Confronted with an economic collapse induced by the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. government took several measures—including direct stimulus checks, boosting the amount of unemployment insurance, and giving funds to businesses to keep people on payroll—to alleviate the challenges caused by business shutterings and job losses. Fast Company talked to Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, about the government’s overall response: how it got off to a decent start before petering off into inaction— and leaving gaping inequities that need to be fixed in 2021.
Fast Company
December 24, 2020
“‘Reasonable time’ is not defined, and its ambiguity will make it difficult to enforce, providing employers an immense loophole and leaving workers behind,” said Heidi Shierholz, a scholar at the Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist at the Labor Department under President Obama.
The Hill
December 24, 2020
The rule also removed a previous requirement around how much time tipped workers could be required to spend on non-tipped work. Previously, the government limited the amount of time a tipped worker could spend on non-tipped activities to 20% of their shift. Doing away with that limit allows employers to underpay workers drastically, according to Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute who worked in the Labor Department under President Obama.
“It allows employers to have workers spend more time doing non-tipped work while they’re still getting paid sub-minimum wage,” said Shierholz.
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Over the course of a year, tipped workers would lose more than $700 million under this new rule, the EPI estimated last fall. That number has likely increased since the coronavirus pandemic, Shierholz noted. With indoor dining drastically reduced, many restaurants that have managed to stay open have shifted to mostly non-tipped work, such as preparing carryout orders.
CBS Moneywatch
December 24, 2020
The vice president didn’t mention how the Trump administration’s 2017 tax cuts overwhelmingly benefited wealthy households and powerful corporations, with corporate income tax rates slashed from 35% to 21%, corporate tax revenues plummeting, and a surge in stock buybacks while workers saw “no discernible wage increase” according to a report released last year by the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Popular Democracy.
Common Dreams
December 24, 2020
Card check was the major reform proposed by the failed Employee Free Choice Act, which died in the Senate during Barack Obama’s first term. Worker advocates argue it makes it easier to form a union by eliminating the period between workers showing interest in a union, and the actual election. During that waiting period, employers often wage highly effective and expensive campaigns to dissuade workers from unionizing using outside professional “union avoidance” consultants — something recently cited by the Economic Policy Institute as a major factor in the decline of unions.
In These Times
December 24, 2020
As an Economic Policy Institute study found, in the wake of the Great Recession, state and local spending on K-12 education “did not grow at all (adjusted for inflation) between 2008 and 2015.” Much of the sluggish nature of the Obama-era recovery, in fact, can be attributed to this state and local austerity.
New Republic
December 24, 2020
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the number of unemployed workers ages 55-64 rose by nearly 3 million from February to May of this year, far more than any other age bracket.
The Denver Channel
December 24, 2020
The penalty-free provision was an under-the-radar item within the CARES Act and will most likely be the same under the current stimulus bill, said Monique Morrissey, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute. The nation has seen “a ripple and not a wave” of 401(k) withdrawals because the most cash-strapped Americans who would need that money — namely service sector workers — had jobs that didn’t offer retirement plans to begin with, she said.
CBS Moneywatch
December 24, 2020
When the rule was first proposed in 2017, it was met with swift backlash from labor advocates who said it would allow unscrupulous managers to pocket tips instead of distributing them to employees, a form of wage theft. In 2018, the rule was revised to explicitly prohibit them from doing so, but even with the protective provision, it’s likely to ruffle feathers. In big cities, and in fine-dining establishments, it’s not unusual for servers to bring home six-figure earnings, largely due to tips. Under the new rule, they stand to lose at least $4 billion in earnings, according to analysis from the Economic Policy Institute.
The Counter
December 24, 2020
“The key thing from this morning is just how many people are still on those federal programs that will expire,” said Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute. “All of those people are the ones who will get hit massively if Trump doesn’t sign the bill.”
Washington Post
December 24, 2020