Some organizations including the Economic Policy Institute and CFP Board championed the final rule on Tuesday.
Plan Adviser
April 24, 2024
Not only is childcare hard to find but it can be expensive. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the average annual cost for childcare for a 4-year-old child is a little more than $7,000.
Bay News 9
April 24, 2024
As Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Heidi Shierholz explained, “Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job.”
“These agreements are ubiquitous,” she noted, applauding the ban. “EPI research finds that more than 1 out of every 4 private-sector workers—including low-wage workers—are required to enter noncompete agreements as a condition of employment.”
Common Dreams
April 24, 2024
Ultimately, the rule change will only impact about 3% of the workers who are covered by the FLSA, according to an analysis from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Bloomberg Law
April 24, 2024
The rule was hailed by labor groups and left-leaning policy experts.
“Noncompetes are about reducing competition, full stop. It’s in their name,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the progressive nonprofit Economic Policy Institute. “Noncompetes are bad for workers, bad for consumers, and bad for the broader economy. This rule is an important step in creating an economy that is not only strong but also works for working people.”
NBC News
April 24, 2024
Meanwhile, advocates applauded the administration’s rule — with some noting that such a move is overdue. The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute says that the overtime threshold has not been updated properly for almost 50 years — leaving millions without such federal protections.
“The rule is an important step toward correctly valuing one of the most precious resources workers have — their time,” EPI president Heidi Shierholz said Tuesday. “This rule is an essential milestone in creating a stronger, fairer economy.”
Associated Press
April 24, 2024
An estimate from the Economic Policy Institute says that the new rule could result in an additional $1.5 billion in pay for employees.
“Employers will be more than able to adjust to the rule without negatively impacting the overall economy,” EPI director of government affairs and advocacy Samantha Sanders and President Heidi Shierholz shared in a statement.
Thanks to the new rule, Sanders and Shierholz wrote that salaried employees who were previously above the cutoff can no longer “be forced to work 60-70 hours a week for no more pay than if they worked 40 hours. The extra 20-30 hours are completely free to the employer, allowing employers to exploit workers with no consequences.”
News Radio 1080
April 24, 2024
The new rule could result in an additional $1.5 billion in pay for employees, according to an estimate from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
CBS News
April 24, 2024
I believe that I should pay higher taxes, and so should everyone as rich as I am, or richer. If they did, I would happily pay my share. Until the tax laws require this, I would rather take the deduction and contribute to the Economic Policy Institute or United for a Fair Economy, two nonprofits that are working for a fair tax system.
New York Times
April 19, 2024
Along with cutting payroll taxes, which are paid by workers and employees and amount to 7.65% of each employee’s gross pay in order to fund senior citizens’ post-retirement income, Trump has proposed extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the vast majority of which benefited the wealthiest Americans, according to the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Popular Democracy.
Common Dreams
April 19, 2024
Such practices amount to wage theft. According to the non-profit Economic Policy Institute, “between 2017 and 2020, more than $3 billion in stolen wages was recovered on behalf of workers by the US Department of Labor, state departments of labor and attorneys general, and through class and collective action litigation.”
The Register
April 19, 2024
Heidi Shierholz is president of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. She is also a former chief economist at the U.S. Labor Department. She said economic observers considered it “something of a mystery” that the U.S. had strong job growth but also saw inflation drop while interest rates rose. Most believed the U.S. would see more unemployment.
“The immigration numbers being higher than what we had thought — that really does pretty much solve that puzzle,’’ Shierholz said.
Voice of America
April 19, 2024
We are in a time of unprecedented public support for worker organizing. More than two-thirds of Americans see labor unions as a good thing for the economy, and almost 200,000 workers joined unions in 2023.
Nonprofit Quarterly
April 19, 2024
The Economic Policy Institute said Wednesday that the governors’ anti-union statement “clearly shows how scared they are that workers organizing with UAW to improve jobs and wages will upend the highly unequal, failed anti-worker economic development model of Southern states.”
