“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
Economic Policy Institute estimates that undocumented immigrants contribute $11.7 billion each year in state and local taxes but this still does not qualify for federal rescue relief funds or state unemployment benefits.
KFOX-TV (El Paso)
January 4, 2021
“Stimulating the economy to create jobs is crucial,” said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, “both to the 26.1 million workers who are being directly harmed by the recession because they are either out of work or have had their hours and pay cut, and to the millions more who saw their bargaining power disappear as the recession took hold.”
These
26 million include the officially unemployed, those who dropped out of the work force, unemployed but
misclassified workers and the still-employed whose hours and wages have been cut. The higher the unemployment rate, the more workers will be forced to take whatever job is available, which erodes bargaining power, especially for lower paid jobs.
CNN Business
January 4, 2021
In a 2020 study by the Economic Policy Institute, the teacher wage penalty was shown to have grown from 6 percent in 1996 to 19.2 percent in 2019. The year before, the penalty had been even worse, at 22 percent.
“This is something where there’s been an attack on teachers,” said one author of the study, EPI fellow Lawrence Mishel, during the Policy Matters discussion. “We have not been putting in the resources, and this is something we really need to do to guarantee children have the professionals that they need.”
That lowering came from “widespread strikes and other actions by teachers in 2018 and 2019,” the study stated.
In Ohio, the wage penalty stands at 15.2 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Highland County Press
January 4, 2021
Because Social Security only taxes income up to an annual cap, which is $142,800 in 2021, when people who earn over that amount do better than everyone else more income escapes the Social Security tax as Christian Weller explains. The Economic Policy Institute calculates wages for the top 1% grew 158% since 1979, while wages for the bottom 90% of earners grew only 24%.
Forbes
January 4, 2021
July 2019 findings from the Economic Policy Institute showed more than 33 million American workers would benefit from a federal raise to a $15 minimum wage, including 116,000 workers in New Hampshire.
Seacoast Online
January 4, 2021
The largest share of essential workers is employed in health care and the food and agriculture sectors, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
El Paso Times
January 4, 2021
According to the Economic Policy Institute, “the gender wage gap refers to historically persistent differences between what men and women are paid in the workplace.” In 2019, the average woman earned $0.85 for every dollar a man earned.
Yahoo Finance
January 4, 2021
“This bill is too long, too complicated,” said Thea Lee, president of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
…
“The most important thing that is not in the stimulus bill is aid to state and local governments,” said Lee. “If they don’t get enough aid from the federal government, they will have to start laying off workers.”
Scripps National News
January 4, 2021