In the last five years, several state attorney general offices — including those in Pennsylvania and New Jersey — have launched units focused on defending workers, transforming their offices into what report author Terri Gerstein describes as a rarity: a high-profile government entity that’s willing to hold employers accountable. Previously, only three states had such units; now, there are nine, according to Gerstein’s Economic Policy Institute report published Thursday.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
August 28, 2020
“We’re going to see jobs that involve a lot of social contact like restaurants, hotels, tourism … be very depressed until we get a vaccine or effective treatment,” says Heidi Shierholz, former chief economist of the Obama administration’s Labor Department and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute.
Christian Science Monitor
August 28, 2020
“That means people on UI are now are forced to get by on the meager benefits which are in place without the extra payment, which are typically around 40% of their pre-virus earnings,” says Heidi Shierholz, policy director for the Economic Policy Institute. “It goes without saying that most folks can’t exist on 40% of prior earnings without experiencing a sharp drop in living standards and enormous pain.”
People’s World
August 28, 2020
“It’s clear. The days where the Fed Chair’s primary role is to pull away the punchbowl from the labor market just as things start going well should be seen as decisively over,” said L. Josh Bivens, research director at the labor-focused Economic Policy Institute, referring to a metaphor coined by a former Fed chair, William McChesney Martin, to describe how the central bank acts to contain inflation. “It is a very welcome acknowledgment about how much more room they have to probe the absolute limits of full employment,” Bivens said.
Reuters
August 28, 2020
So, let’s start. We can’t go back to 1980 and buy a house for $60,000.00, but we can buy one today. If my $327,100.00 purchase appreciates the same amount, in 40 years my house will be worth $1,771,430.00. What income do I need to buy a $327k house? First, we need to know what your mortgage payment would be. For the sake of simplicity let’s assume that you put a 3 percent down payment on the house, and you get a 30-year fixed mortgage at 3 percent. The mortgage payment includes your principal and interest, and your taxes and insurance. The principal and interest payment for this loan is $1,334.11. Let’s assume that your taxes are $300 a month and your insurance is $100 a month. Your complete mortgage payment is $1,734.11. Generally speaking, your mortgage payment cannot be more than 28 percent of your gross monthly income. This means in order to qualify for this mortgage you need a minimum annual salary of $80,512.25. Right away we have a problem. According to the Economic Policy Institute the median hourly wage — the wage at which half the workforce is paid more and half the workforce is paid less — stood at $19.33 per hour in 2019. For a full-time, full-year worker, this would translate into about $40,000 per year. It appears as if we are going to need some additional income if we are going to maintain our goal. So the next question becomes how does one increase their income?
Purposely Awakened
August 28, 2020
Teacher shortages have always been a crisis due partly to a lack of qualified applicants, low wages and lack of career support, according to a 2019 report by the Economic Policy Institute. “You would think states would panic upon hearing this,” teacher Kelly Treleaven wrote in a New York Times op-ed that cited the report. Instead, “they slash the education budget, which forces districts to cut jobs (increasing class size), put off teacher raises and roll back the quality of teachers’ health care. They ignore teachers’ pleas for buildings without black mold creeping out of ceiling tiles, for sensible gun legislation, and for salaries we can live on without having to pick up two to three additional part-time jobs. So, a lot of good and talented teachers leave.”
Yahoo
August 28, 2020
“Because most U.S. workers rely on their employer or a family member’s employer for health insurance, the shock of the coronavirus has cost millions of Americans their jobs and their access to healthcare in the midst of a public health catastrophe,” Josh Bivens, co-author of the study and director of research at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), said in a statement announcing the findings.
“Tying health insurance to the labor market is always terribly inefficient and problematic, but becomes particularly so during times of great labor market churn,” said Bivens.
Common Dreams
August 28, 2020
Robert E. Scott of the pro-labor Economic Policy Institute found that about 851,700 U.S. jobs were displaced by the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico from 1993 (shortly before NAFTA was implemented) to 2014. (Other studies, however, have found the job losses to be far less.)
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service wrote in 2018, citing a 2014 study by the Economic Policy Institute, that “growth in the U.S. goods trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2013 eliminated or displaced 3.2 million U.S. jobs (three-fourths of which were in manufacturing).”
CNBC
August 28, 2020
“The change should address the issues that have plagued seasonally adjustments during this pandemic,” said Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
Reuters
August 28, 2020
Kenosha is located at the approximate midway point between Milwaukee and Chicago, two of the most racially segregated cities in the United States. A 2019 Economic Policy Institute report noted that Midwestern states, including Wisconsin, make up 10 of the 11 states “with the largest ratio between Black and white unemployment in 2017.” Additionally, five of the six metropolitan areas in America where Black residents experience concentrated poverty at rates over 40% are in the Midwest.
Complex
August 28, 2020