“I don’t think these things like meditation or whatever employers may be doing to increase well-being are bad initiatives,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. “But they do not substitute for decent wages, decent benefits, sane scheduling.”
New York Times
May 20, 2022
In April, the unemployment rate in the U.S. stood at 3.2% for white Americans and 5.9% for Black Americans.
“The ongoing COVID-19 crisis continues to highlight the many layers of racial inequality in the U.S. labor market,” Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity & the Economy, told a congressional committee in January.
“In contrast to the nearly uniform rise in unemployment rates between February and April 2020, since that time, the white unemployment rate has fallen fastest,” she said.
Crain’s Chicago Business
May 20, 2022
This story was first posted at Economic Policy Institute.
A leaked draft of a majority opinion authored by Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito strongly suggests that the court will rule to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the two landmark cases that have upheld the right to an abortion nationwide for the last half century. If the final ruling largely follows what is sketched out in the leaked draft, abortion services will be drastically curtailed, if not outright banned, in over half the country.
In These Times
May 20, 2022
Terri Gerstein is the director of the State and Local Enforcement Project at the Harvard Labor and Worklife Program and a senior fellow at the Economic Policy Institute. She was previously the Labor Bureau chief in the New York State Attorney General’s Office.
NBC Think
May 20, 2022
This legislation also strengthens and expands requirements for public companies to disclose their pricing strategies in their filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and grants new funding to the FTC. A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute concluded that fatter corporate profit margins have driven more than half of prices increases since 2020.
Office of Senator Ed Markey
May 13, 2022
The coalition led by the Texas AFL-CIO, and including the National Employment Law Project, Communications Workers of America, and the Economic Policy Institute, filed a friend-of-the-court brief Monday asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas to grant the government’s motion to dismiss. The Justice Department has asked the federal court to toss a challenge from Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, which sued to block an executive order from President Joe Biden.
Bloomberg Law
May 13, 2022
Using data from the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, let’s take a look at the current cost of child care in the commonwealth
Pennsylvania Capital-Star
May 13, 2022
Amazon and other large corporations are also responsible for a combined state and local tax shortfall estimated to be between $43 billion and $57 billion, the Economic Policy Institute reports. That’s enough money to pay for high quality, universal pre-kindergarten programs for children ages 3 and 4 nationwide, advocates say.
Truthout
May 13, 2022
It’s a great benefit for working families who have expenses of caring for their kids. But the value of the benefit has significantly declined over the years since the provision was enacted because the exclusion amount has not kept up with inflation, while child and dependent care expenses have increased. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the cost of childcare in every state exceeds this $5,000 limit.
Bloomberg Tax
May 13, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, previously said there’s some merit to suggestions that the gap narrows based on career differences. But researchers there have also argued that career choice isn’t as straightforward as it seems.
Business Insider
May 13, 2022
The average annual cost of infant care in Oregon is more than the cost of college tuition, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute.
Fox 12
May 13, 2022
… to a report by the Economic Policy Institute. Domestic workers are also disproportionately older, foreign-born and living in poverty. (paywall).
Colorado Politics
May 13, 2022
And Black families are hit the hardest. Formula is very expensive, with a yearly estimated cost between $1200 and $1500. Many Black families are more likely to work poverty-level jobs, according to Economic Policy Institute.
Black Wall Street Times
May 13, 2022
Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, sees the return to work as a natural result of the world returning to a more normal business schedule after the worst days of the pandemic.
MarketWatch
May 13, 2022
Well-off students are more likely to have the equipment needed to attend online school, according to a study published by the Economic Policy Institute. Seven percent of poor eighth-graders in the United States don’t have internet access, compared to only 1.6 percent of non-poor students.
Ms. Magazine
May 13, 2022
Opportunities in industries that are focused on mitigating and adapting to climate change will likely proliferate due to the passage of this bill. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), climate-related and other environmental provisions in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act would support more than 763,000 jobs annually. Among the industries that account for these jobs are electric vehicle manufacturing and charging infrastructure—not a surprise when considering this legislation allocates significant funds to transportation programs.
