One complaint critics have against the program is that foreign employees allegedly work for less pay, pulling down American wages. That may be true in some instances—the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank, says it has anecdotal evidence of this—but when they apply for the visas, employers agree to pay foreign employees the same wage as other workers with similar qualifications or the prevailing wage for the occupation, whichever is higher.
The Wall Street Journal | January 22, 2018
The Trump Labor Department has proposed a rule that would allow restaurants to share waiters’ tips with employees such as cooks and dishwashers. But nothing in the proposed rule would prevent restaurants from keeping the tips themselves, Shierholz says. An Obama-era rule had clarified that waiters can keep their tips. “In each of these cases, it’s about wresting leverage from workers and transferring it to employers,” says Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
USA Today | January 22, 2018
“During the EFCA fight, I think there was a lot more energy on the business side, it felt like there were more people being brought in to canvass against it than there was union rank-and-file being brought to pressure Congress,” reflected Lawrence Mishel, who led the Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor think tank in D.C., for decades until his retirement in December. (Larry quoted throughout)
The Intercept | January 22, 2018
Labor unions and their supporters have argued that the decline has hurt workers. Unions are often seen as being critical to advancing workplace rights and protections on behalf of workers. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found in a 2016 report that the decline has even resulted in lower wages for nonunion workers.
Inside Sources | January 22, 2018
The Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, tracked the rate of union membership versus the share of income going to the top 10 percent of workers over the past 100 years. The trends are essentially mirror images of each other: When union membership rose, the richest households saw their share of national income decline. But in the era of falling union membership, the richest have captured an ever-larger slice of the income pie. (Includes union membership v top 10 income chart)
The Washington Post | January 22, 2018
Janelle Jones, an analyst with the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, agrees. “These are the results of good previous policy that lead to economic growth,” she told Vox. “The recovery of employment was happening long before Trump got into office.” Still, while black unemployment has certainly fallen, at 6.8 percent, the unemployment rate for black Americans remains higher than that of both the overall population and other racial groups, and is almost double that of whites. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures that Trump cites, overall unemployment is 4.1 percent, while the unemployment rate for whites is 3.7 percent and Hispanics 4.9 percent. (Janelle quoted throughout)
VOX | January 19, 2018
Analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, suggests that women and hispanic workers have the most to lose from the DOL’s tip-pooling rule. The EPI estimates tipped workers would lose $5.8 billion in tips to employers if the rule passes, and nearly 80% of that loss would fall on female staff. (Replica race/ethnicity chart too)
Quartz | January 19, 2018
If you work in the service industry and think you’re going to get all your tip money, think again — especially if you’re a woman. A new report by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank, found that a potential new Trump administration rule that’s being called “tip stealing” could hurt women more than anyone else. “Because women are both more likely to be tipped workers and to earn lower wages, this rule would disproportionately harm them,” the Economic Policy Institute states. (EPI cited throughout)
Bustle | January 19, 2018
Analysts at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) say this proposed rule shifts ownership of tips from employees to employers, without any restrictions on what they can do with the money. “The proposed rule does not require employers to distribute the tips,” EPI reports, “so employers would be no more likely to share tips with back-of-the-house workers than they would to make any other choice about what to do with a business windfall.”
The Post and Courier | January 19, 2018
The Trump administration’s proposed change to tipping would cost workers $5.8 billion a year and overwhelmingly affect women, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute. The public comment period ends in three weeks. As women’s marches take place across the United States this Saturday, time is running out to put in your two cents about a rule proposed by the Trump administration that a new report says could cost female workers $4.6 billion dollars in tips a year. The Department of Labor wants to rescind Obama-era rules that barred employers from seizing their workers’ tips. Researchers at the Economic Policy Institute found that the change could cost tipped workers overall $5.8 billion dollars a year. Study co-author Heidi Shierholz said women would take 80 percent of the hit.’ (whole story)
CBS News Las Vegas | January 19, 2018
Graduate students across the country are fighting for the right to collective bargaining. Hear students from Columbia University tell how they succeeded. Also, listen as Baltimore Teachers Union President Marietta English shares the teachers’ perspective on this month’s big chill at BCPS. (Interview with Marni)
WOLB | January 19, 2018
In December, the Department of Labor proposed a rule that would rescind portions of tip regulations, allowing employers who pay the minimum wage to take workers’ tips. According to Economic Policy Institute research, tipped workers would lose $5.8 billion a year in tips as a result of this rule. Women in tipped jobs would lose $4.6 billion annually. (whole story)
Think Progress | January 18, 2018
