By the numbers: Nearly 70% of U.S. employers with 5,000 or more workers have mandatory arbitration policies, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
- “Under such agreements, workers whose rights are violated — for example, through employment discrimination or sexual harassment — can’t pursue their claims in court but must submit to arbitration procedures that research shows overwhelmingly favor employers,” EPI’s Alexander J.S. Colvin writes.
- In total, around 60 million American workers don’t have access to courts due to mandatory arbitration.
Axios
June 24, 2020
That’s in part because the outbreak has closed overseas consular services for foreign citizens wishing to come to the U.S. as immigrants or workers, said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
“The immigration system is basically already shut down. And we haven’t seen any signs of when regular visa processing will open up again abroad. To me, that makes it seem like this is mostly symbolic, and suggests strongly that it’s a political tactic to blame immigrants for an economy that’s shedding millions of jobs because of the pandemic,” said Costa, who in May published research that found the H-1B visa, intended for jobs requiring specialized skills, was being used by employers, including major U.S. technology firms, to obtain cheaper foreign labor.
Mendocino Times
June 24, 2020
Coupled with other coronavirus relief measures, the extra $600 in enhanced benefits has helped many Americans stay afloat — and even save more than usual — throughout the pandemic, with some economists calling it the “best” part of the economic response to the coronavirus. The $600 increase has been “one of the most effective parts of the CARES Act on both humanitarian and economic grounds,” writes Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
CNBC
June 24, 2020
“The net effect of H-1Bs is to speed up offshoring,” he said. In an analysis for the Economic Policy Institute, he found that half of the 30 companies that receive the most H-1B visas are staffing firms that send jobs abroad.
NPR Marketplace
June 24, 2020
“A huge share of jobless people will be forced to exist on much less than what they had before,” says Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
USA Today
June 24, 2020
That will come with a cost. In the United States, for example, net labour productivity growth, while slow, has still grown six times faster than compensation since 1979, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. This trend, observable in other developed economies, has exacerbated wealth inequality. Today the frustrated aspirations of the overworked middle and lower classes manifest in political extremism, substance abuse, divorce and troubled children – all of them expenses passed on to society one way or another.
Reuters
June 24, 2020
As of 2019, enduring wage gaps based on gender left women making 85 cents to a dollar made by men, according to a report in February by the Economic Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank that studies the labor conditions of low- and middle-income workers. The ratio, of course, varies further based on race. The median wages of Black workers were about 76 percent those of the wages of white workers, according to the same report.
Women's Wear Daily
June 24, 2020
Health care insurance is another example. Many people without insurance during COVID-19 forgo hospitalization due to the fear of insurmountable costs. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that 12.7 million workers have likely lost employer-provided health insurance since the coronavirus shock began. Union members are far less likely to have this concern.
The Detroit News
June 24, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute reported in 2019 that white families have a median household wealth 12 times higher than that of Black families. This discrepancy is the result of centuries of discriminatory practices, such as redlining, that have prevented Black families from accumulating wealth.
Daily Trojan
June 24, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute estimates that employers illegally deprive workers of more than $50 billion in wages each year by underpaying them or requiring unpaid work; violators are rarely punished.
The New York Times
June 24, 2020