Trump claimed last night that the “the years of economic decay are over” and in just three years, the Trump administration has “shattered the mentality of American decline.” In truth, the economy grew around 2.2% a year during Obama’s term, and about 2.5% a year during Trump’s time in office. This steady incline has marked the longest period of economic expansion in the U.S. in history, according to Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
The Setonian
February 10, 2020
For Americans in the lower part of the spectrum, income has generally outpaced inflation by only a slight margin since 1974, according to data collected by the left-of-center Economic Policy Institute shows inflation-adjusted data for wages going back to 1973.
Politico
February 10, 2020
There simply is no substitute for labor unions. We are still powerful and impactful. And union members are not the only ones who should agree. Recently, I attended a conference of financial advisors. Called to the podium for remarks, I started off by stating some true—but sad—facts about unions today: Labor union membership is at an all-time low. Today, only 10.5% of America’s workers belong to a union. In the private sector, only 1 in 16 workers belong to a union. Compare that to peak years, in the 1950s, when union membership was at 40%. I went on to discuss some of our many victories, which I pointed out, although they were focused on worker rights, those rights are inextricably intertwined with civil rights. One needs to go no further than the fact that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 52 years ago in Memphis, Tennessee, where he went to join striking sanitation workers fighting for fairness and dignity in the workplace. Indeed, labor victories are not only about labor. Nor are they just for union members. Our victories are for all workers. Keep in mind that recent studies have shown that, as union membership decreases, inequality increases. The Economic Policy Institute, for example, found that annual earnings for CEO’s skyrocketed 940% since 1978, while the average worker’s earnings only received a 12% bump for the same period of time.
Amsterdam News
February 10, 2020
Some research has found that this increase is partly driven by states increasing their minimum wages. States that raised their minimum wage between 2013 and 2018 saw pay for their lowest-paid workers grow more than 50% faster than those that didn’t, according to an analysis from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. The trend continued in 2019, said Elise Gould, senior economist at EPI.
“Year after year, we’ve seen states increase their minimum wage, either through indexing [for inflation] or legislation, and we have seen faster wage growth at the bottom in those states that have increased their minimum,” she said.
CBS News
February 6, 2020
Whitmer has a point that wages for those at the top, over the long-term, have grown more rapidly than for those in lower-income groups. The Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that advocates for low- and middle-income workers, said in a 2019 report that every income percentile saw some growth in inflation-adjusted hourly wages from 1979 to 2018, though the 50th percentile saw a 14% increase while the 95th percentile experienced a 56.1% increase.
FactCheck.org
February 6, 2020
MagnifyMoney examined 2019 data from the Joint Center of Housing Studies and the Economic Policy Institute, looking at 34 U.S. cities with populations of 300,000 or more in 2018. By assuming 16 percent withholding in Social Security, Federal Insurance Contributions ACT, Medicare and federal income tax, MagnifyMoney estimated the take-home pay after payroll taxes for each city as part of its methodology.
Dallas Business Journal
February 6, 2020
Trump is to blame for much of the economic hardship faced by working families, says Heidi Shierholz, Senior Economist and Director of Policy at the Economic Policy Institute. She rattled off a list of examples of harmful Trump policies, including rolling back overtime protections and workplace safety protections, weakening protections that keep franchise employees from being cheated out of their earnings, and making it harder for workers to join together to improve their wages and working conditions.
“President Trump claims to stand for workers,” Shierholz noted, “but at every turn he has prioritized the interest of corporate executives over those of the working people of this country.”
Inequality.org
February 6, 2020
Fact: According to a study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, “Even with a historically low average annual black unemployment rate of 6.1% in 2019, black workers are twice as likely to be unemployed as white workers overall and are more likely to be unemployed than white workers at every education level. Only black workers with some college or more education have an unemployment rate lower than the overall unemployment rate of white workers.”
Black Enterprise
February 6, 2020
China’s model of state-led capitalism has already eroded America’s domestic manufacturing industry -despite what some might claim to be ‘blue-collar boom.’ Workers saw 2.8 million family-supporting factory jobs in the U.S. lost to China from 2001 to 2018, according to a new report released by the Economic Policy Institute.
Public
February 6, 2020
Domestic workers are mostly female immigrants, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute.
The Goldendale Sentinel
February 6, 2020