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
Another lingering concern has been that more stimulus could “overheat” the U.S. economy, in which aggregate demand outpaces growth, but such concerns could be overstated.
“These criticisms should be ignored,” wrote Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, noting Biden’s proposal is “highly unlikely to lead to any durable uptick in inflation or interest rates,” which are the normal indicators of an overheated economy.
Bivens noted the Fed is primed to raise interest rates if inflation starts to rise, and that the U.S. economy is now harder to overheat since, ironically, more income is concentrated in wealthier households that are more likely to save rather than spend it.
Courthouse News Service
January 19, 2021
“The recovery from the Great Recession was delayed by years because we failed to act at the scale of the problem,” said Heidi Shierholz, a former Labor Department chief economist who is now at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “This is a huge break from past mistakes.”
New York Times
January 19, 2021
While economists and researchers at progressive groups such as NELP and the Economic Policy Institute tout the broad economic benefits of a minimum wage increase, other researchers say the negative potential impacts, such as job losses and reduced work hours, are likely to outweigh the gains.
Bloomberg Law
January 19, 2021