The Economic Policy Institute also is pushing for an end to sub-minimum wages for tipped workers. Workers who get tips — including, of course, waitstaff — depend on those tips, which once were thought of as a token of gratitude, as a central part of their income. It is one big reason why the pandemic has been so rough on restaurant workers who now have their customers take food out rather than eat in.
Poynter
January 19, 2021
“What’s happened with unemployment, to me, has sort of most exposed the myth of the unique digital platform or gig worker,” said Celine McNicholas, the director of government affairs for the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “You can dress it up, you can put it on a phone and make it an app and make it pretty and make it seem like it’s something else, but at the end of the day, it’s misclassification, and we need to tighten those standards in the Department of Labor to crack down on it.”
Washington Post
January 19, 2021
Distance learning during the pandemic has been an abject failure. Despite the heroic efforts of many teachers, school staff and administrators, we’re failing our kids. A recent report by the Economic Policy Institute shows that we’ve thwarted child development and increased the equity gap between our students and families. That’s on top of the fact that kids aren’t learning like they should.
The Reporter
January 19, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute said that if the U.S. kept pace since then, the minimum wage would have reached $18.28 in 2013.
NBC2
January 19, 2021
According to the Economic Policy Institute, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Michigan had the highest Black unemployment rates in the country at 35.5% — double the white unemployment rate, which was 17.5%.
Lansing State Journal
January 19, 2021
Black men on average make 71 cents for every dollar paid to white men, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Black women, meanwhile, earn 63 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. That adds up to a loss of $24,127 a year for Black women, or $965,078 over the course of a work-life spanning 40 years, according to an analysis by the American Association of University Women.
USA Today
January 19, 2021
Some 26.8 million U.S. workers “are either unemployed, otherwise out of work because of the virus, or have seen a drop in hours and pay because of the pandemic,” according to economist Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute.
Common Dreams
January 19, 2021
A big proposal for a big problem: “This package is at the scale of the problem,” said Heidi Shierholz of the liberal Economic Policy Institute. State and local aid, unemployment insurance expansions/extensions, $400 billion to fight COVID, and more. They got the economics right. This is a very bright spot in a difficult time.”
The Fiscal Times
January 19, 2021
Raising the federal minimum wage would increase wages for more than 23 million Americans, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center, which examined the public cost of the Raise the Wage Act introduced by Congress in 2019. The Economic Policy Institute has reported that low-wage workers today are forced to work longer hours just to achieve the bare minimum standards of living compared to workers half a century ago, in part due to decline in purchasing power.
Creative Loafing Tampa
January 19, 2021
According to a 2018 report by the Economic Policy Institute, the average income for the top 1% in Washington made 24.2 times more than the other 99%.
The Center Square
January 19, 2021