Common Dreams
April 19, 2024
Women with full-time wages and salaries earned 83.6 percent less than men in 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The 21.8% gap is lower than in 2022 (22.9) yet, notes the Economic Policy Institute, it’s essentially the same as it was three decades ago (23.2% in 1994).
AL.com
April 19, 2024
Union membership is associated with higher earnings, better benefits, stable hours, protection from arbitrary discipline, and more—but most Americans haven’t had the chance to experience these advantages firsthand. In 2023, according to an estimate by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, 60 million working people in this country wanted a union but couldn’t get one.
The Atlantic
April 19, 2024
While employers were ready to pay higher wages to get workers after the pandemic, an influx of foreign-born workers filled the jobs and reduced the shortage. Some 2.7 million foreign born workers, ages 25-54, entered the workforce over the past four years, according to analysis of government data by the Economic Policy Institute. That’s 96% of the prime age workers added over the same period.
Mankato Free Press
April 19, 2024
Trump’s NLRB members also allowed for the misclassification of workers, which threatened their ability to join a union in the first place.
Misclassification of employees as independent contractors is a rampant problem that, according to the Economic Policy Institute, “robs employees of their rights under the NLRA,” or the National Labor Relations Act, as independent contractors are not covered or protected by the legislation. Congress passed the bill in 1935 and it guaranteed the right of private sector employees to organize into unions, collectively bargain, and go on strike.
Courier Newsroom
April 19, 2024
Since 2009, the number of school bus drivers nationwide has steadily decreased, with roughly 192,000 employed, according to a 2023 study by the Economic Policy Institute.
KSBY-TV
April 19, 2024
The Economic Policy Institute suggests that “unions threaten the Southern economic development model” that traces its origins to slavery “because they have historically been the primary counterweight against businesses seeking to keep wages and benefits low.”
Quartz
April 19, 2024
“According to the Economic Policy Institute, nearly half of American families have no retirement savings whatsoever, putting their golden years at risk.”
GO Banking Rates
April 19, 2024
For this campaign, we collected data from Zillow, Indeed, the U.S. Census Bureau, the Economic Policy Institute and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to determine which metropolitan areas are the most favorable for recent college graduates. We analyzed 70 of the largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. based on the region’s size, comparing the cities across the following metrics:
- Living costs for one person (single-parent household with no children) (35%)
MarketWatch
April 19, 2024
The Economic Policy Institute said rollbacks have been approved in a dozen states in the past few years. While current efforts are thwarted in Wisconsin, Bloomingdale worries about similar debates in future sessions.
Public News Service
April 19, 2024
According to the Economic Policy Institute, child labor violations have increased by nearly 300 percent since 2015, and the Labor Department found more than 800 violators during the past fiscal year.
Food Safety News
April 19, 2024
“Unfortunately, what has happened is that wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living, by and large, for the last 50 years or so,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at Economic Policy Institute.
“It becomes increasingly hard for many families to be able to attain that sort of middle-class lifestyle, that American Dream,” Gould said.
CNBC
April 19, 2024
Soaring violations and widespread abuse of child labor laws in multiple sectors of the economy have brought the issue to the forefront in some state legislatures in 2024, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Cal Matters
April 19, 2024
But while a 65-year-old is more likely to apply for a desk job or remote work than something that requires heavy lifting, said Monique Morrissey, a senior economist specializing in retirement security at the Economic Policy Institute, about 50% of older workers still have physically demanding jobs.
For many people, though, working into their golden years simply comes down to lacking enough money to stop working and keep a roof over their heads.
“It’s a tale of two retirements,” Morrissey said. While plenty of older Americans are working good jobs later into life by choice, others have struggled to find their place in the workforce.
CNN
April 19, 2024
(That said, a new paper from left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute says economic performance tends to be stronger when Democrats are in power.).
Fortune
April 19, 2024