A May report by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute and Howard University professor Ron Hira, who studies the H-1B, concluded that outsourcers comprise half of the top 30 H-1B employers and “make heavy use of the H-1B program.” Major Silicon Valley technology firms “take advantage of program rules in order to legally pay many of their H-1B workers below the local median wage for the jobs they fill,” the report said.
The Mercury News
February 9, 2021
In Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District — which includes all of Racine and Kenosha counties and parts of four other counties, and is represented by Janesville Republican Bryan Steil — an estimated 28% of workers (97,000 people in total) would be directly affected by the increase to a minimum wage of $15, according to a model from the Economic Policy Institute based on federal data.
The average wage increase for those workers would be 18%. Of those 97,000 workers: less than half of them (38,000) would be 16-24 years old. And 44,000 of them would be 25-54 years old.
The Journal Times
February 9, 2021
I would go further than that. State legislative attempts to override the authority of local governments strip communities of their right to self-governance. Particularly in a state like Texas, where rural and suburban communities exert outsized influence in shaping policy at the state level, state-set limits to local governmental control deny urban Texans their voice and representation on the local issues that often have the greatest impact on their lives and communities. It shouldn’t be a surprise that, too frequently, these are issues that disproportionately affect people of color. “You have these predominantly white state legislators making decisions and setting ceilings that keep communities of color from putting into place policies,” says Julia Wolfe, an analyst with the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, who spoke to Governing.
D Magazine
February 9, 2021
Nearly half of a congressional district would get a raise with a $15 minimum wage
- U.S. Representative Terri Sewell (D-Birmingham) has previously supported regional increases in minimum wage based on the cost of living. Now, the debate over raising the minimum wage to $15 is back. In Sewell’s district, 43% of workers would receive a pay raise if the minimum wage increased to $15, according to the Economic Policy Institute. This would average out to a 22% increase for those workers, or $4,700 per year.
Yellowhammer News
February 9, 2021
Proponents focused on the positives in the analysis. “CBO finds that for a very small relative cost to the government, the benefits of the Raise the Wage Act are enormous,” Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the pro-labor Economic Policy Institute, said during a conference call scheduled Monday by her organization.
“It will increase the average incomes of low- and lower-middle-income families, it will reduce poverty, it will shift money from corporate profits toward wages of low-income workers, it will reduce inequality,” Shierholz said.
LA Times
February 9, 2021
El centro de estudios progresista Economic Policy Institute dijo el lunes que el informe del CBO esta “equivocado” e indicó que otros análisis mostraron que no habrá efectos negativos.
Agence France Press (AFP)
February 9, 2021
There’s a lot of debate about how much and who should get a third round of direct payments from the government. But the back and forth on the issue may not be all that necessary.
“It’s rare. When we have the cards set up to actually have a genuinely rapid economic recovery that could push unemployment really low in the next couple of years, I think that might happen, we should seize that opportunity,” said Josh Bivens, Research Director at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for the low and middle income.
Bivens says further targeting of direct payment checks isn’t really necessary because no one rich is getting them to begin with.
He adds that narrowing them too much could leave out people who may have had a solid 2019, but then had devastating changes in 2020, since the payments are based on 2019 tax returns.
Scripps National News
February 9, 2021
If Democrats want to win back working-class voters and keep the loyalty of minorities— who, according to a 2016 Economic Policy Institute study, will constitute a majority of blue-collar voters by 2032—they need to focus on creating well-paying jobs for non-college graduates.
Newsweek
February 9, 2021
We talked to Heidi Shierholz about it. She’s a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute. She agrees with a lot of the CBO report, but she says the CBO overstates what a higher minimum wage would cost the government.
Heidi Shierholz: That said, even if you take their numbers at face value, they still find that for a very relatively low price to the federal government, you’d get a minimum wage increase that did really important things for the U.S. economy — pulling people out of poverty, reducing inequality, getting more income to low-income people.
