Over the last 50 years, income inequality in America has grown substantially. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the growth in income from 1945 to 1973 was widely shared among the various income classes in the country. However, beginning in 1973 — notably, the year the United States fell into a 16-month recession, the longest at the time since the Great Depression — this trend of broad income growth reversed. From 1973 to 2007, more than half of all income growth was concentrated among the top 1% of families in the United States. Indeed, income inequality in America has now reached levels not seen since its historical peak in 1928, a time when the unregulated stock market fueled enormous gaps in income classes amid the so-called Roaring Twenties.
Forbes
December 16, 2022
Unions can barely keep themselves afloat, much less fund extensive advocacy outside their core functions. The Economic Policy Institute, long the most influential union-aligned think tank in the US, took only 14 percent of its funding from unions in 2021.
VOX
December 16, 2022
Some data argues teachers should be looking to remain in unions. An August paper published by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) says that as teachers’ stress levels rose due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the comfort of their unions were the best resource to alleviate them.
KATV
December 9, 2022
More than 90% of domestic workers are women, and about a third are foreign born, according to a recent report from the the Economic Policy Institute. In fact, domestic workers are “twice as likely” as other U.S. employees to come from another country, the EPI notes. Of the 2.2 million, the vast majority work as home health care aides. And more will be needed in the cities that will age the most by 2060.
24/7 Wall St.
December 9, 2022
Plus, hefty medical bills may be just the beginning, says Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute.
“The poverty rate of people with disabilities is about two-and-a-half times as high as for others, and the share of those with disabilities who have medical debt is about five times as large as for others,” he tells CNBC Make It.
“There’s tons of uncertainty about the long-term health implications of Covid-19, but even a tiny bit of long-term illness/disability risk associated with Covid-19 will have big economic costs,” Bivens adds.
CNBC
December 9, 2022
A report last year by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, estimated that the transition to electric vehicles could cost at least 75,000 U.S. auto industry jobs by 2030 if the government did not provide additional subsidies for domestic production, but could create 150,000 jobs if those subsidies were forthcoming.
…
Josh Bivens, an author of the Economic Policy Institute report, said in an interview that he was pleasantly surprised that the administration managed to pass strong incentives for domestic production of electric vehicles. But whether the incentives will lead to good jobs, he added, is an open question.
“There’s no real explicit subsidy or incentive to make these unionized or even high-wage,” Mr. Bivens said.
The New York Times
December 9, 2022
Trevor Noah cites EPI research showing that wage theft robs workers of $15 billion per year—more than car thefts, burglaries, and other larcenies combined.
The Daily Show
December 9, 2022
The debt ceiling limits how much the federal government can borrow to make those payments — which makes no economic sense, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Hill
December 9, 2022
If workers become more scarce, it “would give the workers that are in the labor market more bargaining power,” Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, told Insider, “because they’ll have other outside options and employers won’t have as many outside options to find workers to replace them.”
Business Insider
December 9, 2022
Some 90% are women, just over half (51.3%) are Black, Hispanic or Asian American and Pacific Islander women, and about a third are immigrants, more than twice the number of other U.S. workers, according to a study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute and released last week. According to EPI, the median wage of a domestic worker is $13.79 per hour, much less than other workers (whose median wage is $21.76 per hour).
LA Progressive
December 9, 2022
Romaine Bostick & Katie Greifeld bring you the latest news and analysis leading up to the final minutes and seconds before and after the closing bell on Wall Street and tackles ISM manufacturing data, China’s Covid pivot and credit Guests Today: Maria Vassalou of Goldman Sachs, Heidi Shierholz of Economic Policy Institute, Greg Sharenow of PIMCO, Richard Ramsden of Goldman Sachs, Mark Howard of BNP Paribas Americas, Lori Heinel of State Street Global Advisors, Dr. Sara Vakhshouri of SVB Energy International
Bloomberg TV
December 9, 2022
“All the things that come from having a better job; being a white-collar worker; having more education; having a higher income — all the benefits are far more likely to accrue to you because employers are going to do more to try to attract and retain you because they have to,” said Elise Gould, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “Without policymakers trying to level the playing field there, those [same] inequalities are going to persist.”
Politico
December 9, 2022
Researchers from pro-union think tank the Economic Policy Institute found that high union density in an industry helps increase the floors for wages and benefits. Should companies in an industry raise their standards — such as by offering higher pay and making specific, demonstrated transparency efforts — these benefits will have a “‘spillover’ effect,” researchers said, to nonunion employers.
Polygon
December 9, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute says nearly 900,000 jobs were lost since the signing of NAFTA through 2002. Most of the jobs lost were in high-wage manufacturing, a majority disappearing within the rust belt.
