“The state of the labor market is an F,” said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute and the former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. “We have fewer jobs than we had at any time during the Great Recession. There is no way you could give this economy a passing grade.”
CBS Moneywatch
September 8, 2020
And now, decades later, the United States has lost almost 90,000 factories, according to research from the Economic Policy Institute, nearly 5 million manufacturing jobs, and a wide array of essential supply chains.
Dallas Morning News
September 8, 2020
What most people don’t know is that after that century-long decline, the annual hours we work have risen considerably since the 70s. Data from the Economic Policy Institute show that work hours rose 13% from 1975 to 2016. Though the workweek remained relatively stable over this time, this change reflects an increase of about five additional weeks per year.
In These Times
September 8, 2020
The U.S. House has passed a bill to gradually increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour by the end of 2024, which, according to the Economic Policy Institute, would increase wages for 38.6 million adults, 23.8 million full-time workers, 23 million women, and 11.2 million parents and 5.4 million single parents who care for 14.4 million children.
Wilkes Barre Citizens' Voice
September 8, 2020
While the lowest-paid and most vulnerable workers have faced untold challenges during the health and economic crisis, many companies have tried to shield their top executives from paycuts even though CEO pay rose 14% last year, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute. The average CEO now earns 320 times as much as a typical worker, according to the analysis.
Salon
September 8, 2020
Attorney General Dana Nessel is one of the leading state AGs in protecting workers’ rights, according to a new report published by the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute (EPI) prior to Labor Day.
The economic justice think tank details the more prominent role state attorneys general have taken in labor rights issues since mid-2018 and lists specific ways each has advanced workers’ protections, both on the state and federal level.
Michigan Advance
September 8, 2020
One basic function of government is keeping people safe. Another is enforcing the law. Unfortunately, President Trump’s labor team has barely lifted a finger to help workers.
Enter state attorneys general. In recent years, a number of them have been increasingly involved in workers’ rights, as documented in an Economic Policy Institute and Harvard Labor and Worklife Program report issued last month.
The American Prospect
September 8, 2020
According to Valerie Wilson, director of the race, ethnicity and economy program at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), several factors fuel these disparities. On the one hand, there were unequal pre-pandemic conditions: Since the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking unemployment by race in the early 1970s, the rate has been highest for Blacks, with Latinos close behind. This is one reason why Latinos and Blacks had higher poverty rates and lower incomes pre-pandemic, which made them more vulnerable to many aspects of the crisis. On the other, COVID-19 has had a disparate impact: Job losses disproportionately affected industries where Latinos and Blacks worked.
What makes Latino workers more vulnerable and disproportionately impacted than others in today’s labor market is “the occupational segregation of Latino workers into more vulnerable jobs, as well as on underlying economic factors”, suggests EPI´s report.
City Limits
September 4, 2020
Union membership leads to higher wages and better access to health insurance and paid sick leave than those without a union, a new Economic Policy Institute (EPI) report states.
Teamsters
September 4, 2020
[tweeted EPI unions report] https://twitter.com/WeAreCTA/status/1300885393471016960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1300885393471016960%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cta.org%2Fevents%2Fawareness-events%2Flabor-day
California Teachers Association
September 4, 2020