Forbes
May 13, 2022
“It’s a baby step forward,” said Jennifer Sherer, a labor expert at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. But the bill “still leaves Colorado lagging behind the majority of states with stronger rights for public sector workers.”
Colorado Public Radio
May 13, 2022
Clean energy jobs, which pay on average $25 an hour, are still overwhelmingly held by men. Care jobs, on the other hand, pay on average $13.51 an hour and are predominantly filled by women, women of color and immigrants. Most workers don’t receive any additional benefits like retirement funds or health care, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The 19th
May 13, 2022
“I just think he is in a really bad box because of this. Inflation is largely a global, geopolitical phenomenon that is just not under the Biden administration’s control,” said Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute. “I think he’s in a really bad spot for reasons kind of entirely out of his control.”
The Hill
May 13, 2022
“The ongoing COVID-19 crisis continues to highlight the many layers of racial inequality in the U.S. labor market,” Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity & the Economy, told a congressional committee in January.
Crain’s Chicago Business
May 13, 2022
Jennifer Sherer is senior state policy coordinator for the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN) Worker Power Project at the Economic Policy Institute. The opinions expressed in this commentary are her own.
CNN Business
May 13, 2022
But the reduction in supply was met with increased demand as Americans started purchasing durable goods to replace the services they used prior to the pandemic, said Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute.
CNET
May 13, 2022
Van Hollen cited data from a 2019 Economic Policy Institute report that found employer spending on anti-union consultants could be as much as $340 million annually. Neither Casey nor Van Hollen were aware of data that tracks how much companies subsidize of their anti-union spending costs.
Bloomberg Law
May 13, 2022
State assistance can help make childcare more accessible to low-income families who may otherwise struggle to afford it. An analysis from the Economic Policy Institute found that the average cost of infant care in Virginia is $14,063 annually, or $1,172 per month. EPI said Virginia is ranked 10th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia for most expensive infant care.
WDVM
May 13, 2022
This is a particularly important factor when looking at the workers who make up the city’s unionized construction workforce. According to a 2017 study by the Economic Policy Institute, the majority of the city’s unionized construction workers were Black and Hispanic individuals.
NY Daily News
May 13, 2022
Economic Policy Institute’s senior economist Elise Gould explained, “Workers continue to quit and get hired at fast rates in today’s economy. This ‘churn’ is a positive sign of a strengthening labor market where workers can quit, search, and obtain new opportunities.”
PennLive
May 13, 2022
If that time has now come in the UK, that time should have come years ago in the United States. Back in 1989, the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute reported last August, CEOs at the top 350 publicly traded U.S. corporations were realizing an average 61 times typical worker compensation. By 2020 that pay gap had reached 351 times. In one recent year, the Institute for Policy Studies notes, America’s 50 highest-paid execs all made over 1,000 times their typical worker pay.
Inequality.org
May 13, 2022
They have made similar arguments against increases in the minimum wage for generations. Advocates for overtime reform counter by highlighting the link between such wage issues and the widening gap between the rich and low-income workers in the country. The Economic Policy Institute cites weakened labor standards, including “eroded overtime protections,” as a factor in the worsening wage inequality over the last four decades. While worker productivity has sharply increased during that time, most of the rewards have gone to executives and corporate shareholders, even as median wages stagnated.
Fast Company
May 13, 2022
The economy was adding about 200,000 jobs every month up to the lockdowns of 2020, meaning there are another 6.3 million jobs that would’ve been created had the pandemic not happened, Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said in a tweet. If job growth continues at its current rate, however, those payrolls could be recouped by the end of 2022, she added.
Business Insider
May 13, 2022
“Black unemployment has been trending down pretty steadily over the last six months or so, and it’s now down below 6% for the first time in this recovery,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said.
“That’s certainly a positive sign, but it’s important to remember that it’s significantly higher than any other group,” she added.
CNBC
May 13, 2022