In 1968, a full-time worker earning minimum wage could support a family of three, according to an analysis by David Cooper of the Economic Policy Institute. Today, such a job is not enough to keep a family of two out of poverty, nor to afford rent on a two-bedroom apartment in any state, county or metropolitan area. Overall, corporations are foisting the burden of supporting workers — regardless of their country of origin — onto taxpayers, and government is acquiescing in that arrangement.
The Washington Post
September 16, 2019
To wit, the Pullman Company’s wages forced turn-of-the-century Black porters to rely on tips to make a living. Tipped workers only got a national minimum wage in 1966, after the first federal minimum wage was passed in 1938, and a 2014 study by the liberal Economic Policy Institute think tank found that women and people of color working in restaurants have the highest poverty rates in the industry.
Hyde Park Herald
September 16, 2019
Ben Zipperer is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. His areas of expertise include the minimum wage, inequality, and low-wage labor markets. He has published research in the Industrial and Labor Relations Review and has been quoted in outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, and the BBC.
Pitchfork Economics
September 16, 2019
Revenue at Walmart is the largest in the retail world. The Walton family is collectively worth more than $150 billion. How did they get so rich? Largely by selling foreign goods to domestic consumers. According to the Economic Policy Institute, America actually lost 400,000 jobs thanks to Walmart’s reliance on Chinese imports. And it shows. Drive down the boarded up main streets of many small towns and you’ll see what rural America looks like today because of Walmart. Compare that to some of the gleaming new cities the communist Chinese government has built with the profits.
Townhall
September 16, 2019
We were just handed a wake-up call. Newly released numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics project that six of the ten occupations expected to have the most total job growth over the next decade pay less than $27,000 a year. Three of those six are low-paying jobs in the restaurant industry. Even more striking is the concentration of low-paid healthcare jobs at the top of the list, with personal care aides at number one and home health aides at number four. These jobs are disproportionately held by women and by people of color.
In These Times
September 16, 2019
Heidi Shierholz is senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
HEIDI SHIERHOLZ: I spend my life, my career worrying about, like, how is the economy doing for low- and middle-income people? And I am not worried about this.
NPR
September 16, 2019
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, massive infrastructure investments — like the one Sanders plans as part of his Green New Deal — can accelerate job growth and economic activity in the long term, but there isn’t a reliable way to determine whether they would “pay off” or “pay for themselves” long term (like Sanders claims they will).
Inside Sources
September 16, 2019
Women might actually come out ahead economically during a recession, though. Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, says that while women are generally at a disadvantage in the labor market, they might be more insulated from the effects of a recession because they tend to be concentrated in industries like education and healthcare.
“People still go to school during a recession,” she explains. “If you have a heart attack, you go to the hospital during a recession, and so the employment in education and healthcare is much less ‘cyclical.’ … It doesn’t go down as much in recession, if at all.”
Bustle
September 16, 2019
The “vast majority” of American households, note Economic Policy Institute analysts Elise Gould and Julia Wolfe, “have still not fully recovered from the deep losses suffered in the Great Recession.”
Inequality.org
September 13, 2019
But Elise Gould, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, noted some disturbing trends. Although median household income rose for four consecutive years, the rate of growth and the income level has slowed significantly and is slightly below where it was almost two decades ago. “It’s a step in the right direction, but most families barely made up the ground lost” with the recession, she said.
NPR
September 13, 2019