Economist Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute said the depth of the Great Recession and the slow pace of the economic recovery depressed wage growth for years. And she also pointed to longer-term economic changes: “The reduced leverage that workers have — the decline in unionization, the declining value of the federal minimum wage.”
Marketplace
January 13, 2020
The labor-backed Economic Policy Institute says while the USMCA is slightly better than NAFTA, its changes “still constitute Band-Aids on a fundamentally flawed agreement and process.”
“Powerful multinational corporations have used and controlled the negotiation of trade and investment deals to facilitate off-shoring and the deregulation of the U.S. and global economy,” the think tank added, citing the Machinists’ analysis.
Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council
January 13, 2020
This was up significantly from just a couple of years earlier. During the 2015-16 school year, for example, teachers spent an average of $460 each on classroom supplies, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis. Teachers in several states, including Arizona, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, and Rhode Island, as well as Washington, D.C., spent more than $500 each that year.
Catalyst
January 13, 2020
A 2019 study by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington found that Iowa is one of the worst places in the United States for a black person to live. Racial disparities in education and incarceration mean that to live in Iowa as a black person is a very different experience than living here as a white person.
The study’s authors note, “Taken together, these historical patterns of segregation and uneven economic opportunity — alongside continuing patterns of discrimination — yielded a legacy of deep and lasting racial disparity and inequality.”
The Gazette
January 13, 2020
Unfortunately, the practice is more widespread than ever. An Economic Policy Institute study in December revealed that nearly half of businesses surveyed required noncompete agreements for at least some employees. Nearly a third of the employers sampled required all employees to sign noncompetes. Noncompetes were also used for all workers in more than a fourth of companies with an average wage below $13 per hour.
NBC News
January 13, 2020
The labor-backed Economic Policy Institute pointed out that Dec. 16 “marked the end of Democratic National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Member Lauren McFerran’s term. McFerran ended her term offering the lone dissenting voice in the Trump board’s efforts to slow down union elections to give employers more time to campaign against the union, give employers the ability to make unilateral changes without bargaining with their workers’ union, weaken remedies when employers break the law, and more.”
Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council
January 13, 2020
A study by CNBC and EPI (Economic Policy Institute) that compared minimum wage and cost of living expenses in cities across the country had Virginia Beach, Va. as number two on the list of “the 10 worst cities for minimum-wage workers.”
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
January 13, 2020
January 13, 2020
In fact, some people — including those from the Economic Policy Institute — have posited that a minimum-wage increase will actually lead to an increase in employment because of the effects of giving low-wage workers a raise. Other advantages to restaurants may include lower turnover rates and better job performance.
MarketWatch
January 13, 2020
There has been a major shift in the use of mandatory arbitration contracts by businesses of all sizes following a series of arbitration-friendly U.S. Supreme Court decisions over the last two decades. According to the Economic Policy Institute, 53% of nonunion private-sector employers have mandatory arbitration procedures.
Courthouse News Service
January 13, 2020