— Heidi Shierholz, former chief economist at the Labor Department, “thinks the best answer to how many people are still affected economically by the pandemic is 25.5 million.”
Politico Morning Shift
February 22, 2021
- Counter: “That claim of job loss isn’t supported by evidence — it’s likely an overestimate of negative employment impact. But even if you accept their findings, they still find the benefits far outweigh the costs,” Heidi Shierholz, the Labor Department’s chief economist under Barack Obama, told CBS.
Washington Post
February 22, 2021
The wage hit its peak in inflation-adjusted terms in 1968 at just over $12. Though it has been raised 14 times since then, it has not kept pace with the cost of living. The current nearly 12-year stretch is the longest it’s gone without a boost.
That means minimum wage workers are getting poorer over time, said Josh Bivens, director of research at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
“Every year that Congress does not raise it, people get a pay cut,” he said.
CNN
February 22, 2021
Black people also suffer inequities in the labor market. For fifty years now, the unemployment rate of Black people has remained twice the rate of whites. In Washington, D.C., the city where John Thompson and I were born and raised, the jobless rate for Black people was more than six times the rate of whites in 2019. And Black households in 2019 earned just 61 cents on the dollar when compared to white households, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Progressive
February 22, 2021
When Amazon raised its minimum wage to $15 per hour in 2018, a move now being debated in Congress for all American workers, some believed it would pressure other companies to lift pay levels as well — particularly rival retailers and warehouse employers.
“This is going to be a big deal for very low-wage workers,” Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based economic think tank said at the time. “It’s going to compel other businesses to raise wages as well.”
Gainesville Times
February 22, 2021
We talked to Celine McNicholas, Director of Government Affairs and Labor Counsel with the Economic Policy Institute, to get the low-down on what we can expect, and dare to hope for.
Dissent Magazine
February 22, 2021
The federal minimum wage is the baseline for employers in the state. A single adult needs to earn $11.76 per hour working full time to meet her basic needs in South Carolina, $4 more than the current minimum wage. According to David Cooper at Economic Policy Institute, the wages of roughly 684,000 South Carolina workers — a third of the state’s workforce — would increase if the state adopted a $15 minimum wage by 2025.
Statehouse Report
February 22, 2021
As David Cooper, senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, notes in the report, minimum wage hikes result in stronger buying power to workers. In turn, hospitality businesses benefit from the extra purchases. “Tax breaks or deferrals, rent subsidies, expanded lending programs, and other business-oriented relief measures all help firms weather a downturn,” Cooper says, “but they’re not going to drive additional spending in the same way that a minimum wage hike does.”
Mother Jones
February 22, 2021
Of the workers who will benefit from a $15 federal minimum wage hike, 59% are women, with nearly one in four of these women being Black or Latina, reports the Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
February 22, 2021