As women’s marches take place across the country this Saturday, time is running out to put in your two cents about a rule proposed by the Trump administration that a new report says could cost female workers $4.6 billion in tips a year. The Department of Labor wants to rescind Obama-era rules that barred employers from seizing their workers’ tips. Researchers at the Economic Policy Institute found that the change could cost tipped workers overall $5.8 billion a year. Study co-author Heidi Shierholz says women would take 80 percent of the hit. (whole story)
Public News Service | January 18, 2018
President Donald Trump’s war on workers has spawned a number of disastrous policy moves, from cuts to federal employees’ pay increases to directives making it harder for workers to unionize. But one of the “nastiest” policy shifts Trump is pursuing is a rule that would allow companies to steal their employees’ tips—which, according to a new report, would cost workers $5.8 billion a year. Published by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) on Wednesday, the analysis also details the disproportionate impact the proposed rule would have on women, whose tips would account for nearly 80 percent—$4.6 billion—of the total stolen by employers. (whole story)
Common Dreams | January 18, 2018
A new analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a nonprofit think tank, estimates American workers could lose up to $5.8 billion in tips if the proposal is finalized; moreover, they estimate that women would be impacted the most. According to the report, 80 percent of tipped jobs — ranging from restaurant workers to bartenders to hair stylists — employ women, and if implemented, this cohort of women could lose $4.6 billion in tips. “Because women are both more likely to be tipped workers and to earn lower wages, this rule would disproportionately harm them,” the report states. (whole story)
Salon | January 18, 2018
Two of the Trump administration’s favorite pastimes are screwing over women and workers, from dialing back Title IX’s application in campus sexual assault cases and attempting to defund Planned Parenthood, to championing right-to-work legislation that would severely hamper labor unions and ditching an Obama-era regulation that ensures employees are compensated fairly for their overtime hours. A new rule under consideration by the Department of Labor would harm both women and workers. According to the Economic Policy Institute, a new proposal that management be allowed to keep employees’ tips would cost women workers $4.6 billion annually, or approximately 80 percent of the $5.8 billion it would cost the industry overall. That $5.8 billion represents 16.1 percent of the estimated $36.4 billion tipped workers earn each year. (whole story)
AlterNet | January 18, 2018
Trump’s war against workers continues. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the Department of Labor has proposed a rule that would allow employers to take employee tips, and does not require them to redistribute the funds. The biggest losers, EPI calculates, would be women: In other words, nearly 80 percent of the tips that would be taken by employers as a result of this rule would come out of the pockets of women and their families. (The specific share, calculated from unrounded numbers, is 78.7 percent.) Because women are both more likely to be tipped workers and to earn lower wages, this rule would disproportionately harm them. No word yet on how Ivanka Trump, who has presented herself as a prominent defender of working women, has taken this news. But the Department of Labor’s latest bit of rule-making isn’t an isolated incident. The administration wants to adjust the salary threshold for an Obama-era overtime rule; if it succeeds in raising the threshold, lower-wage workers will find themselves in possession of shrinking bank accounts. Trump also used his executive authority to roll back a number of regulations that would have protected worker safety. As his son Eric reminded us Wednesday morning, green is the only color Trump sees.
The New Republic | January 18, 2018
The Trump administration plan to let bosses steal their workers’ tips would cost tipped workers $5.8 billion—and most of that would be taken from women. According to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, $4.6 billion of that $5.8 billion in tip theft would hit women.
Daily Kos | January 18, 2018
It’s still possible that robots contributed to a long-term economic decline that made Midwesterners more vulnerable to the scourge of opiates and the lure of xenophobia. But here, too, there is cause for skepticism. Edsall’s thesis relies on research by economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo that links robots to job losses and wage declines. But as Lawrence Mishel and Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute have shown, the paper’s conclusions are far more ambiguous than many journalists have been reporting.
Bloomberg | January 17, 2018
But even before the change in administrations, things didn’t look good for employee class actions. Companies are increasingly asking workers to surrender their right to pursue workplace claims in court as a prerequisite for employment, and have been successful in defending that tactic. More than half of non-union private-sector employers make their workers sign mandatory arbitration agreements, according to a report last year from the Economic Policy Institute.
Bloomberg | January 16, 2018
For example, legislative efforts to eliminate nondisclosure provisions in harassment settlements must also address arbitration, an out-of-court process where proceedings are kept out of the public eye and settlements are almost always confidential. A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute found that more than half of nonunion private-sector employees in the United States are currently subject to mandatory arbitration in disputes with their employers. Among large employers, the proportion is even higher. Between arbitration and pre-suit settlements, only a small fraction of workplace harassment claims are ever filed in court.
