And if people have more money, they might spend more. A 2020 study from Princeton University shows that providing low-wage workers with more money directly leads to increased consumer demand. That’s because they quickly recirculate their wages, says Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. Low-wage workers and unemployed people, she says, typically have “no choice but to spend immediately on necessities.”
Detroit, MI – Today, U.S. Representative Brenda L. Lawrence (MI-14) shared a report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) that analyzed the benefits of the Raise the Wage Act. Rep. Lawrence is an original co-sponsor of the legislation which she and her colleagues reintroduced last week. According to the report, increasing the minimum wage to $15 would benefit approximately 1.3 million Michiganders, including 92,000 people (31 percent of workers) in Michigan’s 14th Congressional District.
Recent research from the Economic Policy Institute suggests that online teaching and learning models can be effective “if students have consistent access to the Internet and computers and if teachers have received targeted training and supports for online instruction.”
CEO salaries grew 1,007.5% from 1978 to 2019, according to an Economic Policy Institute report. The average worker’s pay grew 11.9% during that same time. The public policy that allows this wage gap to widen can be changed, though, Baker says.
De acuerdo con el economista Daniel Pérez, del Economic Policy Institute, en entrevista con Univision, aseguró que si bien muchos latinos fueron beneficiados con los apoyos gubernamentales, la realidad dicta que esta comunidad está expuesta a salarios bajos, la discriminación laboral.
According to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute of data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics from 1948 to 2018, worker productivity has skyrocketed while worker compensation has stayed stagnant. The graph below shows just how wide that gap has gotten.
Over a roughly month-long span at the start of the pandemic, roughly 21.5 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits, according to an analysis at the time by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). But researchers said the number should have been much higher, estimating that as many as 12 million people did not apply for jobless aid because they faced such difficulties in obtaining it. As a result, only half the Americans eligible to receive unemployment checks actually were able to cash them by the end of April, EPI estimated.
“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,” wrote experts at the Economic Policy Institute. “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.”
Domestic employment has always been a poorly paid, unappreciated job—not to mention one that leaves individuals vulnerable to sexual, physical, and verbal abuse. Before COVID, the Economic Policy Institute reported, domestic workers earned an average of $12 an hour and were three times as likely to live below the poverty line than others who worked for an hourly wage. Most do not get benefits, like health insurance, and as they are paid in cash, do not have access to retirement savings.
The Economic Policy Institute estimates that wage theft costs workers — especially low-wage workers — roughly $50 billion a year. Companies commonly do this by adjusting time sheets or clocking out workers for breaks or lunch even if they don’t take them.