A report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released last week finds that since the $7.25 an hour wage was established in 2009, its real value has declined 27 percent, bringing the value of the federal minimum wage to its lowest point in 66 years.
Truthout
July 20, 2022
Even before COVID, U.S. schools were struggling to fill open educator positions for over a decade: Between the 2008-09 and 2015-16 school years, the number of people graduating with education degrees decreased more than 15%, according to a recent Economic Policy Institute report.
Chalkbeat
July 20, 2022
According to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, the value of the federal minimum wage has reached a historic low, as the consumer price index showed record inflation in the month of June.
Marketplace
July 20, 2022
Record high inflation has pushed the value of the federal minimum wage down to the lowest level in 66 years, according to a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
July 20, 2022
“The data is saying we have time to be flexible,” says Josh Bivens, who makes this point in a new column from the Economic Policy Institute.
Axios
July 20, 2022
The federal minimum wage is at its lowest value since February 1956, analysis from the Economic Policy Institute shows.
CNBC
July 20, 2022
Gerstein, a senior fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, co-authored a recent EPI report that documents a remarkable range of activity among local governments in the areas of worker protection — territory that, until perhaps a decade ago, almost never fell to them to design and implement.
Capital and Main
July 20, 2022
The federal minimum wage is at its lowest value since February 1956, analysis from the Economic Policy Institute shows.
CNBC
July 20, 2022
You know, I was looking for headlines about teacher shortages. And I saw one headline, “The Teacher Shortage is Real, Large, and Growing and Worse than we Thought.” That was from the Economic Policy Institute. That was from 2019. And I would imagine things have only gotten worse over the course of the pandemic with school shutdowns, et cetera. Are we at the most acute point ever in terms of teacher dissatisfaction?
Yahoo Finance
July 15, 2022
In 2019, teachers earned 19.2 percent less than workers with comparable education and experience, according to the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute.
The Washington Post
July 15, 2022
Public education funding should be reformed to provide automatic federal support for schools during economic downturns, according to a July 12 report from the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank.
K-12 Dive
July 15, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found nearly 54% of recent inflation can be attributed to corporate profits in contrast to the 11.4% base that corporate profits had on rising pricing between 1979 and 2019.
The Tennessee Tribune
July 15, 2022
According to research by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the teacher shortage could reach 200,000 by 2025, up from 110,000 in 2018. This shortage of workers is due to a number of factors. Among them are pay, working conditions, lack of support, lack of autonomy, and the changing curriculum.
Foundation for Economic Education
July 15, 2022
The reasons Black Americans have higher jobless rates than whites fall into several categories. The Economic Policy Institute reports that among the primary reasons are “racism” and single adult households where one person tries to care for children and hold a full-time job at the same time.
24/7 Wall St.
July 15, 2022
While monthly changes in the jobs report highlight ongoing discrepancies in the recovery and overall employment market, Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy, cautions against drawing broad conclusions as results can shift with sampling.
CNBC
July 15, 2022
This spark has hit particularly dry kindling. As a wave of unionization sweeps across retail, dollar store workers are organizing to fight back against some of the harshest conditions in the sector. Employees across the country work in dollar stores that are understaffed and sometimes unsafe. They have had to deal with rat infestations, broken air conditioners in the summer heat, and even workplace violence. The wages are also among the lowest in retail. According to the Economic Policy Institute and The Shift Project, 92 percent of Dollar General employees make less than $15 an hour.
American Prospect
July 15, 2022
After the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court, the connection between abortion rights and labor rights is acutely clear—both are under attack by right-wing activists, who see abortions and unions as threats to the patriarchy. In response to the ruling, a number of states have rushed to pass legislation to shore up access to abortion care. But should we be having a more comprehensive discussion about the economic effects of abortion bans? We spoke with Asha Banerjee of the Economic Policy Institute about what the fall of Roe means for workers.
Dissent Magazine
July 15, 2022
Information obtained by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) from seven states reveals more than 60 percent of corporations operating there pay no state income tax. Some of these no-tax paying corporations were highly profitable, yet between 11 percent and 27 percent with over $1 billion in federal taxable income pay nothing or next to nothing in income taxes. We don’t know what these figures are in Maine because the data hasn’t been made public — but it should be.
Maine Beacon
July 15, 2022
The federal minimum wage at $7.25 per hour hasn’t been touched in over a decade. But at least 30 states have higher minimum wages, according to the Economic Policy Institute, with as many as 46 localities like Los Angeles County, Chicago, and New York City requiring higher minimum wages than their states.
Modern Retail
July 15, 2022
The catch to the corporate complaints, as Economic Policy Institute President Heidi Shierholz pointed out, is that the same firms yowling about the lack of workers in a booming recovery won’t raise wages to attract new people. In so many words, try paying them.
People’s World
July 15, 2022
But if the Fed is too aggressive, that could potentially backfire, noted Josh Bivens, director of economic research at the Economic Policy Institute.
CNN Business
July 15, 2022
As people struggle to access healthcare, one obvious knock-on effect is the cost of accessing services out of state. “This decision will cause immediate economic pain in 26 states where abortion bans are most likely and where people already face lower wages, less worker power, and limited access to health care,” Heidi Shierholz, the president of the Economic Policy Institute, said in a statement
Venture Beat
July 15, 2022
“It is not a direct solution to having these rights being codified at the state or federal level. At the end of the day, someone needing an abortion should not have to go to their employer, who they just have to hope is well-meaning, and it’s very likely that workers in low-wage industries with few workplace protections or benefits, like paid leave, will not have access to this new benefit,” said Asha Banerjee, an economic policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute.
The Guardian
July 15, 2022
Valerie Wilson at the Economic Policy Institute points out that child care systems also don’t often accommodate parents who work odd hours. “This is particularly important for low-wage earners, because their scheduling tends to be less consistent,” she said. “For that group, the supply of available child care providers is even more limited.”
Marketplace
July 15, 2022
… to a hot inflation reading,” said Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. (paywall)
MarketWatch
July 15, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank that researches economic trends and policies, identifies nominal wage growth as “a crucial measure of how far from full recovery the economy remains.”
Miami Herald
July 15, 2022
In an NBC News report, Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, said inflation is hitting low-income families the hardest because so much of their household spending goes to essentials such as food, gas and housing expenses.
WXII-12
July 15, 2022
Although the planned raises may be a bit higher than in previous years, they’re still far below the pace of inflation, said Lawrence Mishel, a distinguished fellow at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. As a result, many households will still find their budgets tighter.
CNBC
July 15, 2022