The continued prevalence of COVID-19 will drag the labor market. A similar effect took hold in the fall when the delta variant wiped out most of the employment gains of the first half of 2021, according to Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
Restaurant Dive
January 7, 2022
While farm wages have gradually risen over the past 30 years, farmworkers earned an average wage in 2020 of just $14.62 per hour — a rate roughly 60% that of the average wage earned by comparable workers in industries including construction and retail, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Capital and Main
January 7, 2022
The pandemic and strong economy have given Americans a rare measure of … an economist who is president of the Economic Policy Institute. (paywall).
The USA Today
January 7, 2022
While restaurant and hospitality workers are two of the sectors hit the hardest, Americans are not leaving the workforce altogether, according to Chief Economist at the Economic Policy Institute. The institute notes that the labor market is gaining tons of jobs every month.
azfamily.com
January 7, 2022
Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, points out that at the same time, 6.7m people were hired. “People who quit are taking other jobs, not leaving the workforce,” she wrote in a tweet.
The Hustle
January 7, 2022
In an analysis published Thursday, David Cooper, Krista Faries, and Sebastian Martinez Hickey of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) observed that the January 1 wage hikes in 21 states “range from a $0.22 inflation adjustment in Michigan to a $1.50 per hour raise in Virginia, the equivalent of an annual increase ranging from $458 to $3,120 for a full-time, full-year minimum wage worker.”
Common Dreams
January 7, 2022
Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, said: “Things are looking pretty tight given the available supply of labor that we have right now. But there are millions on the sidelines who will come in, once the labor supply-suppressing effects of Covid are in the rearview mirror.”
The Guardian
January 7, 2022
In Georgia, the average cost of infant care is over $8,500 for the year, while child care for a 4-year-old costs about $7,300, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
CBS46
January 7, 2022
Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, says the term “low skill” is “offensive” and often inaccurately conflates low pay with low academic requirement.
CNBC
January 7, 2022
… signals an economy with healthy dynamism,” wrote Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. (paywall).
The Houston Chronicle
January 7, 2022
.. according to a tally by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (paywall).
Law360
January 7, 2022
Despite decades of declining membership, labor unions are currently seeing their highest approval ratings in the United States since 1965, according to a recent Gallup poll. Given that issues like pay, benefits, paid sick time, paid family leave, minimum staffing levels, schedule flexibility, mental health, and workplace safety have become increasingly urgent in the midst of the pandemic, women and femmes have emerged as union leaders across industries like never before, playing pivotal roles in some of the 45+ labor strikes since August tracked by Bloomberg Law. This should come as little surprise, as the Economic Policy Institute found that women in unions are paid more than their non-union counterparts, and that collective bargaining has also aided in lessening pay gaps for workers of color. Of course, women and femmes have also historically been leaders of, and active participants in, the country’s labor movement.
Harper's Bazaar
January 7, 2022
Dr. Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington D.C., took a slightly different tone on the Fed’s intentions for 2022. Gould said that she expects inflation to come down in 2022 and that the Fed may be “overthinking inflation” by acting too soon. Her worry is that the central bank may act too soon by raising rates before the economy reaches the Fed’s intended goal of full employment.
International Business Times
January 7, 2022
“No one wants to work!” Are we over that yet? Things are shifting, but there’s still a media mountain to move about the very idea that workers choosing their conditions is something more than a “month” or a “moment”—and might just be a fundamental question of human rights. We spoke with David Cooper, senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, and deputy director of EARN, the Economic Analysis and Research Network.
FAIR Counterspin
January 7, 2022
The bill passed both chambers of the Legislature unanimously but has drawn some criticism and created headaches for working families who were counting on their children entering kindergarten based on the previous eligibility requirements. For those parents, the change might result in them paying an additional year of private preschool or daycare costs, which for a 4-year-old in Nevada averages $9,050 annually, or $754 per month, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Nevada Current
January 7, 2022
Economic Policy Institute cited research saying that “modest increases in the minimum wage have not led to detectable job losses.”
MassLive.com
January 7, 2022
According to a tracker from the Economic Policy Institute, the 25 states include:
- $11: Arkansas
- $10.34: Alaska
- $10.10: Hawaii
- $9: Nebraska
- $8.75: West Virginia
- $7.25: Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming
Newsweek
January 7, 2022
In total, 25 states will see boosts to their minimum hourly pay requirement in 2022, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute and the National Conference of State Legislatures. Four states—Oregon, Florida, Nevada, and Connecticut—will phase in their increases later in the year.
Bloomberg Law
January 7, 2022
23 with a 65.1% rise in six-figure jobs, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank. The bad news?
Charlotte Business Journal
January 7, 2022
NEW YORK — Workers earning minimum wage in more than two dozen states can expect a raise in 2022. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the following states and Washington, D.C. are set to raise their minimum wage at various points through the new year:
ABC 7 News
January 7, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute reports most of American workers’ earnings growth since 1979 has gone to the top earners; the top 1 percent wage grew 179% since 1979, while wages for the bottom 90 percent grew only 28%.
Forbes
January 7, 2022
“What we’ve seen over the last four and a half decades is just huge erosion of worker leverage in a way that’s led to just incredibly low job quality for huge swaths of our labor market: low wages, low benefits, bad hours, bad working conditions,” according to Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist at the U.S. Labor Department. She goes on to say, “we know that the quality of these [independent] jobs they say they’re choosing are often just incredibly bad, and that means their other [traditional] choices are really, really bad.”
Employee Benefit News
January 7, 2022
More workers were hired in November than those that quit, suggesting restaurant employees are finding better opportunities at other jobs within the industry, according to Elise Gould, a senior economist with Economic Policy Institute.
QSR Magazine
January 7, 2022
And Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute says that as workers notice their paychecks are not going as far as they used to due to inflation, they should be motivated to have that potentially difficult raise conversation with their employer.
CNBC
January 7, 2022
But Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economics Policy Institute, chooses to accentuate the positive. “Hires are on an upswing as quits continue to rise,” tweets Gould. “Workers appear confident to quit their jobs in search of better ones.”
Reuters
January 7, 2022
“Quits are happening in the most unlikely categories based on who has been winners in this economy in the past,” said Heidi Shierholz, the president of the Economic Policy Institute and a former chief economist at the Labor Department.
The New York Times
January 7, 2022
The bottom line: “It’s not understood in the broader public discussion, people aren’t quitting their jobs to leave the labor force they are quitting their jobs to take other jobs,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the progressive Economic Policy Institute.
Axios
January 7, 2022
Even as 4.5 million people quit, businesses hired 6.7 million workers, tweeted Heidi Shierholz, the former chief economist at the Labor Department and now president of Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
CBS
January 7, 2022
That’s often how economic recoveries go, per David Cooper at the Economic Policy Institute.
“It’s this bounce-back effect, that the places that were hit the hardest are going to be the ones that we’re going to be seeing the strongest growth, because they fell the most, so they have the most to gain,” he said.
Marketplace
January 7, 2022