Congressional Research Service reported July 23, 2019, that cumulative percent change during 1979-2018 in real wages for households in the top 10% of the income distribution was 37.6%, while for the middle- and low-income households it was 1.6% and 6.1%, respectively. Men in the middle and low income lost and women gained real wages. Household income for the top 1% increased 229% while the bottom 90% gained only 46% for the years 1979-2015 (Economic Policy Institute (EPI), March 27, 2019). Wage inequality is the driving force for income inequality. Using census data, Utah Workforce Services reports that Utah’s income inequality index (Gini coefficient) declined during 2014-2017 but has increased since 2017.
The capitalist system, supported by technological revolution and globalization, lately has not generated an economic system where all Americans have shared in private sector prosperity and growth in productivity. Real wages have diverged from productivity since the ’70s. EPI reports that cumulative percentage change in productivity from 1979 to 2017 was 70.3%, while hourly compensation grew only 11.1%. It is the responsibility of the government and the private sector to ensure jobs’ growth, with wage growth commensurate with increase in productivity. The gig economy, with more part-time workers and contract workers, and more self-employed (not by choice), is not a healthy sign of a growth economy, higher standard of living and happiness.
Standard Examiner
May 27, 2020
A survey conducted by the Economic Policy Institute found from March 22 to April 18 between 7.8 million to 12.2 million Americans could not apply for unemployment benefits because they could not get through the system to do so or were discouraged by difficulties
Shadow Proof
May 27, 2020
Young European workers, who have staffed many U.S. resorts, are staying home. Visa processing for U.S. work and travel visas at consulates abroad has basically shut down everywhere, except for farmworkers, according to Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research for the Economic Policy Institute.
Bloomberg
May 27, 2020
What they’re saying: “We don’t know how many people have fallen off unemployment because they got rehired,” Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, tells Axios.
- But continued claims show that “on net we’re still seeing a deterioration” in the labor market, Shierholz says.
Axios
May 27, 2020
In normal times, the seasonal adjustments help smooth out the data and provide a clearer picture. But in a crisis such as this one, adjustments can distort what’s really going on, said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute.
CNN
May 27, 2020
Millions of Americans — who watched states close non-essential businesses, subsequently crushing their careers — cannot even access unemployment benefits, according to the Economic Policy Institute. While some of these problems have been remedied, for others, collecting unemployment insurance was never an option.
Activist Post
May 27, 2020
In other demographics, as the Washington Post reported on May 9, women have been hit with unemployment at higher rates than men. In February, before the shutdown, 5.8 percent of Blacks, 4.4 percent of Hispanics, 3.1 percent of whites, and 2.5 percent of Asians were unemployed in the U.S. As of April, the unemployment rate for Hispanics was 18.9 percent, 16.7 percent for Blacks, 14.5 percent for Asians, and 14.2 percent for whites. Typically, the Black unemployment rate is double that of whites. Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the Economic Policy Institute, points out that many of the job losses are to undocumented immigrants — often paid under the table — who generally do not have access to food stamps, health care, and subsidized housing; nor are they eligible to receive the $1,200 stimulus checks.
Minnesota's Womens Press
May 27, 2020
People of color (black, Latino, Asian American and other non-whites) account for 43% of all essential workers in the nation amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an analysis of data released earlier this week by the Economic Policy Institute. White Americans still make up a majority of essential workers nationally, according to the data.
While black Americans represent just over 13% of the population according to the Census, black workers encompass 15% of all essential workers in the pandemic, according to the EPI data. Meanwhile, Hispanics or Latinos represent just over 18% of the population, but make up 21% of the essential workforce.
ABC News
May 27, 2020
If the 1965 Civil Rights Act, passed the year after three civil rights workers were killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi, “leveled the playing field” in America, descendants of enslaved Africans have lived “free” in America for about 54 years. Of course, that 54 years has been characterized by the Republican-inspired war on drugs, the Democratic 1994 crime bill, and a report from the Economic Policy Institute last year that identified “no progress” since 1968 in closing gaps between whites and Blacks in home ownership, employment, or incarceration. In this world, freedom does start to sound like “nothing left to lose.”
ACLU
May 27, 2020
One indicator that racial discrimination increased over the last four decades is that average hourly wage growth of black men and women lagged behind the wage growth of non-Hispanic white men and women. In an influential Economic Policy Institute paper, Valerie Wilson and William Rodgers found a 9 percentage point decline in the relative earnings of black men and a 14 percentage point decline among black women between 1979 and 2015. The widening disparity suggests that the civil rights movement did not crystallize its gains from the 1960s and structural racism resulted in lower earnings. But using a different earnings measure – median annual earnings of full-time/full-year workers (FTFY) – and adjusting for intensity of labor force attachment over a 15-year period – leads us to a more nuanced assessment that can help us understand what factors are driving the earnings gap.
Economics 21
May 27, 2020