In the modern workforce, most people who parent infants or young children and work outside the home must effectively split their wage with a caretaker. That might be a daycare center, a nanny, babysitter, or an in-home daycare provider. The average annual cost of such services in Wisconsin is more than $12,000, according to the Economic Policy Institute. That works out to nearly one-fifth of the state’s median household income, or more than half of the income of a family of three living at the federal poverty level.
VolumeOne
October 30, 2019
In August 2019, the Economic Policy Institute reported that, in 2018, the average pay of CEOs at America’s 350 top firms hit $17.2 million―an increase, when adjusted for inflation, of 1,007.5 percent since 1978. By contrast, the typical worker’s wage, adjusted for inflation, grew by only 11.9 percent over this 40-year period. In 1965, the ratio of CEO-to-worker’s pay stood at 20-to-1; by 2018 (when CEOs received another hefty pay raise and workers received a 0.2 percent pay cut), it had reached 278-to-1.
History News Network
October 29, 2019
The wave of states blocking local minimum wages has slowed, perhaps because most Republican-led states already have done it. North Dakota adopted the only new wage preemption law this year, and none were adopted in 2018. This comes after a surge of minimum wage preemption laws adopted in 14 states between 2013 and 2017, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Huizar said this surge came as a conservative backlash to the growing Fight for $15 movement.
Bloomberg
October 29, 2019
Having briefly reviewed how robots are able to replace human beings, I’d like to address the impact of automation on the economy. Martin Ford noted that “the job market is currently polarized: a great many of the middle-skill jobs that used to support a solid middle class lifestyle have been automated — leaving us with high skill/high wage jobs that require lots of education and training and lots of low skill jobs with very low wages.” A report by the Economic Policy Institute reveals that productivity rose steadily from 1973 to 2013 but hourly compensation remained almost flat for nonsupervisory workers. During the Clinton era, nearly everyone enjoyed a rise in real annual wages, but since the dawn of this century wages for the bottom 90% have been flat.
Front Porch Republic
October 29, 2019
The number one argument in favor of giving gig-economy workers employee status is the reality that many gig-workers work part-time or even full-time hours, without a minimum wage. In many places the workers who take on freelance jobs like Uber are not guaranteed a minimum wage as regular employees would be, leading to uncertainty and unreasonably long hours just to make ends meet. In the case of Uber drivers, a report from the Economic Policy Institute classified them in the lowest ten percent of paid American workers. The gig is low pay and not even guaranteed – a dangerous combo. While the argument could be made that these gig-economy companies do not intend for their workers to use their apps as full-time jobs, the reality is that they rely on those who do.
The Bull and Bear
October 29, 2019
Last year, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found Amazon had likely received roughly $1 billion in state and local tax incentives for its 95 fulfillment centers around the country. But two years after those centers opened, there was no increase in overall employment in the communities where they were located. Either workers shifted from one industry to another, or job creation at the facilities was too small to make a difference in the numbers, the study’s authors said.
The Buffalo News
October 29, 2019
The report examines the counties in every state that are the most expensive by using The Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator. The calculator determines total local cost of living, like housing, food, health care, transportation and other necessities.
The Hayride
October 29, 2019
Teaching is widely recognized to be a stressful occupation, characterized by numerous and varied challenges: administrative burdens, long hours, classroom management difficulties, and lack of autonomy, to name but a few. Teachers are isolated from colleagues for much of the day, spending less than 5% of their work time collaborating with peers (Scholastic & the Gates Foundation, 2012). They are also paid less than other workers with similar experience and education, a gap that has grown from 4.3% in 1996 to 17% in 2015, according to the Economic Policy Institute (Allegreto & Mishel, 2016). Further, teachers face significant social and political scrutiny as to how they do their jobs (Goldstein, 2014).
Phi Delta Kappan
October 29, 2019
There’s a shortfall in education across the U.S., with more than 300,000 unfilled public teaching jobs needed to keep up with enrollment, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute.
Axios
October 29, 2019