More money is lost every year to wage theft than to shoplifting, resulting in billions of dollars in losses to the economy and incalculable damage to the lives of millions of workers, their families, and communities. A 2017 study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates that the total wages stolen from workers due to minimum wage violations exceeds $15 billion each year. Consistent with EPI’s findings, a recent survey of 2,000 adults commissioned by the Public Rights Project found that nearly 4 in 10 (39 percent) reported experiencing wage theft.
NELP
September 17, 2019
This trend has long been developing for decades. Since 1979, worker productivity has increased by 70 percent, while wages grew 12 percent. Between 2003 and 2013 wages for the bottom 70 percent of Americans actually declined. In 1968, the Economic Policy Institute has found, the minimum wage could support a family of three; today it condemns a two-person family to poverty.
The Bulwark
September 17, 2019
Despite the recent achievements in improving low wages, there are a number of companies today that pay near-poverty wages to a large share of their workers. According to the nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank Economic Policy Institute, 11.4% of full-time workers earn wages that would be considered below the poverty line for a family.
24/7 Wall St.
September 17, 2019
Buying from black restaurants not only helps you to locate seasoned food, but it helps close the racial wealth gap. More than one in four black households have zero or below net worth compared to less than one in 10 white families without wealth, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Buying black can also help put more money into the community. For example, nearly 70% of the United States economy is made of consumer spending and almost half of small business purchases are redistributed within the community. Supporting black-owned businesses means supporting families and the community they reside in.
Black Enterprise
September 17, 2019
According to research by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the teacher shortage could reach 200,000 by 2025, up from 110,000 in 2018. This shortage of workers is due to a number of factors. Among them are pay, working conditions, lack of support, lack of autonomy, and the changing curriculum.
Foundation for Economic Education
September 17, 2019
Nationally, teachers earned about 11 percent less in salaries and benefits than other college graduates nationwide in 2017, according to researchers at the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute.
Houston Chronicle
September 17, 2019
Castro pointed out the prominence of wage theft in the United States, citing an Economic Policy Institute study that shows wage theft accounts for the vast majority of property-related crimes.
The Hoya
September 16, 2019
If only the picture were as rosy as painted by the Sept. 2 editorial (“Good times for U.S. workers”). Although wages have indeed gone up, they have not come close to matching wage growth during the last recovery, from 1996-2000, which saw more than 9% growth for white men and women and for black men and women alike, as documented in a recent report from the national Economic Policy Institute. This time around, despite similarly low unemployment rates, wage growth has been 6.6% for white men and lower for the other groups. Significantly, the recent wage growth has shown greater racial disparities; indeed, black men and women with college degrees have, on average, received lower wages.
Providence Journal
September 16, 2019
Per a recent publication by the Economic Policy Institute, “the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935 led to both a massive increase in unionization and a massive decrease in inequality.” That’s income inequality, which has grown since then as union membership has declined.
Telegram
September 16, 2019