Twenty-nine states have set their rates higher than the federal minimum – all the way up to $13.50 in Washington. And some cities have set their minimum wage above their state’s floor. The large differences make efforts to statistically characterize minimum wage earners across the nation “thorny,” according to David Cooper, a senior economic analyst at left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Politifact
November 2, 2020
Health insurance is another area where the safety net failed for millions of Americans. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that about since the pandemic began, roughly 6.2 million workers lost access to their employer-sponsored coverage.
Bloomberg
November 2, 2020
The Tax Policy Center has also found that the act contributed to some short term growth in economic output, as “most households have more after-tax income, which they are likely to spend,” according to an analysis. But it has contributed to growing inequality, too. A report from the Economic Policy Institute last year concluded that the act “did not increase wages for working people, failed to spur business investments, decreased corporate tax revenues, and boosted stock buybacks in its wake.”
Capital and Main
November 2, 2020
Some voters may find that the strong growth numbers do not match their experience of how the economy is doing after taking a big shock from COVID-19, said Josh Bivens, director of research for the Economic Policy Institute.
Roughly half of the 22 million jobs lost during the pandemic have been recovered, but new hiring is slowing. Infections are rising and some companies caution they may need to make more cuts.
“That disjuncture between GDP and how most people feel about the economy is even going to be larger in the coming weeks and months,” said Bivens.
The economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic is unique because it fell hard on “labor intensive” sectors, such as leisure and hospitality, which often rely on a large number of workers to provide face-to-face services. Think of the servers, bartenders, housekeepers and other people in low-wage jobs completing tasks that are associated with relatively minor contributions to GDP, Bivens said.
Reuters
November 2, 2020
Features interview with Josh Bivens.
Washington Post Podcast: “Can He Do That?”
November 2, 2020
Lonnie Golden, “Still falling short on hours and pay” (Washington: Economic Policy Institute, 2016)
Center for American Progress
November 2, 2020
San Francisco’s pending “Proposition L” takes aim on the locomotive driving contemporary American inequality: our major corporations and banks. The executives who run these enterprises make fabulously more than workers — and fabulously more than executives used to make. CEO compensation, the Economic Policy Institute reported this past August, has increased 1,167 percent since 1978, after taking inflation into account. Worker pay? Up just 13.7 percent.
In 1978, CEOs pocketed 31 times what typical workers earned. Last year, top execs averaged 309 times more.
Inequality.org
November 2, 2020
Measured against the state’s median family income of $68,034, that family spends roughly 41% of its annual income on child care alone — almost six times the Department of Health’s recommended benchmark.
Ascent drew its ranking from 2019 data from the Economic Policy Institute.
A more recent release of 2020 data from the same source examined the average cost of infant care in California, pricing it at $16,945 a year.
That’s slightly more than the statewide average annual cost of housing, $16,693, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
In short, child care for a baby costs more per year than the average Californian will pay for rent.
San Luis Obispo Tribune
November 2, 2020
The Trump administration renegotiated NAFTA, and has claimed the era of corporations “offshoring” U.S. manufacturing jobs was “over.” In fact, the opposite is true. A report issued in August by the Economic Policy Institute found nearly 1,800 factories shuttered between 2016 and 2018. And St. Paul’s Gerdau facility will soon be added to the list.
Workday Minnesota
November 2, 2020