Supporters say the coronavirus has made a higher minimum wage all the more urgent since workers earning it are disproportionately people of color. The liberal Economic Policy Institute found that more than 19% of Hispanic workers and more than 14% of Black workers earned hourly wages that kept them below federal poverty guidelines in 2017.
Associated Press
February 16, 2021
Actually, according to that same Congressional Budget Office, in 2019 the CBO said that $15 wage would boost the wages of 17 million people, while 1.7 million workers “could” become unemployed by 2025 due to the wage increase. Those are 17 million real people, with real families, whose lives would be improved.
However, Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, argued that the CBO’s estimated job losses from enacting a $15 minimum wage are “overstated.”
“The crucial fact is that an employment decline as a result of a minimum wage increase doesn’t necessarily mean any worker is actually worse off,” she wrote in a July 2019 report. “For a wide variety of reasons, a sizable share of low-wage workers routinely cycle in and out of employment; each quarter, more than 20% of the lowest-wage workers leave or start a job.”
Gaston Gazette
February 16, 2021
“We have seen this failure before, with fiscal recovery efforts following the Great Recession of 2008-2009 that were insufficient and too short-lived,” Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute think tank, wrote this past fall. “As a result of this austerity, it took a full decade for the labor market to return to even its pre-Great Recession health.”
Fortune
February 16, 2021
A federal minimum wage hike to $15 would affect a large share of workers in the South, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-leaning think tank.
Yahoo Finance
February 16, 2021
State AGs’ interest in the workplace is an outgrowth of their civil rights, labor, and consumer protection responsibilities and powers under state law. Urged on by groups such as the non-partisan think tank, the Economic Policy Institute, they have stepped in to interpret state executive orders and new legislative protections for workers, and provide guidance and resources to help employers address workplace safety and workers’ rights.
Bloomberg Law
February 16, 2021
On average, restaurant workers make just below $13 an hour, according to Labor Department data. Retail cashier pay is about the same. That’s less than half the economy-wide average of nearly $30 an hour.
“It tells the story of an economy that has really tanked for the most vulnerable,” said Elise Gould, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “It’s shocking how small a dent that has made in the aggregate.”
Associated Press
February 16, 2021
Black workers, especially, are overrepresented in essential jobs. Even though they represent about 12 percent of the total U.S. workforce, Black people hold roughly 14 percent of grocery store jobs, 26 percent of public transit positions, 18 percent of postal service jobs, 17.5 percent of health-care positions, and 19 percent of roles in child-care and social services, according to a 2020 report from the Economic Policy Institute.
Shape Magazine
February 16, 2021
Some economists took umbrage with that number, and how the CBO came to that projection.
“We believe that the CBO’s assumptions on the scale of job loss are just wrong and inappropriately inflated relative to what cutting-edge economics literature would indicate,” The Economic Policy Institute wrote in a blog post on the report. “The median employment effect of the minimum wage across studies of low-wage workers is essentially zero, according to a 2019 review of the evidence.”
Business Insider
February 16, 2021
“When she looks at policy that impacts workers, it’s not just looking at overall effects, it’s looking at what are going to be the distributional effects,” said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy for the Economic Policy Institute. “What’s going to be the impact on racial equity? What’s going to be the impact on gender equity? What’s going to be the impact on the intersection of those two things?”
Bloomberg Law
February 16, 2021
For those on strike on Tuesday, $15 an hour is an urgent ask. The raise would increase the incomes of 32 million workers, including 59% percent of working families with incomes under the poverty line, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Nearly one third of all Black workers would receive a raise, and one out of four workers who would benefit would be a Black or Latina woman.
Fast Company
February 16, 2021