“I am not often optimistic,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “But I am optimistic now.”
The Associated Press
February 3, 2021
Lastly, The Economic Policy Institute (2019), in what has been deemed the most comprehensive metastudy on the impacts of a significant minimum wage increase, examined the effects of 138 state minimum wage changes that occurred in the United States between 1979 and 2014. They found that “even with minimum wages rising as high as 55 percent of the median wage, there was no evidence of any reduction in the total number of jobs for low-wage workers”.
UConn Daily Campus
February 2, 2021
As a result, white families’ average net wealth was seven times higher than Black families’ in 2017, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute published that year.
The Temple News
February 2, 2021
Some proponents also claim the bill would attract new manufacturing companies to the state. But studies by the Economic Policy Institute have found similar laws in other states have little to no positive impact on job growth.
Public News Service
February 2, 2021
The second of these was produced at the Economic Policy Institute. It does appear somewhat outdated, using 2017 data, but it produces considerably higher calculations.
Here, in Peoria, they calculate annual expenses of $33,994 for a single adult and $47,785 for a couple.
Forbes
February 2, 2021
A new report by three experts at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-leaning think tank, comes to a similar conclusion as Reich. According to the Times, which got a look at the EPI study ahead of its publication, the analysis “found that there would be ‘significant and direct effects’ on the federal budget by increasing payroll tax revenue by $7 billion to $13.9 billion and reducing expenditures on public assistance programs by $13.4 billion to $31 billion.”
“This is a sizable chunk of money, no matter how you look at it,” David Cooper, senior economic analyst at EPI, said in an interview with the Times.
Common Dreams
February 2, 2021
In 2020, only 6.3 per cent of private sector workers in the US were members of a union. In key sectors for working-class jobs such as personal care, food service and retail, the figure is less than 5 per cent. But Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, says Mr Biden’s approach so far to workers’ rights is very different from previous Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. “We’re in the very beginning of this but the early signs are that the Biden administration is really centering worker power, collective bargaining, social justice, in a way that’s different to what we’ve seen in the past,” she says.
Financial Times
February 2, 2021
Many who have been impacted are Black and Brown women. Before the pandemic, 14.6% of all Latina workers in the U.S. worked in the hospitality sector, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
WTTW
February 2, 2021
Meanwhile, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute estimated during the pandemic that “gradually raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025 would lift pay for nearly 32 million workers — 21% of the U.S. workforce.”
That’s a lot of people.
Arizona Republic
February 2, 2021
Lastly, The Economic Policy Institute (2019), in what has been deemed the most comprehensive metastudy on the impacts of a significant minimum wage increase, examined the effects of 138 state minimum wage changes that occurred in the United States between 1979 and 2014. They found that “even with minimum wages rising as high as 55 percent of the median wage, there was no evidence of any reduction in the total number of jobs for low-wage workers”.
UConn Daily Campus
February 2, 2021
As a result, white families’ average net wealth was seven times higher than Black families’ in 2017, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute published that year.
The Temple News
February 2, 2021
Some proponents also claim the bill would attract new manufacturing companies to the state. But studies by the Economic Policy Institute have found similar laws in other states have little to no positive impact on job growth.
Public News Service
February 2, 2021
About 4.5 million Texans’ wages could benefit from a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour, according to 2019 data from the nonprofit think tank Economic Policy Institute. And while there is mostly consensus that $7.25 an hour is not a livable wage, economists and independent analysts don’t universally agree on whether raising it would be a net positive for the Texas economy.
The Texas Tribune
February 1, 2021
Articles on minimum wage:
Minimum Wage Tracker, from The Economic Policy Institute
NPR Planet Money
February 1, 2021
The nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute (EPI) notes that the federal minimum wage has not changed for a decade — the longest it has remained the same since the minimum wage was established in 1938. According to the EPI, the increase would affect some 32 million workers, representing 21% of the U.S. workforce. Not only would the change overwhelmingly benefit essential workers, it would work to close the racial wealth gap; EPI says that 31% of Black workers and 26% of Latino workers would get a pay raise if the higher minimum wage takes effect.
