Also impacting the statistics, however, is the fact that COVID-19 hit industries with smaller union presences, such as hospitality and leisure, especially hard. About half of the increase in the unionization rate in 2020 was the result of the pandemic’s concentrated impact on less-unionized job sectors, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute. (The other half can be attributed to union workers faring better than nonunion workers in their same industries.)
Time Magazine
January 25, 2021
Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), told Insider that there’s a “theoretical horror story” of businesses hiring less — and thereby hurting the lowest-paid workers — when the minimum wage is increased. He said that those effects are smaller or even nonexistent in the real world.
“What happens is that yes, it is true that when you raise the minimum wage employers hire fewer low wage workers, that is correct,” Zipperer said. “On the other hand, the factor that’s really offsetting that is that, even though employers are hiring fewer workers, fewer workers are leaving their jobs.”
Business Insider
January 25, 2021
The Paris News
January 25, 2021
Overall, Biden faces a dilemma, said Robert E. Scott, a senior economist at the left-of-center Economic Policy Institute.
Scott described Biden’s agenda as “broadly progressive,” especially when paired with the $1.9 trillion coronavirus and economic relief proposal he has released. But its chances of enactment would fall if Biden is serious about securing bipartisan support, he said.
Politifact
January 22, 2021
Seen by labor advocates as someone who was focused on hampering the enforcement of rules he was sworn to uphold, Robb had brought a staunchly employer-friendly approach to the board. He sought to curtail union use of “Scabby the rat” (the inflatable used by some unions during strikes), urged the board to limit employees’ protected union activity, and sought to restrict employees’ use of company email to discuss workplace issues, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute.
Washington Post
January 22, 2021
And Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said that was problematic before, but with the pandemic, “it’s really shown us that there are gaps in our regular unemployment system that you can drive a truck through. We do have the ability to close them, like the existence of this program shows us that we can do it.”
Marketplace
January 22, 2021
“Sharon brings tremendous expertise, knowledge, and integrity to this important work,” said Thea Lee, president of the left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute. “OIRA has the potential to be a roadblock or an essential partner in ensuring that appropriate regulatory policy fairly balances diverse viewpoints and interests. Sharon is the right candidate for this critical position at this moment in history.”
Bloomberg
January 22, 2021
The Covid-19 pandemic has only accelerated this questioning—a return to an understanding of work as a site of struggle, not liberation. It has also introduced a new kind of laborer: the “essential worker,” tying together workers who typically are not seen as having a shared fate, from grocery store cashiers to nurses, food app delivery drivers to teachers. Workers in meatpacking plants, in Amazon warehouses, in critical infrastructure have been recognized as fundamental in maintaining society as we know it, even as their labor is demeaned and their lives endangered. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates that there are more than 55 million workers across 12 industries who now share this label: 70 percent didn’t have a college degree; one in eight were covered by a collective bargaining agreement. In frontline essential work, the Center for Economic and Policy Research found, women and people of color are overrepresented (disaggregated data on women of color was not presented). They also found that one-third of essential workers live in low-income families.
The New Republic
January 22, 2021