Media clips

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• To win Georgia and the Senate, Democrats need to go all-in on $15 minimum wage

  Georgia is ripe for this kind of economic message. According to an analysis done by the Economic Policy Institute, 34.7 percent of Georgian workers would get a raise if the federal minimum wage were increased to $15 an hour. That’s over 1.5 million people earning on average an extra $3,700 a year.

  The Hill December 14, 2020
• Our youngest ‘self-made’ billionaire, our wealthy’s oldest bogus claim

  CEOs in this country are also making fantastically big bucks. They’ve spent recent decades growing the gap ever wider between what they take home and what their workers earn. Major chief execs, the Economic Policy Institute calculates, now make 320 times worker pay, up from 21 times worker pay in 1969 and 61 times in 1989.

  Common Dreams December 14, 2020
• If Democrats want to succeed, they will have to implement policies that primarily benefit the working class

  The broadest and most effective way to increase wages is a tight labor market. According to an Economic Policy Institute analysis, wages for the bottom 90% of workers grew the most during the low unemployment years of 1995-2000 and 2013-2019.

  Common Dreams December 14, 2020
• Women are leaving the workforce in droves in southwest Ohio. Here’s what they’re saying about why

  She worries that hard-won gains narrowing the pay gap between men and women will be eroded. Ohio women are paid 86 cents for every dollar earned by men, according to a 2019 Economic Policy Institute analysis.

  Dayton Daily News December 14, 2020
• McConnell blows up relief bill because it helps too many people

  Now, he’s torpedoed a compromise bill amid a massive spike in coronavirus cases and a slowing recovery, with fewer jobs being created and more workers applying for unemployment benefits. A report from the Economic Policy Institute says that without more virus aid, “millions more jobs will be lost.“

  The American Independent December 14, 2020
• ‘I was so afraid to die alone’: COVID-19’s toll on Mississippi’s chicken plant employees

  Today, Black workers make up about 68% of the workforce in the poultry industry in Mississippi, according to data compiled by the Economic Policy Institute. However, Stuesse said, it’s hard to get an accurate count of the number of foreign-born workers. It is estimated at 8.4% by the same dataset but that likely “significantly undercounts” undocumented workers, she said.

  The American South December 14, 2020
• Biden must mount a Democratic ‘blitz’ in his first 100 days

  The Brookings Institute and the New York Times published a list of 100 pieces of environmental legislation alone that this administration has trashed or is in the process of trashing. The Economic Policy Institute published another 50 dealing with labor protections.

  Baltimore Sun December 14, 2020
• What happens if the stimulus package doesn’t pass? Here’s what Biden could do

  During Biden’s campaign, the incoming president talked about raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, up from the current $7.25 an hour. Without Congressional support, Biden will not be able to raise the federal minimum wage, but he could get part way there through an increase to the minimum wage of workers on federal contracts.

  Biden could accomplish the increase through an executive order, according to Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist and the director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute. The hourly boost could affect the pay of 5 million workers, Shierholz estimated.

  CNET December 14, 2020
• Life has turned into a high-wire act for Minnesotans who are now ‘long-term unemployed’

  The impact of long-term unemployment on workers and families is dramatic, said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. Since the additional $600 a week in federal jobless benefits expired at the end of July, unemployed workers have been getting by on regular state jobless benefits, which in Minnesota replace half of a worker’s prior earnings.

  “In other words, we have lots of people who have gone a very long time with serious cutbacks in their income, so that means living standards drop, poverty increases, and all of the things that go along with you just had a massive cut in your income is happening to families left and right,” she said.

  And with more unemployed workers than there are job openings, she said that some people will have no choice but to take jobs that weren’t as good the ones they had before.

  “You lose not just the time you were unemployed, but also you have this setback in that many will get a job that’s for lower pay or perhaps lower rank,” she said. “That has some stickiness to it. It puts you on a different trajectory.”

  Minneapolis Star Tribune December 14, 2020
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar opens up about prostate cancer diagnosis to raise awareness about health care disparities

  And based on an analysis released by the Economic Policy Institute, people of color (Black, Latino, Asian American and other non-whites) account for 43% of all essential workers in the nation amid the coronavirus pandemic.

  Good Morning America December 14, 2020