Policymakers can look to the recent past to better understand the need for public sector investments and job quality protections. An analysis from the Economic Policy Institute shows that the economic recovery following the Great Recession was significantly slower as a result of federal aid to state and local governments drying up too early.19 Unsurprisingly, cities and states were more successful at maintaining public jobs when aid was longer-term and included job retention requirements.20 Indeed, policymakers can help ensure that working families benefit by making needed investments in the public sector now.
- Olugbenga Ajilore, “White men are doing mostly fine without more economic relief from Washington, but just about everyone else is suffering,” MarketWatch, October 30, 2020, available at https://www.marketwatch.com/story/white-men-are-doing-mostly-fine-without-more-economic-relief-from-washington-but-just-about-everyone-else-is-suffering-11604069374#; Michael Madowitz, Anne Price, and Christian E. Weller, “Public Work Provides Economic Security for Black Families and Communities” (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2020), available at https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2020/10/23/492209/public-work-provides-economic-security-black-families-communities/; Jeffrey Keefe, “Public-sector workers are paid less than their private-sector counterparts—and the penalty is larger in right-to-work states,” Economic Policy Institute, January 14, 2016, available at https://www.epi.org/publication/public-sector-workers-are-paid-less-than-their-private-sector-counterparts-and-its-much-worse-in-right-to-work-states/.
- David Cooper, “Without federal aid, many state and local governments could make the same budget cuts that hampered the last economic recovery,” Economic Policy Institute, May 27, 2020, available https://www.epi.org/blog/without-federal-aid-many-state-and-local-governments-could-make-the-same-budget-cuts-that-hampered-the-last-economic-recovery/.
Center for American Progress
February 5, 2021
Ben Zipperer, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, told Insider such an impact would be minimal, at worst, and arguably beneficial to businesses as well as workers, with higher wages reducing costly employee turnover.
Business Insider
February 5, 2021
“To be candid, I think that his affiliation with the building trades serves him well in the confirmation process because those nominees do tend to fare a little bit better than other labor-affiliated nominees,” said Celine McNicholas, director of government affairs at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “It’s an area where Republicans are not automatically a ‘no.’”
Bloomberg Law
February 5, 2021
TANF recipients looking for work in the current pandemic face even worse prospects than parents in the studies reported here, so it is even more important that states consider ways to improve their TANF work programs. Women, people of color, and lower-income workers make up disproportionate shares of the employment sectors most deeply harmed by the pandemic. According to data compiled by the Economic Policy Institute, the employment decline in the pandemic was twice as large for Black and Latina women as for white women and men. (See Figure 4.)
Economic Policy Institute, “Chart: A more comprehensive look at employment losses among women,” October 20, 2020, https://www.epi.org/chart/gender-disparities-figure-a-a-more-comprehensive-look-at-employment-losses-among-women-change-in-employment-population-ratio-by-gender-race-ethnicity-feb-to-sept-2020/?utm_source=Economic+Policy+Institute&utm_campaign=a9e285a531-.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
February 5, 2021
Research by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that if the minimum wage was raised to $15 by 2015 wages would increase for 21 percent of the U.S. workforce — that’s nearly 32 million workers across the country.
The impact of raising the minimum wage also varies greatly by congressional district, according to a report released by EPI last week.
Nevada Current
February 5, 2021
Elise Gould and Melat Kassa, “Young workers hit hard by the COVID-19 economy,” Economic Policy Institute, October 14, 2020, https://www.epi.org/publication/young-workers-covid-recession/.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
February 5, 2021
Now, a new report from the Economic Policy Institute shows the kind of impact a national $15/hr minimum wage would have on our communities: 32 million workers would see a raise – more than a fifth of all U.S. workers.
Fight for 15
February 5, 2021
The gender pay gap could be somewhat alleviated by an increase in minimum wage. According to the Economic Policy Institute, raising the minimum wage would give 20 million women a raise, a figure that includes 26.7 percent of employed women. States that have a higher minimum wage have significantly lower rates of gender pay disparity, even more reason to increase minimum wage nationally.
The Daily Iowan
February 5, 2021
Mr. Biden isn’t out of options if the Senate won’t go along, however. He has the power to unilaterally and directly raise pay for federal contractors by raising their wage floor to $15 an hour, which would affect at least a quarter million Americans, according to an estimate Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, shared with The Times. And the ripple of effects of such an action will reverberate throughout the American work force.
The New York Times
February 5, 2021
However, the agency is rife with it. For instance, in a segment on the minimum wage on a Dec. 9 news program, Ben Zipperer from the Economic Policy Institute asserted that “we have a racist and sexist labor market in the U.S.” No opposing point of view was offered. How is that for balance? When I checked the newsroom’s Polygraph site, I found that, on Dec. 3, it ran a fact check attacking Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for saying that the Golan Heights are part of Israel. The “Verdict” was “Misleading.” An in-house analysis of Polygraph’s audience showed that more than 70% came from the United States. By law, VOA is not supposed to target American audiences.
Washington Times
February 5, 2021
Research by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that if the minimum wage was raised to $15 by 2015 wages would increase for 21 percent of the U.S. workforce — that’s nearly 32 million workers across the country.
The impact of raising the minimum wage also varies greatly by congressional district, according to a report released by EPI last week.
