Julia Wolfe, an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, says to save truly small businesses, future legislation must be more clear.
“It’s not only a problem that folks are applying for it who might not be the target group. An even bigger problem is small businesses thinking that they don’t qualify or being worried about the strings attached and not understanding it. And they don’t end up applying for this loan that would actually benefit them and benefit their employees,” she said.
Spectrum News 1
April 21, 2020
In the U.S., growth in output per hour has not translated into similar growth in income per hour. Workers have been creating more goods and services per unit of time, but they have not been earning much more in compensation. The Economic Policy Institute analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed that while net productivity rose 69.6% from 1979 to 2018, wages only grew 11.6% (after adjusting for inflation).4
Investopedia
April 21, 2020
But just as nurses and other workers are seeking to organize new shops, the Trump administration has thrown a formidable obstacle in their path. On March 31st, the NLRB—currently comprised of three Republicans—issued new rules for union elections. These changes will make it “nearly impossible” for workers to organize a new union, according to Celine McNichols, government affairs director at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). One rule change stipulates that NLRB-organized union elections will proceed even if workers have accused their employer of an “unfair labor practice”—such as making false statements to workers about the consequences of unionization—making it easier for employers to illegally interfere with elections. Another rule allows a minority of members to file for an election to decertify a union just 45 days after an employer has voluntarily recognized it, incentivizing employers to put off bargaining in the hope of seeing the union dissolved.
Jewish Current
April 21, 2020
The closures also threw 22 million people out of jobs so far, shooting the U.S. jobless rate up over 10 percent, the Economic Policy Institute calculates. That hit led to the $1,200 electronic payments from the Treasury to most – but not all – adults in the U.S. and $500 per child. It also led to expansion of jobless benefits by $600 for each person who gets them, but state jobless benefit systems have crashed under the workload.
Common Dreams
April 21, 2020
“Policymakers have a lot of influence over how much people follow these measures that will not only save lives but will help our economic situation,” said Heidi Shierholz, policy director of the Economic Policy Institute and former Labor Department economist.
Shierholz warned that President Trump was “undermining” his administration’s efforts to encourage social distancing. “I don’t see how that won’t mean more lives will be lost and our economic situation will end up worse,” she noted.
KOMO News
April 21, 2020
● Between 1978 and 2017, according to the Economic Policy Institute, CEO compensation rose in the US by 1,070 percent, while the typical worker’s compensation over these 39 years rose by a mere 11.2 percent.
World Socialist Web Site
April 21, 2020
According to the Economic Policy Institute, 90 percent of the highest-earning private-sector workers are more likely to work from home and have access to paid sick leave, but seven in ten low-wage workers do not get paid sick leave. Nearly one-quarter of all workers-including two of three food service and one in three retail workers-receive no paid sick leave whatsoever. Only 25 percent of private-sector workers receive at least ten paid sick days annually after twenty years’ service.
Public
April 21, 2020
Lawrence Mishel, a well-known labor economist, has been a critic of centrist Democrats for decades. “My adult lifetime has covered the Carter, Clinton and Obama years, and labor policy has never been a priority,” Mishel, the former president of the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, told me. In the 2016 primary, he voted for Bernie Sanders. This year he supported Elizabeth Warren. (So did I.)
But when Mishel saw Joe Biden’s labor policy, he was thrilled. “I think that if you had asked me in 2016 whether we would ever see an agenda like this, this is beyond my hopes,” he said.
Biden’s proposals go far beyond his call for a $15 federal minimum wage — a demand some saw as radical when Sanders pushed it four years ago. While it’s illegal for companies to fire employees for trying to organize a union, the penalties are toothless. Biden proposes to make those penalties bite and to hold executives personally liable. He would follow California in cracking down on companies like Uber that misclassify full-time workers as independent contractors who aren’t entitled to benefits. He’d extend federal labor protections to farmworkers and domestic workers.
Mishel said that no Democratic nominee in his lifetime has presented “as robust and fleshed out a policy suite on labor standards and unions.”
The New York Times
April 21, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute also published an article discussing the “work from home” divide that differs significantly by race and ethnicity, noting that black and Hispanic workers are far less likely to be able to telework. And despite the allowance for its essential nature in the midst of a pandemic, Chime Solutions has risen to the occasion.
Charlotte Inno
April 21, 2020
Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, said in a statement endorsing the Paycheck Security Act that “workers and their families are paying the price for going into the current crisis with a weak social insurance system and public safety net.”
“Given this pre-existing weakness, transformative responses to this economic crisis have to be put together on the fly,” Bivens said, “and the Paycheck Security Act is a bold solution to provide needed relief during the lockdown period of the crisis and would put us in much better position to mount a rapid recovery once the public health all-clear was sounded.”
Common Dreams
April 21, 2020