Housekeepers have long had a uniquely precarious foothold in the U.S. labor market. Many people still refer to them as “the help,” which makes the job sound like something far less than an occupation. The Economic Policy Institute found that the country’s 2.2 million domestic workers — a group that includes housekeepers, child care workers and home health care aides — earn an average of $12.01 an hour and are three times as likely to live in poverty than other hourly workers. Few have benefits that are common in the American work force, like sick leave, health insurance, formal contracts or protection against unfair dismissal.
New York Times
September 18, 2020
It becomes even more complicated when gender still plays such a key part. In the U.S., according to the National Women’s Law Center, Black women who work full-time earn just $0.61 for every dollar made by white men. The Economic Policy Institute, a think-tank based in Washington, says that even when controlling for age, gender, education and region, black workers are paid 14.9 percent less than white workers.
Newsweek
September 18, 2020
An infographic created with data from a 2018 Economic Policy Institute report ranks New York as the state with the greatest income disparity between the top 1% of earners and the remaining 99%.
News 10
September 18, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) published a report in August that indicated unionized workers earn on average 11.2 percent more in wages than non-unionized peers, meaning workers in the same industry and occupation with similar education and experience. The report authors also said unions help to reduce racial disparities in pay.
NTD
September 18, 2020
Las trabajadoras latinas llegaron a alcanzar en lo peor de la crisis un 20% de desempleo, le dice a BBC Mundo Elise Gould, investigadora del Economic Policy Institute.
BBC Mundo
September 18, 2020
A report by the Economic Policy Institute published last month contradicted his claims, however. It found that far from reenergizing the so-called Rust Belt — former industrial areas of the northeastern US that had seen a sharp economic decline since the 1990s — more manufacturing jobs left the US than were created during Trump’s first two years in office.
The Washington-based think tank wrote: “President Trump’s erratic, ego-driven and inconsistent trade policies have not achieved any measurable progress, despite the newly combative rhetoric. On top of that, COVID-19 — and the administration’s mismanagement of the crisis — have wiped out much of the last decade’s job gains in US manufacturing.”
Deutsche Welle
September 18, 2020
Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, said the undercount of people in poverty was probably over 2 million. And when there are undercount issues, Shierholz said, people at the lowest income brackets and people of color tend to be affected the most. For example, lower-income Americans may have less stable addresses or phone numbers, or it might take more time and investment to build trust with a survey-taker.
“It’s not trivial,” Shierholz said. “It doesn’t change the broader story in these numbers … and the Census Bureau is being super transparent about this issue. But it’s an issue.”
Washington Post
September 18, 2020
Pay gaps may be even wider for people of color: for example, a 2019 analysis by the Economic Policy Institute found that, after controlling for age, gender, education and region, Black workers were paid 16.2% less than White workers.
HR Dive
September 18, 2020
Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, told Newsweek that he did not see the debt as growing “all-that-exceptionally under the Trump administration” prior to the pandemic. However, Bivens criticized the Trump administration’s major economic legislation—the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017—which was the main driver of increasing debt during the president’s first three years in office.
“I think that was an awful use of fiscal resources—funneling lots of money to already-rich households that didn’t need it,” the economist said. “I think we could’ve done a number of much more valuable things with those fiscal resources, but my real objection is the opportunity cost of the tax cut—what wasn’t done with those fiscal resources—rather than its effect in pushing up debt.”
Newsweek
September 18, 2020
As for health coverage, about 12-million people have lost coverage since March, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
WFTV
September 18, 2020