Recent studies demonstrate the devastating impact of right-to-work laws on wages. A groundbreaking study from Princeton University argues one of the biggest factors in increasing income inequality is the decline in union membership. Princeton was able to study the effects of union membership while controlling for variables such as education, skill, and race. What the study found is that on average over the last 80 years, union workers make around 15-20 percent more than non-union workers in the same field. Indeed, a 2018 analysis from the Economic Policy Institute found that the hourly wage of men in right-to-work states is $18.25, compared with $20.78 in non-right-to-work states, a difference of nearly 14 percent. The pattern of lower wages is even more pronounced for women and people of color. Right-to-work laws have a disproportionate impact on minorities because of their greater rates of work in unionized industries.
Connection Newspapers
January 24, 2020
According to the Economic Policy Institute, more than 90 percent of African Americans ages 25 to 29 have a high school diploma. One in four African Americans now holds a college degree, up from just 10 percent in 1968. The average life expectancy for African Americans has also increased by 12 years since then.
Lake Norman Media Group
January 24, 2020
Colorado’s new COMPS Order also expands minimum wage coverage and other protections such as rest breaks for other workers in the state. The campaign that led to the COMPS Order was driven by a broad coalition, including Towards Justice, the Bell Policy Center, and others, with support from NELP and the Economic Policy Institute.
NELP
January 24, 2020
What 1 minimum wage chart tells us about the labor market A well-known factoid in American economic debates is that wages used to grow with productivity, but they don’t anymore. There’s a particularly famous chart, courtesy of the Economic Policy Institute, that shows hourly pay for the typical U.S. household increasing…
Business Insider
January 24, 2020
According to the Economic Policy Institute, nearly 54 percent of nonunion private companies use mandatory arbitration contracts.
SHRM
January 24, 2020
Elise Gould, the senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, also said about this trend: ‘In recessions in general, men lose more jobs than women. That is because jobs in cyclical sectors like industrials and energy tend to employ more men than women, and are often the first to dwindle in a downturn’.
Evoke
January 24, 2020
And while their wages have risen slightly in recent years, farm workers still bring home average hourly rates less than 40 percent below of what other non-supervisory US workers make, said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research for the Economic Policy Institute. On average, farm workers earned $24,620 per year in 2018, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below the federal poverty line for a family of four. Another source, the 2015-2016 National Agricultural Workers Survey, calculated that “farm workers’ mean and median personal incomes the previous year were in the range of $17,500 to $19,999. ”
Mother Jones
January 24, 2020
Nationally, the tax credits, paired with rising minimum wages in states like California, is considered an effective method of reducing poverty, especially among single parents who work, according to a joint study from the Economic Policy Institute and Research on Labor and Employment at the UC Berkeley.
The Fresno Bee
January 24, 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.
WAMU 88.5
January 24, 2020
In Nassau, the 2017 median household income was $105,744; in Suffolk it was $92,838, according to Census figures. Infant care for one child would take up 22.1% of a median family’s income in New York, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
Newsday
January 24, 2020