On Trump’s pro-growth economy policies:
“The Trump administration has taken credit for reshoring manufacturing jobs, but the data shows that isn’t true. Nearly 1,800 factories have disappeared under Trump between 2016 and 2018.”
“The U.S. real trade deficit has increased in every year since 2016, reducing GDP growth by roughly 0.25% annually over the past three years. The Trump administration’s overall weak trade agenda, COVID-19 and the administration’s mismanagement of the crisis has wiped out much of the last decade’s job gains in U.S. manufacturing.”
The Virginia Gazette
February 23, 2021
Other recent studies have found a $15 minimum wage would result in little to no job loss while boosting payroll tax revenue.
“The bottom line is that the CBO finds that the benefit to low-wage workers of raising the minimum wage far outweighs the cost,” said Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist and director of policy at left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, on a Monday call with reporters.
CNBC
February 23, 2021
“A ton of resources are wasted during a really crucial time … just having to go through this ad hoc stimulus and relief and recovery, and it just doesn’t have to be like that,” said Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist at the Labor Department. “We can automate things to make it so Congress could step in if they ever needed to do more relief, but it would mean that the basic structure of relief and recovery would be there already.”
…
“Waiting until the very eleventh hour to extend the pandemic unemployment insurance programs, there have been millions of people who saw the lapses in benefits,” Shierholz said. “To lawmakers who have a cushion in their bank accounts and if they don’t get paid for a couple of weeks they’re fine, that is not the case for most people.”
VOX
February 23, 2021
Black workers are more likely than others to be employed in frontline essential jobs, according to a June 2020 analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. Black Americans make up more than a quarter of public transit workers, nearly 20 percent of child care and social service workers, and 18 percent of trucking, warehouse and postal service workers.
PBS Newshour
February 23, 2021
Over the past five years, average annual wages increased by 4.8%, after adjusting for inflation. However, much of the increase in average wages can be attributed to growing wages among the highest earners. According to an analysis of Current Population Survey data by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), real median hourly wages grew by 15% from 1979 to 2019. In comparison, workers in the 95th percentile saw their wages grow by 63%, while workers in the 10th percentile only experienced wage growth of about 3%.
Seattle Pi
February 23, 2021
Broadly, the demographics of the Labor Movement are changing. Per the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the working class — defined as working people without degrees — makes up 66 percent of the total workforce. EPI estimates that the working class will be majority-minority by 2032 –– 11 years before the total population of the U.S. becomes so. If we look at just members of the working class aged 25-34, this group of workers will be majority-minority in 2021.
St. Louis/Southern Illinois Labor Tribune
February 23, 2021
More than half of states — 29 — have a minimum wage higher than $7.25 and 45 cities have a minimum wage higher than their state, according to the
Economic Policy Institute. A large portion of the states with a minimum wage higher than $7.25 raise it automatically with inflation.
The
wage went up in 20 states January 1. California has the highest statewide minimum wage at $14 per hour for companies that employ 26 or more people — but San Francisco and other cities in the state have higher wages, as do New York, Seattle and others.
…For an extremely in-depth look at the benefits of raising the minimum wage, here’s a report by the Economic Policy Institute, which lobbies for a wage increase.
CNN
February 23, 2021
In the past 25 years, the minimum wage has only increased $2.50—from $4.75 an hour to $7.25 an hour—and the last increase was in 2009. Furthermore, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), Black employees make up 31% of the workforce that would most benefit from an increased minimum wage.
CNBC
February 23, 2021
That’s because 60% of the workforce in this country lives in states with minimum wages below $15 an hour. Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said the bump up to $15 would make a big difference for people of color.
“Almost a third of Black workers would see a raise with this minimum wage increase. For Hispanic workers, it’s almost as high — it’s 26%,” she said.
And Shierholz said more than half of the people who’d get a raise with a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage would be women, many supporting families.
NPR Marketplace
February 23, 2021