In fact, one left-leaning think tank, the Economic Policy Institute, noted Black and African-American unemployment is still higher than total unemployment ever was in the Great Recession, when it peaked at 10% in October 2009. (Black and African-American unemployment was as high as 16.8% in both the Great Recession and the current pandemic-triggered recession.)
The Balance
November 9, 2020
Workers’ health insurance premiums are rising much faster than wages. Source: Economic Policy Institute
Jacobin
November 9, 2020
The latest decision to nix the agency’s previous lottery-based method of selecting visa petitions is an attempt to address an issue that observers of the H-1B program have previously highlighted. That is, the H-1B program’s prevailing wage levels mean workers can hire foreign talent at prices that are “significantly lower” than local median salaries for certain occupations, according to a May analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. The organization found, for instance, that three-fifths of 2019 H-1B jobs were certified at the two lowest prevailing wage levels.
CIO Dive
November 9, 2020
About a third of jobless Americans are now long-term unemployed, without a job and actively looking for six months or longer, said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
“That is a devastating number,” she said. “As this drags on, I expect those numbers to reach the levels we saw in the Great Recession.”
Marketplace
November 9, 2020
Daniel Costa, an immigration policy expert at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said the index preferred by the Trump administration might produce bigger increases for some higher-skilled workers on farms. But the vast majority of guest workers would see smaller wages than they would have under the current system, hence the “transfer payments” going to employers.
In an analysis, Costa found that fieldworkers’ wages rose an average of 3.6% each year between 2010 and 2019 based on the survey; under the index proposed in the new rule, they would have risen at an annual rate of just 2.3%.
Over time, Costa said, the impact could be significant. The fact that guest workers would receive smaller pay hikes could soften wage increases for U.S. workers as well. The change would also allow farms to advertise lower pay than they would have under the survey, making the positions less attractive to U.S. workers.
Huffpost
November 9, 2020
Local and state governments, in fact, have cut 1.2 million jobs since July, says The Wall Street Journal. And Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reckons that 31 million Americans have been impacted economically by COVID. That includes the unemployed and folks whose wages have been cut. Sure, the employment picture seems better as the country added more than 600,000 jobs last month. But there will be a lot of restaurant and retail jobs at risk as the weather continues to cool. And we’re still 10 million jobs short of February’s totals, per EPI.
Newsweek
November 9, 2020
Lily Garcia, former head of the National Education Association whose mother is from Panama. She serves on the president’s advisory commission on educational excellence for Hispanics and is a board member of the Economic Policy Institute.
USA Today
November 9, 2020
Caroline Hyde, Romaine Bostick & Taylor Riggs bring you the latest news and analysis leading up to the final minutes and seconds before the closing bell on Wall Street and tackle the presidential election, the jobs report and outlook of cannabis Guests Today: Julia Coronado of Macropolicy Perspectives, Jeffrey Solomon of Cowen, Irina Novoselsky of Careerbuilder, Brian Tanquilut of Jeffries, Kristina Hooper of Invesco, Boris Jordan of Invesco, Larry Adam of Raymond James, Elise Gould of Economic Policy Institute, Jeanne Zaino of Iona College.
Bloomberg TV
November 9, 2020
Wages haven’t grown significantly since the 1970s. According to the Economic Policy Institute, between 1979 and 2018, productivity has increased 6 times faster than wages. In other words, workers are now producing 69.3% more, but wages have only increased by 11.6%.
Refinery29
November 9, 2020
In San Francisco, voters approved a tax on companies whose executives earn more than 100 times the average salary of their workers. For each multiple of 100, the company will be on the hook for an additional 0.1% in taxes, up to a maximum of 0.6%.
Businesses based in the city, as well as companies that do business there, are subject to the tax. If that seems harsh, it’s actually pretty generous, given the numbers. American CEOs make 320 times as much as the average worker, according to the Economic Policy Institute, the largest discrepancy in the world.
That’s up 14% over last year. CEO pay has grown 940% since 1978, while wages have grown just 12%.
Ad Age
November 9, 2020