Experts point to the erosion of overtime protections as a key contributing factor to the rising inequality we’re seeing in our economy.
“It is one of the things — worker protections, labor market institutions — that have eroded and contributed to rising inequality; to stagnant wages for middle-class workers,” said Heidi Shierholz, the director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist to the secretary of labor from 2014 to 2017 in the Obama administration.
Marketplace’s David Brancaccio spoke to Shierholz about how we got here and how likely the incoming Biden administration is to prioritize updating the overtime threshold. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Marketplace
January 4, 2021
But even without congressional action, labor activists said they would keep pushing their campaign at the state and local levels. By 2026, 42 percent of Americans will work in a location with a minimum wage of at least $15 an hour, according to an Economic Policy Institute estimate cited in the NELP report.
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Because many hourly service workers are Black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian, people of color stand to gain the most from minimum-wage increases. A 2018 study from the Economic Policy Institute found that workers of color are far more likely to be paid poverty-level wages than white workers.
New York Times
January 4, 2021
From January through October for the 20 states that will raise their minimum wages one economist at the Economic Policy Institute said redistributing money for the lowest paid workers is smart policy because they are the workers who will spend it that will ultimately help the economy.
CNN International
January 4, 2021
When you look at numbers like the unemployment rate looking like it’s doing better at 6.7%, the truth is the Economic Policy Institute and others think the true number is closer to 11.2%.
MSNBC Andrea Mitchell Reports
January 4, 2021
An unprecedented level of online shopping means unprecedented levels of shipping so spare a thought for your friendly neighborhood postal worker who has had quite a year. Remember just a couple of months ago that the United States Postal Service, despite budget cuts and last minute dismantling of sorting machines, processed more than 65 million mail-in ballots for the election. The agency is now promising extraordinary measures for the Georgia Senate runoffs and according to the Economic Policy Institute the people carrying on all of that mail are more likely to be Black and veterans than those working in the private sector.
Marketplace
January 4, 2021
Nationally, the federal minimum wage has not been raised since 2009, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Atlanta Journal Constitution
January 4, 2021
The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute called the 11-week extension of PUA and PEUC benefits in a recent news release “wholly insufficient and guarantees millions will exhaust benefits by the middle of March, when the virus will still be surging and job openings will still be scarce relative to the number of job seekers.”
Detroit Free Press
January 4, 2021
“The employment data is going in the right direction but the wage data is not,” Black said. “Three things must happen. Every employer in the region must commit to wage parity by race today. We’ve been studying it since the Economic Policy Institute first reported about it. We need employer commitment just as they’ve made progress related to gender. At senior levels.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
January 4, 2021
The number of long-term unemployed — those out of a job for at least 6 months — has been ticking up each month and now totals nearly 4 million. As of November, there are currently 16 unemployed people for every 10 available jobs, says Elise Gould, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute.
“It’s hard to think this will come to an end any time soon,” she adds.
Money
January 4, 2021