Media clips

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• Why Florida’s new $15 minimum wage is a big deal

  It’s going to sting, no doubt, says David Cooper, a senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. “Businesses will have to adjust,” he says. “But more than 40 years of experience with raising minimum wages and decades of really high-quality research show that those adjustments are really not as onerous as businesses claim they will be.”

  Indeed, many companies already pay far above the state minimum. Florida’s lowest-paid hourly workers last year, gambling dealers, had a median hourly wage of $9.25, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. They’re one of eight worker categories that’ll see a wage spike when Florida’s first incremental increase, up to $10 per hour, starts next year.

  And then there are the benefits to spiking wages. Cooper notes that minimum-wage increases typically decrease employee turnover, increase productivity, and infuse more money into local economies–often resulting in more paying customers for businesses. That’s especially true when minimum-wage workers can afford to work a single full-time job; at 40 hours per week, Florida’s current $8.56 per hour minimum wage translates to less than $18,000 per year. “I don’t think it’s realistic that anyone could get by on that sort of income,” Cooper says. “And that’s not unique to Florida.”

  Inc. November 9, 2020
• Punching in: Previewing Biden’s Labor Secretary sweepstakes

  Progressives wouldn’t accept moderate Cabinet picks, said Thea Lee, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

  “The next two years are really a chance for Joe Biden, who really is a working-class champion, to deliver on the labor front,” Lee said. “He’s got a very short window to make his case to the American people; he can’t do that with a bunch of timid, retread Wall Street corporate Democrats.”

  Bloomberg Law November 9, 2020
• Number of the day shows Black unemployment rate lags

  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
• “Overpaid Executive Tax” in SF hits firms that pay CEOs 100X more than workers

  A study by the Economic Policy Institute found that in 2019, CEOs at the top 350 businesses in the US “earn[ed] 320 times as much as a typical worker,” which is “up from 293-to-1 in 2018 and a big increase from 21-to-1 in 1965 and 61-to-1 in 1989.” Those figures are based on a measure of CEO pay that “counts stock awards when vested and stock options when cashed in rather than when granted.” The average CEO salary for those 350 firms was $21.3 million.

  Ars Technica November 9, 2020
• Obamacare is becoming a big problem for Democrats

  Workers’ health insurance premiums are rising much faster than wages. Source: Economic Policy Institute

  Jacobin November 9, 2020
• Economy recovers 638,000 jobs as unemployment falls to 6.9%

  Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said at this rate it will take years for the economy to fully recover. She noted long-term unemployment is on the rise and families struggling to stay afloat aren’t getting any relief from Washington.

  “As the winter approaches and Covid-19 cases continue to rise, millions of people across the country will be left out in the cold,” she wrote. “Unlike his predecessor, the incoming Biden administration will inherit a devastated labor market that will need considerable relief and stimulus—quickly.”

  Courthouse News November 9, 2020
• DHS proposal ditches H-1B visa lottery for wage-based selection process

  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
• Unemployment rate falls to 6.9% in October as employers hired 638,000 workers

  Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said the number of job gains last month can “look huge in a historical context, but it’s misleading to look at those numbers in isolation.”

  “I think it’s important to look at the hole that we still have, and how long it might take to fill that gap at that pace,” she said. “And what it means is that a full recovery is years away.”

  In March and April, the U.S. economy lost some 22 million jobs.

  ABC News November 9, 2020
• Jobs have bounced back in some parts of the economy. Others face a long slog.

  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
• U.S. employers added 638,000 jobs in October. Unemployment fell to 6.9%.

  The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research group, estimates that more than 30 million workers have lost jobs or had their hours or pay reduced in the coronavirus-related downturn.

  New York Times November 9, 2020