That’s happening as wages for the bottom 90% of earners are being “continuously redistributed upward” to the top 10% and often even further to the top 1% and 0.1%, reports the Economic Policy Institute, which analyzed the data. Since the year 1979, while wages for the bottom 90% saw a modest growth of 26%, wages for the top 10% grew between 51.8% to 75.1%.
As Economic Policy Institute fellow Lawrence Mishel tells USA Today, this slanted pay has been enabled partly by outsized gains made by financial executives whose compensation is tied to stock prices, and partly by outdated rules governing overtime pay and the misclassification of full-time employees as contractors, which serve to cap income for blue-collar and white-collar workers alike.
Fast Company
December 10, 2020
It should be cautioned, however, that declining pay is becoming a thing across the economy, which raises at least the threat of a generalized deflation, an important characteristic of the early years of the Great Depression. According to a report last Friday from the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute, at present an estimated 7.1 million Americans are working, but with cuts in pay and hours. Many affected, of course, earn far less than Philharmonic musicians.
Nonprofit Quarterly
December 10, 2020
In his 2017 bestseller, “The Color of Law,” Richard Rothstein traces the history of residential segregation, debunking the myth that it just happened without government regulation and capturing how it affects racial disparities in home values, well-being and wealth today. The long history of government involvement in housing segregation, dating back to the early 20th century, is no secret, says Rothstein, part of a new national civil rights group addressing the issue, the National Committee to Redress Racial Segregation, but it hasn’t been taught.
The Center for Public Integrity
December 10, 2020
13News Now
December 10, 2020
“Another way to think about this, for every 16 workers who were officially counted as unemployed, there were only available jobs for 10 of them,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, told Reuters. “That means there were no jobs for 4.2 million unemployed workers. And this misses the fact that many more weren’t counted among the unemployed.”
PYMNTS
December 10, 2020
12 million workers have lost employer-sponsored health insurance during the pandemic as of August 26, 2020. [Economic Policy Institute]
Without a federal fiscal relief package, workers will face even greater loss of jobs and services than they have already suffered. The Economic Policy Institute predicts that without more federal aid 5.3 million public-sector jobs—including those of teachers, public safety employees and health care workers—will be lost by the end of 2021.
Institute for Policy Studies
December 10, 2020
These issues arise during an existing affordability crisis for graduate students at Stanford, and childcare is one of the largest expenses families face. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the average yearly cost for infant childcare in California is $16,945, which is more than the cost of yearly in-state tuition for a public four-year college.
The Stanford Daily
December 10, 2020
A 2018 study by Alexander J.S. Colvin for the Economic Policy Institute estimates that 60 million American workers have signed arbitration contracts with their employers — and that such contracts are more common for low-wage workers.
Los Angeles Times
December 10, 2020
Findings published last week by the Economic Policy Institute show that wages for the top 1% of Americans have skyrocketed 160% since 1979. Wages for the upper echelon of the rich — the top 0.1% — grew more than twice as fast, soaring more than 345%.
Fox Business
December 10, 2020
“The president has the authority to direct [the Occupational Safety and Health Administration] to put in place an emergency temporary standard to help protect workers during COVID,” said Heidi Shierholz, a former Obama administration labor economist who now works at the Economic Policy Institute.
NPR
December 10, 2020