Then there’s the pathetically low federal minimum wage. Labor and civil rights activists have long called for the national wage floor to be raised to $15 an hour, which translates (assuming 40 hours a week for 50 weeks) to $30,000 a year, equivalent to less than a quarter of the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) no-frills Basic Family Budget for a family of two parents and two children in the New York City borough (and New York State county) of Queens.
Counterpunch
March 3, 2021
And the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI), among other worker-advocate groups, disputed some of the CBO’s findings, claiming that there would be little to no effect on employment. Plus, the EPI said there would be other benefits that would save billions.
“If the 2021 Raise the Wage Act were passed and the federal hourly minimum wage increased to $15 by 2025, we estimate that annual government expenditures on major public assistance programs would fall by between $13.4 billion and $31.0 billion,” the EPI wrote this month.
The Daily Wire
March 3, 2021
Furner said the increased spending could support more than 750,000 new American jobs, based on a Walmart study with Boston Consulting Group that used data from the Economic Policy Institute and Bureau of Labor Statistics.
CNBC
March 3, 2021
The pandemic has disproportionately affected the employment of Black and Hispanic workers. The Economic Policy Institute wrote in an analysis that Black workers are less likely to be in jobs that can be done remotely and more likely to be in jobs considered essential or in jobs that have experienced major job losses amid the pandemic.
Business Insider
March 3, 2021
But much of that wealth is concentrated in the pockets of a few dozen county residents. According to the most recent data available from the Economic Policy Institute, Rappahannock County ranks in the 17th percentile for income inequality when compared with all U.S. counties. That means the difference between what the top 1% of county residents earn and what the bottom 99% earn is among the highest in the country. And what’s more, Rappahannock County Public Schools estimates that 13-16% of Rappahannock families live below the federal poverty line.
Rappahannock News
March 3, 2021
The average CEO of a large public firm earns about 320 times as much as a typical worker, according to a report released in 2020 by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). CEO compensation has continued to surge and could rise again despite the pandemic, according to the report. CEO pay for the top 350 firms in the U.S. surged 14% in 2019 to $21.3 million. From 1978 to 2019, CEO pay increased by 1,167%.
MSN Money
March 3, 2021
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the unemployment rate for workers ages 16-24 jumped from 8.4 percent to 24.4 percent between spring 2019 and spring 2020, while the rate for ages 25 and older rose from 2.8 percent to 11.3 percent.
Flatland KC
March 2, 2021
Contrary to popular misconceptions, most minimum wage workers are not teenagers according to the Economic Policy Institute. 59% of workers who would benefit from the federal minimum wage are women…two-thirds of them are the sole or primary bread winners of their family that count on the minimum wage. Nearly one in four workers who would receive a raise under a $15 minimum wage are Black or Latina women.
C-SPAN
March 2, 2021
But when workers lose unemployment benefits, the “scarring” effects of unemployment — like lasting lower wages — may worsen, according to a 2014 study by the Economic Policy Institute.
“The primary economic damage that is larger for long spells of joblessness is the lower incomes that result from unemployment insurance benefits being cut off, which occurs roughly around six months in most states,” the study found.
Time Magazine
March 2, 2021
According to the Economic Policy Institute, this measure would help over 30 million workers see a pay increase.
The majority of these workers will be women and people of color. According to the EPI, 59% of workers who would benefit from this wage increase are women. One in four of these women are Latina or Black. According to the National Women’s Law Center, nearly three-fourths of tipped minimum wage workers are women.
UT Daily Beacon
March 2, 2021