According to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., since the onset of the COVID-19 shock to the economy, about 6.2 million workers have lost access to health insurance they previously had with their employers.
North Bay Business Journal
February 1, 2021
Needless to say after months of the pandemic, U.S. manufacturers can use a lift. Although manufacturing jobs had risen steadily between 2010 and 2019, the coronavirus wiped out half of the jobs that were gained during that period, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The Washington, D.C.-based think tank offered a broader picture that’s even more bleak: Compared with 1997, there are 5 million fewer manufacturing jobs and 91,000 fewer plants today due to offshoring, automation and other factors. Rebuilding and expanding U.S. manufacturing has no downsides for Americans.
Las Vegas Sun
February 1, 2021
Such an increase would boost wages for more than 32 million US workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank.
Agence France Press (AFP)
February 1, 2021
Roughly half of those working in some parts of Houston and San Antonio—the vast majority of whom are workers of color and women—would be affected by the plan, according to estimates by the Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor group that used federal data to analyze the impact of the proposal.
San Antonio Express-News
February 1, 2021
If that sounds like hyperbole, consider that the median personal income in the U.S. was roughly $36,000 in 2019, according to the Census Bureau’s latest numbers. Meanwhile, a single adult needs $34,000 to cover the basics in the most affordable places, such as Lamar County, Alabama, according to a living wage calculator compiled by Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. The wage realistically required to get by is nearly three times the federal poverty level, a benchmark that is absurdly low and skews our notions of hardship.
Bloomberg
February 1, 2021
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, most retirement funds in the US were already underfunded before the pandemic started. Nearly half of Americans between the ages of 32 and 61 do not have any retirement savings and most of those that do have savings under $21,000, according to a 2019 study from the Economic Policy Institute.
Business Insider
February 1, 2021
During the 1970s and 1980s, union avoidance developed into a multimillion-dollar industry as consultants and lawyers actively pursued employers to utilize their services. According to a 2019 report by the Economic Policy Institute, US companies spend nearly $340m a year on union avoidance advisers. In part as a result of the corporate backlash toward the labor movement, the union membership rate of the US workforce drastically declined over the past 50 years, from 20.1% in 1983 to 11.1% in 2015, driven primarily by union losses within the private sector.
The Guardian
February 1, 2021
The topic came under heavy scrutiny after Democrats pushed for a $15 federal minimum wage, over double the current rate of $7.25 (which was enacted in 2009). Under the proposed wage increase, nearly 32 million Americans – 21% of America’s total workforce – would get a raise, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). As Insider’s Grace Dean reported, the raise would benefit nearly one-third of Black workers, and six out of 10 working women. Overall, 23% of those who would benefit from the raise are Latino and Black women.
Meaww
February 1, 2021
Studies have also linked “the discriminatory incarceration of African American parents” to their children’s lower performance in school, which can undermine later-life success, according to researchers at the Economic Policy Institute. “Simply put, our criminal justice system makes a significant contribution to the racial achievement gap” in school and later-life success, researchers wrote.
San Francisco Bay View
February 1, 2021
The Raise the Wage Act of 2021 would raise the federal minimum wage to $9.50 this year and gradually increase that minimum until it reaches $15 an hour in 2025. More than four in 10 janitors, housekeepers and other cleaning workers would see an improvement in pay from the change, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that websites describe as leaning left on the political spectrum. In total, 32 million Americans stand to benefit from an increase in the federal minimum wage.
Economic Policy Institute said the rise in minimum wage would put an estimated $3,300 more a year into the pockets of affected workers who are employed the entire year. That’s a big difference considering that 59 percent of families living below the poverty line would benefit from the change.
CleanLink
February 1, 2021