Despite pleas from big business that H-2B visa hikes are necessary to offset an acute labor shortage, and even avoid bankruptcy, numerous nonpartisan studies find no evidence of scarcity. Among other respected bipartisan organizations, the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal, pro-immigration, Washington, D.C.-based research firm found “no evidence at all of labor shortages in the labor market.”
Patch
February 3, 2020
To live modestly in D.C. itself, a family of four needs to make nearly $124,000, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Median household income is at a record high in the District>, but it’s still below that number. And the suburbs are in a similar situation: A family of four needs to make about $91,000 in Prince George’s County, where the median income is below $80,000.
DCist
February 3, 2020
The endorsements — rolled out by the pro-Warren groups Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Working Families Party, and Black Womxn — include well-known policy minds within liberal circles such as Heather McGhee of Demos, Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and Larry Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute.
NBC News
February 3, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released a new study about the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). According to the study, “The EITC and minimum wage work together to reduce poverty and raise incomes”, the working families can get more money into their pockets with the aid of the EITC and minimum wage together.
Chicago Morning Star
February 3, 2020
American parents with children under the age of five are forking over a total of $42 billion for early child care and education, such as preschool programs.
That’s far more than the federal government is currently spending, according to a recent report from the progressive think tank Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
February 3, 2020
While the picture for unions remains dim, after decades of decline, it’s worth noting that the Supreme Court’s anti-union Janus decision hasn’t—so far, anyway—dealt public-sector unions the intended death blow. “The meaningful decline in the union membership rate among local government workers (from 40.3% to 39.4%) might suggest Janus is having its intended effect. However, there was not a similar decline among state government workers,” the Economic Policy Institute reports. But “The share of state government workers who are members of unions rose substantially between 2018 and 2019, from 28.6% to 29.4%.”
Daily Kos
February 3, 2020
According to a report released by the Economic Policy Institute, workers with a union contract earn 13.2 percent higher wages than non-union peers who have the same education and experience. Unions raise the earnings of women, black, and Hispanic workers, three groups whose pay tends to lag behind that of their white, male counterparts. Unionized workers tend to be healthier because employers are being held accountable for safe, non-abusive working conditions. Unions have a track record of strengthening families by obtaining better leave policies, retirement benefits, and health insurance for their members, while at the same time, safeguarding that employees have due process in promotions, dismissals, or terminations.
Kitsap Sun
February 3, 2020
The liberal Economic Policy Institute has published 13 charts that it says show us where our economic priorities ought to be in 2020. The one above is No. 11. Here’s the text EPI wrote to go with it:
School teacher strikes made the news over and over again in 2019, highlighting the profound disinvestment in the nation’s public schools that has been taking place over recent decades. A growing teacher pay penalty is a critical component of that, as seen in this chart.
The teacher pay penalty has not been a fact of U.S. life forever—as recently as the mid-1990s, teacher pay was reasonably competitive. But in the past two decades or more, the relative pay of teachers has collapsed. By 2018, the teacher pay penalty had grown to more than 20%. While teachers do, on average, receive more valuable benefits than their professional peers, these better benefits do not make up for the huge gap in cash compensation. Given the vast reams of research showing the importance of teacher quality to student outcomes, this disinvestment in the pay of teachers is extraordinarily destructive to the quality of the nation’s public education system.
Daily Kos
February 3, 2020
In contrast, the average for all working-age families is shockingly low. Their median nest egg was a paltry $5,000 as of 2013, the latest year for which the Economic Policy Institute has data. That’s because many working-age families had little or zero savings.
Investor's Business Daily
February 3, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute said in its “State of American Retirement Savings” report that 70% of those in top 20% of earners ages 32 to 61 participate in a 401(k) plan at work.
Winston-Salem Journal
February 3, 2020