After decades of declining strike activity, data analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show that there was a substantial upsurge in 2018 and 2019, with 485,000 workers involved in major work stoppages in 2018 and 425,500 workers involved in major stoppages in 2019. This is the largest two-year average in 35 years.
Workday Minnesota
February 12, 2020
For decades, the decline of the American labor movement corresponded to a decline in major strike activity. But new data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, indicates a recent and significant increase in the number of Americans who are participating in strikes or work stoppages. As a report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute explained on Tuesday, strike activity “surged” in 2018 and 2019, “marking a 35-year high for the number of workers involved in a major work stoppage over a two-year period.” 2019 alone marked “the greatest number of work stoppages involving 20,000 or more workers since at least 1993, when the BLS started providing data that made it possible to track work stoppages by size.” Union membership is declining, but workers themselves are in fighting shape.
New York Magazine
February 12, 2020
According to the Economic Policy Institute, 2018 and 2019 accounted for the largest two-year average of striking workers in more than three decades.
Huffington Post
February 12, 2020
The slow growth in wages is the single biggest economic issue hampering middle-class families, according to Elise Gould, a senior economist at the left-leaning think tank the Economic Policy Institute.
“Many families are still feeling the after-effects of the Great Recession,” Gould told ABC News, referencing the downturn following the 2008 financial crash. “We’ve seen the economy grow greatly. … We’re still not seeing a full recovery in terms of wages and living standards.”
“Most American families get their income from work,” she added. “So I think we need to strengthen work and the wages that they get.”
ABC News
February 11, 2020
While you should have eight times your starting salary by the time your 60 saved for retirement, most of those approaching retirement have vastly less than that. The median amount saved by those between 56 and 61 is $21,000, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Yahoo Money
February 11, 2020
What is the tax burden truly like for the top 1% across the Midwest? To find out, GOBankingRates analyzed data from multiple sources including the Tax Foundation and the Economic Policy Institute. The tax burden percentage also factored in income and sales taxes, sourced from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center. Check out the results!
MSN
February 11, 2020
The Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that analyzes quarterly jobs numbers, found in late 2019 that black unemployment rates were the highest of any group in the country, and in the District, the percentage of out-of-work black residents outpaced unemployed white residents at a rate of about 6 to 1.
The Washington Post
February 11, 2020
A study from the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, found that between 2010 – 2012, workers in free bargaining states were 2.4 times as likely to be protected by a union contract and had 15.8 percent higher hourly wages. When adjusted for individual demographic and socioeconomic factors such as cost of living, free bargaining states were still found to have 3.1 percent higher wages than right to work states.
Williamson Home Page
February 11, 2020
Right-to-work destruction, no matter what you call it, will have grave consequences. Employees who refuse to fork over their hard-earned money to Big Labor will lose their jobs, plain and simple. And many of the workers whose paychecks will be pillaged are actually getting paid less as a consequence of being under union monopoly control. Union-boss allies like Richard Rothstein, now a distinguished fellow with the AFL-CIO-founded Economic Policy Institute, have admitted as much.
Washington Times
February 11, 2020
According to a 2019 report from the Economic Policy Institute, racial disparities are widespread in the Midwest. In Wisconsin, black students are suspended at five times the rate of white students. African Americans are also imprisoned at five times the rate of white residents.
Wisconsin Public Radio
February 11, 2020