The Nation | January 16, 2018
“Corporations will almost surely be paying quite a bit less than that,” said Josh Bivens, research director at the Economic Policy Institute. “Today’s statutory rate is 35 percent, but loopholes have left the effective rate — the rate they actually pay after their accountants get involved — at closer to 20 percent. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act slashed the statutory rate but did very little to close loopholes, so, the effective rate will be surely much lower than the new statutory rate.” (Josh quoted throughout)
Marketplace | January 16, 2018
Gorsuch has a history of favoring employers over employees in legal disputes. As a lower court judge, he supported Hobby Lobby’s right not to cover certain forms of contraception for its workers. In a case involving a truck driver who abandoned a broken-down trailer in subzero temperatures when he started losing feeling in his limbs, Gorsuch sided with the company’s decision to fire the man in a dissent Senator Al Franken grilled him on during his confirmation hearings. Understandably, his appointment has labor concerned. “I’m worried about his entire slant against employee rights,” said Marni von Wilpert, associate labor counsel with the Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor think-tank.
Vice News | January 16, 2018
This chart from The Economic Policy Institute illustrates the point: (Snapshot chart included). At $14.92 per hour, the median black worker currently earns just 75 percent of the $19.79 that their white counterpart earns. On the income front, the median black household is bringing down just 61 percent of the total median white household, about $39,500 versus $65,000 annually. That’s slightly improved from the gap in 1967, when the median black household earned just 55 percent of white household income. But in absolute terms, the racial income gap has grown by more than $5,000 since the year King called for “a radical redistribution of economic and political power.”
Mother Jones | January 16, 2018
Last Thursday, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) published an analysis of the current status of economic equality between black and white Americans. The EPI drew income data from its own library, Census Bureau’s current population survey and the Federal Reserve Board and examined three indicators of economic wellness: median hourly wage, median household income and median family net worth. As of 2016, the latest year of data publication, the average hourly wage for black workers is $14.92, 25 percent less than that of white workers. It’s an impressive improvement compared to 50 years ago. (EPI cited throughout)
New York Observer | January 16, 2018
The labor market is near full employment. The jobless rate is low. The economy is adding tens of thousands of jobs each month, and—at last—wages and earnings are increasing for workers at or just above the minimum wage. Indeed, Walmart on Thursday announced that it would provide a wage hike to and expand benefits for employees across the country, with 85,000 workers with two decades of seniority at the big-box retailer getting a $1,000 bonus and a million workers in total benefitting. In addition, 18 states bumped up their minimum wages for the new year, providing an estimated $5 billion more a year to 4.5 million workers, the left-of-center Economic Policy Institute has calculated.
The Atlantic | January 16, 2018
One of the reasons that Democrats, labor unions and worker rights activists push for keeping and increasing the federal minimum wage is because it sets a floor that cannot be crossed — especially during times of economic downturn when employers are likely to reduce wages. “Over the long term when you go an extended period without raising the minimum wage — unless the market is doing reasonably well — you’ll either have wage stagnation where wages are just kind of remaining flat or they can start to decline in real terms as they did throughout much of the early years of Obama’s presidency,” said David Cooper, senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. “Or you can run into the situation where if there’s some crisis and there is a recession and people start getting laid off. Then wages can really start to drop if there’s nothing there to catch them.” Another reasons why some push for a higher minimum wage is because it can drive up wages for other workers as well. “Minimum wage plays a role in how employers set the wages of roughly the bottom 20 percent of the workforce,” Cooper said.
Marketplace | January 16, 2018
“Stock market gains and near-stagnant pay for most workers have the same root cause: the policy-induced shift of economic leverage and bargaining power away from typical workers and towards corporate managers and owners of capital,” says Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. There’s a laundry list of reasons for this, and if you’ve been following the recent national debate over inequality, they’re probably familiar to you: low minimum wages, the decline of unions, globalization, shifts in tax policy. (EPI mentioned throughout)
Washington Post | January 11, 2018
So we aren’t shocked that the unemployment rate for African-Americans in Illinois is 10 percent. That’s the highest of any state, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Yes, the lagging economy in Illinois hurts millions of people — African-Americans disproportionately so.
Chicago Tribune | January 10, 2018
But if teachers are crucial to high-quality preschool, they are also its most neglected component. Even as investment in early-childhood education soars, teachers like Kelly continue to earn as little as $28,500 a year on average, a valuation that puts them on par with file clerks and switchboard operators, but well below K-12 teachers, who, according to the most recent national survey, earn roughly $53,100 a year. According to a recent briefing from the Economic Policy Institute, a majority of preschool teachers are low-income women of color with no more than a high-school diploma. Only 15 percent of them receive employer-sponsored health insurance, and depending on which state they are in, nearly half belong to families that rely on public assistance. “Teaching preschoolers is every bit as complicated and important as teaching any of the K-12 grades, if not more so,” says Marcy Whitebook, a director of the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley. “But we still treat preschool teachers like babysitters. We want them to ameliorate poverty even as they live in it themselves.”
The New York Times | January 9, 2018