Marketplace
February 9, 2021
A May report by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute and Howard University professor Ron Hira, who studies the H-1B, concluded that outsourcers comprise half of the top 30 H-1B employers and “make heavy use of the H-1B program.” Major Silicon Valley technology firms “take advantage of program rules in order to legally pay many of their H-1B workers below the local median wage for the jobs they fill,” the report said.
The Mercury News
February 9, 2021
In Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District — which includes all of Racine and Kenosha counties and parts of four other counties, and is represented by Janesville Republican Bryan Steil — an estimated 28% of workers (97,000 people in total) would be directly affected by the increase to a minimum wage of $15, according to a model from the Economic Policy Institute based on federal data.
The average wage increase for those workers would be 18%. Of those 97,000 workers: less than half of them (38,000) would be 16-24 years old. And 44,000 of them would be 25-54 years old.
The Journal Times
February 9, 2021
I would go further than that. State legislative attempts to override the authority of local governments strip communities of their right to self-governance. Particularly in a state like Texas, where rural and suburban communities exert outsized influence in shaping policy at the state level, state-set limits to local governmental control deny urban Texans their voice and representation on the local issues that often have the greatest impact on their lives and communities. It shouldn’t be a surprise that, too frequently, these are issues that disproportionately affect people of color. “You have these predominantly white state legislators making decisions and setting ceilings that keep communities of color from putting into place policies,” says Julia Wolfe, an analyst with the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, who spoke to Governing.
D Magazine
February 9, 2021
Nearly half of a congressional district would get a raise with a $15 minimum wage
- U.S. Representative Terri Sewell (D-Birmingham) has previously supported regional increases in minimum wage based on the cost of living. Now, the debate over raising the minimum wage to $15 is back. In Sewell’s district, 43% of workers would receive a pay raise if the minimum wage increased to $15, according to the Economic Policy Institute. This would average out to a 22% increase for those workers, or $4,700 per year.
Yellowhammer News
February 9, 2021
El centro de estudios progresista Economic Policy Institute dijo el lunes que el informe del CBO esta “equivocado” e indicó que otros análisis mostraron que no habrá efectos negativos.
Agence France Press (AFP)
February 9, 2021
LA Times
February 9, 2021
There’s a lot of debate about how much and who should get a third round of direct payments from the government. But the back and forth on the issue may not be all that necessary.
“It’s rare. When we have the cards set up to actually have a genuinely rapid economic recovery that could push unemployment really low in the next couple of years, I think that might happen, we should seize that opportunity,” said Josh Bivens, Research Director at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for the low and middle income.
Bivens says further targeting of direct payment checks isn’t really necessary because no one rich is getting them to begin with.
He adds that narrowing them too much could leave out people who may have had a solid 2019, but then had devastating changes in 2020, since the payments are based on 2019 tax returns.
Scripps National News
February 9, 2021
If Democrats want to win back working-class voters and keep the loyalty of minorities— who, according to a 2016 Economic Policy Institute study, will constitute a majority of blue-collar voters by 2032—they need to focus on creating well-paying jobs for non-college graduates.
Newsweek
February 9, 2021
We talked to Heidi Shierholz about it. She’s a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute. She agrees with a lot of the CBO report, but she says the CBO overstates what a higher minimum wage would cost the government.
Heidi Shierholz: That said, even if you take their numbers at face value, they still find that for a very relatively low price to the federal government, you’d get a minimum wage increase that did really important things for the U.S. economy — pulling people out of poverty, reducing inequality, getting more income to low-income people.
Marketplace
February 9, 2021
Biden’s relief bill unlikely to raise the federal minimum wage. >> making less than $15 an hour you’re living below the poverty wage, but that may not be in your american rescue plan? “No. I put it in but I don’t think it’s going to survive.”
That is a blow to many of these households as the Economic Policy Institute estimates a $15 minimum wage to boost earnings of roughly a quarter of all Latinos and a third of all Black Americans.
MSNBC
February 8, 2021
And those who kept their jobs through the pandemic weren’t without strife. The Economic Policy Institute reported in 2018 that Black men were paid 69.70 cents on the white male dollar and Black women earned only 60.80 cents on the White male dollar.
