But without hundreds of billions in new federal aid, state and local governments won’t have the money to do that, said Julia Wolfe at the Economic Policy Institute.
“Many of them will be tempted to pursue austerity — the same mistake that they made last time around, in the Great Recession,” Wolfe said, after which it took years to restore public sector employment.
Marketplace
February 22, 2021
Amazon, with more than one million employees, has hired the law firm Morgan Lewis and a Koch-backed consulting group called the Center for Independent Employees to hinder the union vote.
The tactics utilized by Amazon aren’t unusual. In 2017, Boeing took out a Super Bowl ad to combat an employee union effort in Charleston, South Carolina, and the governor of Tennessee led “captive audience” meetings at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga facility in 2019. According to Celine McDaniels, director of government affairs and labor counsel for the Economic Policy Institute, employers illegally fire union organizers in at least a fifth of all union elections.
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The rise of professional “union avoidance” consultants in the 1970s created an industry that reaps hundreds of millions of dollars annually by convincing workers not to form or join unions. And it works: According to a November 2020 report by the Economic Policy Institute, the use of these tactics has been a major reason for increased difficulty organizing unions, contributing to private sector union density declining from 35.7 percent in 1953 to just 6.2 percent today.
The Progressive
February 22, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute points out that the results were the 48th consecutive week “claims were greater than the worst week of the great recession.”
Newsweek
February 22, 2021
Other economists have disputed the CBO report. Estimates by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute predict 32 million US workers would benefit from the minimum wage increase, which includes a quarter-million workers in Manchin’s home state of West Virginia.
The Guardian
February 22, 2021
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the U.S. labor market is 9.9 million jobs smaller than pre-pandemic levels.
LA Progressive
February 22, 2021
In the following weeks, activists took note of other figures who could potentially become allies on the inside. On the Council of Economic Advisers, Jared Bernstein, formerly of the Economic Policy Institute, and Heather Boushey, who co-founded the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, are viewed as formidable forces to promote their shared worldview.
Daily Beast
February 22, 2021
While the CBO may project job losses, that is not what extensive years of research shows. Furthermore, studies by the Economic Policy Institute show that “public assistance programs would fall by between $13.4 billion and $31.0 billion.” This will help to reduce the federal debt. They reported that: “Earned income tax credit (EITC) and child tax credit (CTC) expenditures would decline by somewhere between $6.5 billion and $20.7 billion annually. Expenditures on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other major government transfers would fall by between $5.2 billion and $10.3 billion annually.
Artvoice
February 22, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute has found that Black workers’ share of USPS jobs is significantly higher than their share of all public sector jobs.
Inequality.org
February 22, 2021
A widespread and significant pay gap remains the norm. Since 2015, the pay gap has only decreased by $0.07; in 2020, women earned $0.81 for every dollar a man makes. A brutal example of the wage disparity was reported by the Economic Policy Institute: In 2016, Latina women had to work all of 2016 and 10 months into 2017 (November) to earn the equivalent that their white, male counterparts earned in 2016 alone.
Portland Press Herald
February 22, 2021
A key way to support these lives is advancing equitable opportunities. History shows that longstanding systemic inequities have had a compounding negative effect on generations of Black families. A report from the Economic Policy Institute highlights that in 2016, the median household wealth of white households was 10 times that of Black households ($171,000 compared to $17,409). The report notes: “One of the most important forms of wealth for working and middle-class families is home equity. Yet, the share of Black households that owned their own home remained virtually unchanged between 1968 (41.1 %) and today (41.2%).”
Deseret News
February 22, 2021