No matter how much braggart in chief President Donald Trump boasts that his economy is benefiting his working-class base, the facts prove otherwise. According to the Economic Policy Institute report issued Feb. 11, the “number of striking workers surged in 2018 and 2019,” after decades in decline. Based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the EPI noted that it marked “a 35-year high for the number of workers involved in a major work stoppage over a two-year period.” That began with 485,200 workers in 2018 — “a nearly twentyfold increase from 25,300 workers in 2017” — and continued in 2019 with 425,500 workers.
Workers World
March 6, 2020
Forced arbitration is prohibited in the airline industry, and it is not as common in public transportation. But it is common practice in the private sector. As many as 60 million nonunion workers are bound by forced-arbitration clauses, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Washington Post
March 6, 2020
“The unemployment rate has been at or below 4% for two years, and wage growth is, if anything, decelerating,” Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said on Twitter.
CBS News
March 6, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute released a budget calculator in 2018 that shows how much money Miamians spend on housing, food, transportation, and other needs. A single resident spends upward of $37,000 yearly on basic needs. And a family of four spends almost $85,000. A single parent with two kids spends roughly $74,000 on basics.
Miami New Times
March 6, 2020
The gender-based wage gap hits black women the hardest. The Economic Policy Institute looked at the wage gap between black women and white women and found that “black women work more hours than white women. They have increased work hours 18.4 percent since 1979.” Despite this increase, black women still make 17 percent less than white women.
MSN
March 6, 2020
According to data from the Economic Policy Institute, the average annual cost of infant care in Arizona is $10,948 — that’s $912 per month. This means that infant care for one child can take up 19.8% of a median Arizona family’s income.
AZ Central
March 6, 2020
“Send thousand-dollar checks to everyone, along the lines of Bush in 2008,” said Josh Bivens, a director of research at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “Of all the things Bush did economically, it was among the better ones.”
Huffington Post
March 6, 2020
Lost wages from having to stay home will put a hole in most low-income families’ budgets. Two days’ worth of pay can equal one month’s worth of gas, making it harder for workers to get to their jobs, the Economic Policy Institute in Washington found https://www.epi.org/publication/work-sick-or-lose-pay-the-high-cost-of-being-sic k – w h e n – y o u – d o n t – g e t – p a i d – s i c k – d a y s .
More than 27 million people in the United States do not have health insurance, according to U.S. Census data. Workers in that group may put off getting medical treatment because they are concerned they can’t afford the bills, said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
March 6, 2020
On Thursday morning, a new study by researcher Josh Bivens at the Economic Policy Institute found that a Medicare for All system “would bolster the labor market, strengthen economic security for millions of U.S. households, and would likely boost the number of jobs in the U.S. labor market.”
Medicare for All, according to the study, would:
- Provide a potential boost to wages and salaries by allowing employers to redirect healthcare spending to workers’ wages.
- Increase job quality by ensuring that every job would come bundled with a guarantee of health care.
- Lessen the income loss, stress, and economic shock of unemployment and job transitions by eliminating the loss of health care that accompanies job-loss
- Support self-employment and small business development—which is low in the United States relative to other rich Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries—by eliminating the daunting cost of health care from startup costs.
- Inject new dynamism into the overall economy by reducing “job lock,” by allowing workers to go where their skills and preferences lie, not just to workplaces with affordable health plans.
Common Dreams
March 6, 2020