Newsy
December 9, 2022
Part of the reason it’s cheaper is that contractors are not required to pay union wages or benefits, nor are they obligated to adhere to union rules. A 2021 report by the Economic Policy Institute found that union construction workers earned on average 40 percent more than their non-union workers.
Documented NY
December 9, 2022
“What we’ve seen over the last couple of years is a pretty solid bounce back from the pandemic recession [in life sciences],” Elise Gould, Ph.D., senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told BioSpace. The EPI is a non-profit think tank.
Biospace
December 9, 2022
Bringing child care workers back, said Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute, is economics, not rocket science.
“So pay is one thing, providing benefits, having better working conditions, having better hours, all of those things are going to entice more workers into that profession,” she said.
Marketplace
December 9, 2022
Along with Michigan, there are 12 other states that are raising their minimum wage in 2023, according to the Economic Policy Institute:
Click on Detroit
December 9, 2022
More than 90% of domestic workers are women, and about a third are foreign born, according to a recent report from the the Economic Policy Institute. In fact, domestic workers are “twice as likely” as other U.S. employees to come from another country, the EPI notes. Of the 2.2 million, the vast majority work as home health care aides. And more will be needed in the cities that will age the most by 2060.
24/7 Wall St.
December 9, 2022
Black and Hispanic workers were significantly less likely to be able to work remotely, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute.
Fortune
December 9, 2022
Some data argues teachers should be looking to remain in unions. An August paper published by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) says that as teachers’ stress levels rose due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the comfort of their unions were the best resource to alleviate them.
KATV
December 9, 2022
Poor working conditions are a primary source of the teacher shortage phenomenon, argues a new report from the Economic Policy Institute. The problem isn’t primarily a lack of qualified teachers, it says, but a lack of incentives for those qualified workers to take grueling, underappreciated jobs.
Education Week
December 9, 2022
Teaching, though, has been widely viewed as a caretaking profession with unfair compensation, advocates told ABC News. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which lobbies on behalf of the needs of low- and middle-income workers, found the relative pay gap between teachers and similarly educated non-teachers hit a “record” high in 2021.
ABC News
December 9, 2022
Plus, hefty medical bills may be just the beginning, says Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute.
“The poverty rate of people with disabilities is about two-and-a-half times as high as for others, and the share of those with disabilities who have medical debt is about five times as large as for others,” he tells CNBC Make It.
“There’s tons of uncertainty about the long-term health implications of Covid-19, but even a tiny bit of long-term illness/disability risk associated with Covid-19 will have big economic costs,” Bivens adds.
CNBC
December 9, 2022
A report last year by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, estimated that the transition to electric vehicles could cost at least 75,000 U.S. auto industry jobs by 2030 if the government did not provide additional subsidies for domestic production, but could create 150,000 jobs if those subsidies were forthcoming.
…
Josh Bivens, an author of the Economic Policy Institute report, said in an interview that he was pleasantly surprised that the administration managed to pass strong incentives for domestic production of electric vehicles. But whether the incentives will lead to good jobs, he added, is an open question.
“There’s no real explicit subsidy or incentive to make these unionized or even high-wage,” Mr. Bivens said.
The New York Times
December 9, 2022
Meanwhile, the strong headline numbers in the November jobs report masks some weakness in the household survey data, according to Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
Overall, data showing the number of people employed in the U.S., the employment-population ratio, and participation rates have all ticked lower for at least three straight months.
If what’s happening in the household survey is a better measure, “then it’s actually showing far more economic distress,” Gould said. “And so that means that people are actually losing their jobs and they’re hurting right now.”
CNBC
December 9, 2022
If you’ve ever worked back-of-house at a fast-casual spot or even a full-service restaurant, then you know that restaurant work is some of the most highly demanding — and yet lowest-paid — work out there. According to a 2014 report from the Economic Policy Institute, “by and large, the industry consists of very low-wage jobs with few benefits, and many restaurant workers live in poverty or near-poverty.”
Tasting Table
December 9, 2022
When people have more money, they spend more. When more money is spent, there is more opportunity for job growth, mitigating the negative effects of raising the minimum wage. In fact, a study from the Economic Policy Institute predicted that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 could create 85,000 new jobs due to growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The Michigan Daily
December 9, 2022
“This is a truly fertile generational shift potentially going on in the labor movement,” says Jennifer Sherer, a labor expert with the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. “People who are learning firsthand how to organize unions will take that knowledge into any job they go into in the future.”
Christian Science Monitor
December 9, 2022