Nevada Current
February 5, 2021
Elise Gould and Melat Kassa, “Young workers hit hard by the COVID-19 economy,” Economic Policy Institute, October 14, 2020, https://www.epi.org/publication/young-workers-covid-recession/.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
February 5, 2021
Now, a new report from the Economic Policy Institute shows the kind of impact a national $15/hr minimum wage would have on our communities: 32 million workers would see a raise – more than a fifth of all U.S. workers.
Fight for 15
February 5, 2021
The gender pay gap could be somewhat alleviated by an increase in minimum wage. According to the Economic Policy Institute, raising the minimum wage would give 20 million women a raise, a figure that includes 26.7 percent of employed women. States that have a higher minimum wage have significantly lower rates of gender pay disparity, even more reason to increase minimum wage nationally.
The Daily Iowan
February 5, 2021
Mr. Biden isn’t out of options if the Senate won’t go along, however. He has the power to unilaterally and directly raise pay for federal contractors by raising their wage floor to $15 an hour, which would affect at least a quarter million Americans, according to an estimate Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, shared with The Times. And the ripple of effects of such an action will reverberate throughout the American work force.
The New York Times
February 5, 2021
However, the agency is rife with it. For instance, in a segment on the minimum wage on a Dec. 9 news program, Ben Zipperer from the Economic Policy Institute asserted that “we have a racist and sexist labor market in the U.S.” No opposing point of view was offered. How is that for balance? When I checked the newsroom’s Polygraph site, I found that, on Dec. 3, it ran a fact check attacking Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for saying that the Golan Heights are part of Israel. The “Verdict” was “Misleading.” An in-house analysis of Polygraph’s audience showed that more than 70% came from the United States. By law, VOA is not supposed to target American audiences.
Washington Times
February 5, 2021
The minimum wage hasn’t changed since 2009. As reported by the Economic Policy Institute,
Raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would undo the erosion of the value of the real minimum wage that began primarily in the 1980s. In fact, by 2021, for the first time in over 50 years, the federal minimum wage would exceed its historical inflation-adjusted high point, set in 1968.
Medium
February 4, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute — a non-partisan think tank — estimated that workers could lose more than $700 million annually under Trump’s rule.
“With no meaningful limit on the amount of time tipped workers may perform nontipped work, employers could capture more of workers’ tips,” the Economic Policy Institute wrote. “It is not hard to imagine how employers of tipped workers might exploit this change in the regulation.”
Business Insider
February 4, 2021
Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told Newsweek that raising the minimum wage is “well overdue.”
“Minimum wage workers today are paid substantially less than what their counterparts earned even 50 years ago, after adjusting for inflation,” Zipperer said. “I’m not too concerned about the scare stories regarding the minimum wage: shutting down businesses, hurting the people that the policy is trying to help, etc.”
Newsweek
February 4, 2021
Advocates for the $15 minimum wage are planning to cite reports from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute and the University of California, Berkeley that found that raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 would reduce government spending on public assistance programs and increase tax revenue. The Congressional Budget Office is expected to also soon release a report at Sanders’ request that will make the case for $15 an hour.
Politico
February 4, 2021
According to an independent analysis conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, the Raise the Wage Act would increase wages for nearly 32 million Americans, including roughly a third of all Black workers and a quarter of all Latino workers. More than half of those who would benefit would be women.
Rep. Alma Adams
February 4, 2021
Executive compensation. Executive compensation is already a contentious issue in many jurisdictions where investors are voting for “say on pay” proxy resolutions and against egregious pay packages for underperforming CEOs. However, when it comes to economic inequality, the issue of executive compensation is less about a few outliers and more about a widening gap between executives and average workers. Quoting from the Economic Policy Institute: “From 1978 to 2018, CEO compensation grew by 1,008%; the compensation of a typical worker, meanwhile, rose just 12%. The ratio of CEO-to-worker compensation was 278-to-1 in 2018—far greater than the 20-to-1 ratio in 1965.” In addition to issues related to general socioeconomic inequality, very little of this increase in executive pay has accrued to BIPOC families, serving to widen the racial wealth gap. For example, per the COQUAL, Black people account for only 3.2% of senior leadership roles at large companies in the US and less than 1% of Fortune 500 CEO positions, versus about 12% of the total population.
Chief Investment Officer
February 4, 2021
The jump would give nearly 32 million American workers a raise, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research group. A 2019 report from the Congressional Budget Office showed about 27 million Americans could see increased wages, and 1.3 million would be lifted out of poverty.
CNBC
February 4, 2021
“Esto es debido en gran parte a mucha discriminación histórica”, dijo David Cooper, analista económico de EPI a CNBC. “También se debe a lo que los economistas se refieren como segregación ocupacional”.
Noticias Ya
February 4, 2021
Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told Newsweek that raising the minimum wage is “well overdue.”
“Minimum wage workers today are paid substantially less than what their counterparts earned even 50 years ago, after adjusting for inflation,” Zipperer said. “I’m not too concerned about the scare stories regarding the minimum wage: shutting down businesses, hurting the people that the policy is trying to help, etc.”
Newsweek
February 4, 2021
Advocates for the $15 minimum wage are planning to cite reports from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute and the University of California, Berkeley that found that raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 would reduce government spending on public assistance programs and increase tax revenue. The Congressional Budget Office is expected to also soon release a report at Sanders’ request that will make the case for $15 an hour.
Politico
February 4, 2021