“Raising the minimum wage would amount to a significant reduction in the deficit, according to studies done by the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics and the Economic Policy Institute,” said McCormick.
NJ Today
February 19, 2021
“The evidence is clear that minimum wage increases overwhelmingly benefit the low-wage workforce,” economist Ben Zipperer of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) wrote in an email to Insider.
Business Insider
February 19, 2021
But the gain in wages is not an unalloyed benefit to those who gain. The reason is that, as noted above, an increase in wage rates doesn’t automatically make workers more productive. So employers, looking for ways to avoid paying more to workers than their productivity is worth, would search out other ways of compensating. They might cut non-wage benefits, work the employees harder, or reduce training, to name three. Interestingly, on its website in 2006, when Congress was considering an increase in the federal minimum wage, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), an organization funded partly by labor unions, admitted the last two of these three. It stated, “employers may be able to absorb some of the costs of a wage increase through higher productivity, lower recruiting and training costs, decreased absenteeism, and increased worker morale.” How would an employer make his workers more productive and reduce absenteeism? Probably by working the employees harder and firing those who miss work. How would he reduce training costs? By providing less training. In an article in the winter 2021 issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, UC-San Diego economist Jeffrey Clemens noted a negative correlation between minimum wages and employer-provided health insurance. In the workplace as in the rest of the world, there’s no free lunch.
Hoover Institution
February 19, 2021
The two biggest problems facing American manufacturing are the trade deficit and outsourcing. Over the last three decades, multi-national corporations (MNCs) decided that it was in the best interest of their shareholders to move jobs and production to low-cost foreign countries. According to the Economic Policy Institute, American corporations have outsourced more than 5 million jobs and 91,000 plants since 1998.
Industry Week
February 19, 2021
Based on pre-pandemic data, the long-term unemployment rate in a relatively healthy economy sits at around 20 percent, said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
SHRM
February 19, 2021
If it had, it would have to be at least $19.33 per hour, according to a calculation back in 2017 by the Economic Policy Institute.
The Tribune-Democrat
February 18, 2021