CEOs didn’t always earn this much. The average CEO-to-worker compensation ratio in the 1960s was 20:1. A report from the Economic Policy Institute last year found that CEO compensation grew 940% between 1978 and 2018, while worker compensation grew only 12% over the same time period.
Fast Company
March 3, 2020
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Travelers planning an affordable spring break trip should be aware of the “Airbnb effect.” Areas with a rise in Airbnb rentals, for example, often see a jump in housing prices and other negative aspects of tourism, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Purdue University
March 3, 2020
Today, the Economic Policy Institute is launching a website aimed at shedding light on how the U.S. tax and spending system affects household income up and down the income distribution.
The U.S. Tax & Spending Explorer allows users to take a deep dive into the ways that the federal government affects the inequality of households’ incomes through taxes and through spending on social insurance and safety net programs. The explorer also examines so-called “tax expenditures,” sometimes referred to as the hidden federal budget. …
TaxProf Blog
March 3, 2020
Unions and other opponents of the new rule have said it will deprive many workers, particularly in low-income industries, of the ability to improve their working conditions through collective bargaining. The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute on Tuesday estimated that workers will lose $1.3 billion in wages annually as a result of the rule.
Reuters
March 3, 2020
Employer groups and Republicans are applauding the change, maintaining that the Obama-era reading of the law was an overreach. But the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute said the new rule would help companies “avoid responsibility and liability” by shifting it onto others, and suppress wages by making it nearly impossible for certain workforces to form unions.
Huffington Post
March 3, 2020
One estimate from a pro-labor think tank, the Economic Policy Institute, puts the cost to employees at about $1.3 billion a year.
“This rule enables firms to avoid responsibility and liability,” said a statement from the EPI. “Weakening the joint-employer standard has serious adverse consequences for working people, such as depriving workers of the ability to bargain with the employer contracting for their services through an intermediary, who in most cases is the employer with ultimate control over wages, hours, and working conditions.”
CNN
March 3, 2020
In Wisconsin, real median income growth slowed to 2.2 percent during the first two years of the Trump administration, compared to a healthier 6.4 percent growth rate for the typical household in the previous two years, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by the Economic Policy Institute and Capital & Main. The so-called soaring economy President Trump boasts about isn’t necessarily translating to stability for a typical household. Even though incomes have been growing, prices have been growing faster, so families still find it difficult to pay their bills.
Capital & Main
March 3, 2020
“Despite what we heard at the State of the Union, the truth is that this economy is not performing well for most Americans,” says Thea Lee, president of the Washington, D.C.–based Economic Policy Institute (EPI). “At this point in the business cycle, wage and income growth for working households should be accelerating, not slowing.”
The new findings—from an EPI and Capital & Main analysis of the most recent U.S. census data—offer a stark departure from Trump’s characterization of how well middle-class Americans are faring as the country heads into the thick of its primary season. In his State of the Union speech last month, he declared his economy to be “the best it has ever been.” In fact, the analysis found that:
- Among the ten states where the 2016 margin of victory for either Trump or Hillary Clinton was less than four percentage points, nine have experienced a drop in the growth of household income.
- Between 2016 and 2018, real median household income declined in six states and the District of Columbia, which has three electoral votes. During the 2014–2016 Obama expansion, median household income declined in one state.
- The decline in real median household income occurred in mostly red states: Alaska, West Virginia, South Dakota, and Wyoming. It also occurred in New Mexico, which is considered a long shot for Trump, and in the blue state of Connecticut.
Capital & Main
March 3, 2020
Low-wage and middle-class Americans remain caught in the same vise that has been squeezing them for decades. “Your paycheck hasn’t grown as much as it needs to,” says Thea Lee, president of the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute, “and everyone has seen a rise in costs.” Part of the reason is an “eroding public sector,” she says, including a consistent defunding of public universities that transfers costs to families.
According to an analysis of census data done by the EPI in conjunction with the journalism website Capital and Main, the growth of real median household income has slowed nationwide under Trump. To the extent that low-wage workers have experienced income growth, Lee notes, much of that results from increases in the minimum wage enacted in several states and cities.
“Increasing the minimum wage is not a policy of which Trump approves,” she says, “so that’s not something President Trump can take credit for
Los Angeles Times
March 3, 2020
“In 2017, Black men were paid only 69.7 cents on the white male dollar. Meanwhile, in 2000, Black women were paid 60.8 cents on the white male dollar, and by 2017, that number remained entirely unchanged. This means that there has been no progress on closing racial pay gaps since 2000,” according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Daily Targum
March 2, 2020