Black workers, especially, are overrepresented in essential jobs. Even though they represent about 12 percent of the total U.S. workforce, Black people hold roughly 14 percent of grocery store jobs, 26 percent of public transit positions, 18 percent of postal service jobs, 17.5 percent of health-care positions, and 19 percent of roles in child-care and social services, according to a 2020 report from the Economic Policy Institute.
Shape Magazine
February 16, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released a study that is already two years old, showing that Chief Executive Officer (CEO) pay for the top 350 firms in the country had grown by more than 1000% from 1978 to 2018.
What is more incredible is that the “bootstraps to riches” story is more and more a farce. The ratio of pay for a CEO to the average worker in 1965 was 20/1, meaning if an average worker was making $10,000, the average CEO was making $200,000. Definitely a disparity, but not crazy.
Huron Plainsman
February 16, 2021
Some economists took umbrage with that number, and how the CBO came to that projection.
“We believe that the CBO’s assumptions on the scale of job loss are just wrong and inappropriately inflated relative to what cutting-edge economics literature would indicate,” The Economic Policy Institute wrote in a blog post on the report. “The median employment effect of the minimum wage across studies of low-wage workers is essentially zero, according to a 2019 review of the evidence.”
Business Insider
February 16, 2021
“When she looks at policy that impacts workers, it’s not just looking at overall effects, it’s looking at what are going to be the distributional effects,” said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy for the Economic Policy Institute. “What’s going to be the impact on racial equity? What’s going to be the impact on gender equity? What’s going to be the impact on the intersection of those two things?”
Bloomberg Law
February 16, 2021
For those on strike on Tuesday, $15 an hour is an urgent ask. The raise would increase the incomes of 32 million workers, including 59% percent of working families with incomes under the poverty line, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Nearly one third of all Black workers would receive a raise, and one out of four workers who would benefit would be a Black or Latina woman.
Fast Company
February 16, 2021
Max B. Sawicky is an economist and writer in the wilds of Virginia. He has worked at the Government Accountability Office and the Economic Policy Institute.
Jacobin
February 16, 2021
Detroit News
February 16, 2021
Other economists have disputed the CBO’s job-loss predictions – the Economic Policy Institute called them “wrong, and inappropriately inflated”. The long-running debate about the real cost of raising the minimum age will no doubt continue. What is certain is that Biden will face enormous political blowback if his campaign promise to raise the minimum wage falls so early in his presidency – a promise that during his campaign he argued was central to his plans to address racial inequality.
The Guardian
February 16, 2021
Undeniably, many older Americans cannot afford to retire. This also contributes to the aging workforce – the average 56- to 61-year-old has savings of just $163,577. This, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
401k TV
February 16, 2021
Those who don’t have access to an employer-sponsored plan can fall behind without perks such as employers’ matching contributions or the auto-enrollment of employees. As a result, 1 in 4 American workers don’t have even $10,000 saved for retirement.
“For many demographic groups, the typical working-age household either has no retirement account savings at all or only a trivial amount,” said Monique Morrissey, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
February 16, 2021
It would even provide relief to middle-income parents for whom quality child care can be hard to find and even harder to afford. The average cost of child care for an infant in Massachusetts is nearly $21,000, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. A family with an infant and a four-year-old spend over $36,000 a year.
Boston Globe
February 16, 2021
David Cooper, “Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would lift pay for nearly 40 million workers,” Economic Policy Institute, February 5, 2019, available at https://www.epi.org/publication/raising-the-federal-minimum-wage-to-15-by-2024-would-lift-pay-for-nearly-40-million-workers/.
Center for American Progress
February 16, 2021
Raising wages for jobs filled by temporary foreign workers could help draw more Americans to those positions, but that isn’t enough, said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy researcher at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington that advocates for low- and middle-income workers. The visa programs, Mr. Costa said, need to demand more of employers in both pay and recruitment of U.S. workers.
The J1 visa, for instance, a State Department-led exchange program for foreign college students, doesn’t require employers to show they couldn’t fill the jobs with Americans. Employers facing labor shortages need to scour regions in the U.S. with higher unemployment, Mr. Costa said, and offer prospective workers housing and travel subsidies.
The Wall Street Journal
February 16, 2021
But as economist Heidi Shierholz of the progressive Economic Policy Institute pointed out to us, most economists now believe that a higher minimum wage does not lead to substantial and widespread job losses.
“That’s become a gospel that simply isn’t true,” Shierholz says.
Even the CBO points out the substantial benefits: Up to 27 million workers would receive higher wages and pay more in taxes, raising government revenue. Federal spending on SNAP food stamp benefits and similar programs would decline.