Reader's Digest
February 8, 2021
Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said lawmakers “need to go big to solve this crisis,” including by extending unemployment aid and providing more federal funds for state and local governments.
“Today’s jobs day report reinforces the need for Congress to take bold action in passing crucial relief measures through reconciliation,” she wrote.
Courthouse News Service
February 8, 2021
Some progressives seeking a broader remake of U.S. policy and institutions such as the World Trade Organization worry Biden will focus too much on wooing allies alienated by Trump. “I hope it won’t just be that—four years of soothing people’s ruffled feathers,” says Thea Lee, head of the progressive Economic Policy Institute. Then again, Lee adds, the crises Biden inherited from Trump offer an opportunity. “It certainly creates the space for building something new.”
Bloomberg BusinessWeek
February 8, 2021
Per the progressive think tank Economic Policy Institute, the median hourly wage is “the wage at which half the workforce is paid more and half the workforce is paid less.
Business Insider
February 8, 2021
Jared Bernstein is a member of President Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers. Previously, since 2011, he was a Senior Fellow and the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities. From 2009 to 2011, Bernstein was the Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, Executive Director of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class, and a member of President Obama’s economic team. Prior to joining the Obama administration, Bernstein was a senior economist and the director of the Living Standards Program at the Economic Policy Institute, and between 1995 and 1996, he held the post of Deputy Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor.
Washington Post
February 8, 2021
But as many leading economists have explained, Biden’s proposed spending limit is necessary to meet the challenge of the pandemic. A letter from the leaders of the National Employment Law Center, the Economic Policy Institute, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Center for American Progress, and the Roosevelt Institute explained that “President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan—with its critical public health investments to beat COVID-19, its aid to help struggling families, and its assistance to states, localities, tribes, and territories—is an appropriate scale of new spending under current conditions.” The letter also explained that the additional relief passed in December was insufficient:
Media Matters for America
February 8, 2021
The benefits of a $15 per hour minimum wage to low-wage and essential workers are enormous. Researchers at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimate that it would raise pay for nearly 32 million workers while reducing government expenditures on public assistance programs by between $13.4 and $31 billion. EPI also found that the majority of the workers who would benefit from a $15 per hour minimum wage are essential and frontline workers. Moreover, a raft of recent research strongly indicates little risk of widespread job losses from an increase to $15 per hour.
The Brookings Institution
February 8, 2021
It would take approximately 29 years to get back to get back to pre-recession levels at the current pace of job growth, according to Heidi Shierholz, director of Policy at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. (Her analysis uses the average growth over the past three months.)
“There’s a massive hole to fill,” said Shierholz, a former chief economist at the Department of Labor.
CNBC
February 8, 2021
“All recessions hit low- and middle-income people harder, they disproportionately hit people of color,” said Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist at the Department of Labor. “Recessions always exacerbate existing inequalities, but this one is just doing that more than we’ve ever seen before.”
VOX
February 8, 2021
“Another grim finding is that we’re down 1.3 million state & local government jobs since last Feb — most of it (nearly 1.0 million) in education. THIS IS A MINDBOGGLING UNFORCED ERROR. Fortunately, given the D majority in the Senate, Congress can pass aid to state & local govts,” Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, tweeted of the latest jobs report.
The American Independent
February 8, 2021
According to an independent analysis conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, “The Raise the Wage Act follows the lead of the growing number of states and cities that have adopted significant minimum wage increases in recent years.” Currently, proposed increases would raise wages for nearly 32 million Americans—including approximately a third of all Black workers and 25% of all Latino workers, the Institute says in its analysis. Among those to benefit, more than half would be women. If enacted, the resulting annual pay increase would amount to around $3,300 per year for the average worker, the analysis says. The proposed bill would also ensure that teen workers are paid at least the full federal minimum, by doing away with a subminimum wage for youth workers, while also ending subminimum wage certificates for workers with disabilities.
US Glass News Network
February 8, 2021