Next City
February 1, 2021
Pessimism about retirement abounds for young people, who were more likely than older age cohorts to lose their jobs when the pandemic hit, an October paper from the Economic Policy Institute said.
The Balance
February 1, 2021
David Cooper, a senior economic analyst at the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute, told me the phase-in schedule was “perfectly reasonable” and agreed businesses need time to adjust without negative consequences.
…
David Cooper, the labor-backed EPI economic analyst, acknowledged this issue but agreed with policy that gradually reaches $15 by 2025. “What experience with higher minimum wages and a lot of research has shown, when you phase in increases over time, businesses are able to adjust without there being any of the dire consequences that opponents always claim are going to happen,” said Cooper.
He was hopeful about future legislation, adding, “There’s nothing that says we have to stop at $15 once we get there.”
Jacobin
February 1, 2021
The Raise the Wage Act of 2021 would increase the federal minimum wage to $15 in five steps over the next four years. Beginning in 2026, the federal minimum wage would be indexed to median wage growth. 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.
Fall River Reporter
February 1, 2021
Democrats have cited an Economic Policy Institute study which found one in nine U.S. workers are paid wages that keep them in poverty despite working full-time. Congressional Budget Office research suggests 27 million Americans could be pulled out of poverty by a $15 wage hike, but 1.3 million workers could lose their jobs because companies would reduce their workforce in order to pay workers the higher rate— something Republicans have dubbed a no-go amid pandemic job losses.
Newsweek
February 1, 2021
The minimum wage legislation that Democrats including Sanders and Brown introduced last week would gradually increase the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025. Starting in 2026, it would index the federal minimum wage to median wage growth. Supporters of the measure say an independent analysis conducted by the Economic Policy Institute indicates their proposal would increase wages for nearly 32 million Americans, including roughly a third of all Black workers and a quarter of all Latino workers.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
February 1, 2021
That higher number may be what’s called for, Josh Bivens, director of research at nonprofit think tank Economic Policy Institute, argues: “I see nothing that makes me think, ‘Yeah, we should go smaller, we’re almost there, we’ve got this covered.’ We don’t have this covered—we really need to go big to getting a full return to economic health,” he said on a press call Monday.
Fortune
February 1, 2021
At a campaign rally last October in Flint, Mich., a long-depressed auto manufacturing city, Biden extolled unions as the backbone of the middle class and noted that the first group that endorsed him when he ran for the Senate in the early 1970s was the United Autoworkers.
“It’s more in his DNA,” said Thea Lee, president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “I’ve seen him over the years at labor events, and he’s very comfortable.”
Biden appointed two of the think tank’s alumni — economists Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey — to serve on the White House Council of Economic Advisors.
LA Times
February 1, 2021
Specifically, the Reopen and Rebuild America’s Schools Act will:
- Invest $100 billion in grants and $30 billion in bond authority targeted at public schools with high need and facilities that pose health and safety risks to students and staff
- Create over 2 million jobs based on an Economic Policy Institute analysis that each $1 billion spent on construction creates 17,785 jobs
Senator Brown's office
February 1, 2021
According to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., since the onset of the COVID-19 shock to the economy, about 6.2 million workers have lost access to health insurance they previously had with their employers.
North Bay Business Journal
February 1, 2021
Needless to say after months of the pandemic, U.S. manufacturers can use a lift. Although manufacturing jobs had risen steadily between 2010 and 2019, the coronavirus wiped out half of the jobs that were gained during that period, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The Washington, D.C.-based think tank offered a broader picture that’s even more bleak: Compared with 1997, there are 5 million fewer manufacturing jobs and 91,000 fewer plants today due to offshoring, automation and other factors. Rebuilding and expanding U.S. manufacturing has no downsides for Americans.
Las Vegas Sun
February 1, 2021
Such an increase would boost wages for more than 32 million US workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank.
Agence France Press (AFP)
February 1, 2021
Roughly half of those working in some parts of Houston and San Antonio—the vast majority of whom are workers of color and women—would be affected by the plan, according to estimates by the Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor group that used federal data to analyze the impact of the proposal.
San Antonio Express-News
February 1, 2021