Higher wages also lower employee turnover, Shierholz says, and that benefits businesses. “It reduces the chaos in people’s lives,” she says. “If their car breaks down, they don’t have to leave their job that requires a car to get there. They can afford to fix their car.”
The Chicago Sun Times
February 16, 2021
Supporters say the coronavirus has made a higher minimum wage all the more urgent since workers earning it are disproportionately people of color. The liberal Economic Policy Institute found that more than 19% of Hispanic workers and more than 14% of Black workers earned hourly wages that kept them below federal poverty guidelines in 2017.
Associated Press
February 16, 2021
A report from the Economic Policy Institute found that online learning and teaching are effective only if students have consistent access to the internet and computers and if teachers have received targeted training and support for online instruction.
Charlotte Observer
February 16, 2021
Actually, according to that same Congressional Budget Office, in 2019 the CBO said that $15 wage would boost the wages of 17 million people, while 1.7 million workers “could” become unemployed by 2025 due to the wage increase. Those are 17 million real people, with real families, whose lives would be improved.
However, Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, argued that the CBO’s estimated job losses from enacting a $15 minimum wage are “overstated.”
“The crucial fact is that an employment decline as a result of a minimum wage increase doesn’t necessarily mean any worker is actually worse off,” she wrote in a July 2019 report. “For a wide variety of reasons, a sizable share of low-wage workers routinely cycle in and out of employment; each quarter, more than 20% of the lowest-wage workers leave or start a job.”
Gaston Gazette
February 16, 2021
“We have seen this failure before, with fiscal recovery efforts following the Great Recession of 2008-2009 that were insufficient and too short-lived,” Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute think tank, wrote this past fall. “As a result of this austerity, it took a full decade for the labor market to return to even its pre-Great Recession health.”
Fortune
February 16, 2021
A federal minimum wage hike to $15 would affect a large share of workers in the South, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-leaning think tank.
Yahoo Finance
February 16, 2021
State AGs’ interest in the workplace is an outgrowth of their civil rights, labor, and consumer protection responsibilities and powers under state law. Urged on by groups such as the non-partisan think tank, the Economic Policy Institute, they have stepped in to interpret state executive orders and new legislative protections for workers, and provide guidance and resources to help employers address workplace safety and workers’ rights.
Bloomberg Law
February 16, 2021
On average, restaurant workers make just below $13 an hour, according to Labor Department data. Retail cashier pay is about the same. That’s less than half the economy-wide average of nearly $30 an hour.
“It tells the story of an economy that has really tanked for the most vulnerable,” said Elise Gould, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “It’s shocking how small a dent that has made in the aggregate.”
Associated Press
February 16, 2021
What is more, the investment would pay dividends for school systems. The Economic Policy Institute found that for every $1 invested in capital improvements to education facilities, $1.50 in eventual economic development in the community is generated. A Quarterly Journal of Economics study found that educational advancement, housing prices and school enrollment increases follow suit.
Detroit Free Press
February 16, 2021
I’ll do the math for you: that’s 1.13 million out-of-work Americans seeking benefits for the first time. If you think that’s an okay number, consider this from the Economic Policy Institute: it’s “the 47th straight week total initial (traditional) claims were greater than the worst week of the Great Recession.” The weekly number before we fell off the earth a year or so ago? Around 215,000.
Newsweek
February 16, 2021
The state level isn’t much better — just as states differ, so do counties. In Minnesota, a two-adult, two-child household in Wadena County would need 40% more money to meet the same needs in Carver County, for example, as can be determined by using the Economic Policy Institute’s online Family Budget Calculator.
Duluth News Tribune
February 16, 2021
A 2019 study from the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank based in Washington, D.C., found that public school teachers in every state are paid less than their similarly educated peers. Arizona teachers faced the worst salary penalty: 32.6 percent.
AZ Mirror
February 16, 2021
Business Insider
February 16, 2021
Waiters and bartenders in states where the tipped minimum wage was still $2.13 per hour made almost 17% less than their counterparts in other states, according to a 2017 study from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Washington Times
February 16, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute writes that there are 1.6 unemployed workers for every job opening.
Business Insider
February 16, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute, which receives some of its funding from labor unions, analyzed the same congressional proposal as the CBO but found more workers would see higher wages.
It estimated the legislation would raise the pay of nearly 32 million workers and “meaningfully reduce the number of families in poverty.”
EPI also argues that a single, full-time worker without kids needs $15 an hour “to achieve a modest but adequate standard of living.”
FactCheck.org
February 16, 2021