The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute estimates that weekly wages for men not enrolled in a union would be $52 higher today if union representation had remained at its 1979 level. That’s $2,074 a year. For women, that would mean a $13.80 increase in weekly wages, or $745 a year.
Bangor Daily News
January 27, 2021
“Even if there were not a pandemic, it’s well overdue,” said economist Ben Zipperer of the Economic Policy Institute.
Opponents argue that raising the minimum wage would hurt businesses and force job cuts. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2019 it could lead to the loss of 1.3 million jobs.
“Those kinds of scare stories are theoretically possible, but they don’t actually play out in the data,” said Zipperer.
CBS News
January 27, 2021
Though the benefits of an increased federal minimum wage is still debated among economists, David Cooper of the Economic Policy Institute says there’s growing opinion that it would help the economy overall.
Click Lancashire Independent News
January 27, 2021
Baldwin’s office cited a report by the Economic Policy Institute that state’s the legislation, dubbed the Raise the Wage Act, would increase the pay for 32 million Americans, including approximately 1 in 3 of Black workers and a quarter of Latino workers.
The Associated Press
January 27, 2021
An estimated 32 million people would benefit from the bill introduced Tuesday by the House of Representatives to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025, the progressive Economic Policy Institute (EPI) finds. And the majority of those affected would be essential and front-line workers.
CNBC
January 27, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute says on its website that the legislation includes a “100% federal subsidy for work-sharing in states that already have work-sharing programs.” New York is on the list of states that have work-sharing programs.
CNBC
January 27, 2021
Across the Atlantic, the picture is even more extreme. Analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington DC-based think tank, showed chief executives of the 350 largest US companies earned an average $21.3m (£16.9m) in 2019. This puts the CEO-to-worker pay ratio at 320 to 1 – more than five times the level in 1989.
BBC
January 27, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute, which advocates for raising the wage, estimates that raising the minimum to $15 by 2025 would lift pay for nearly 32 million workers — or 21 percent of the U.S. workforce — and inject $107 billion in higher wages into the economy.
Politico
January 27, 2021
According to a study of the bill by the Economic Policy Institute, raising the federal minimum wage to $15 would lift the pay of nearly 32 million workers, or 21% of the U.S. workforce.
The study also said that it would aid in narrowing the racial pay gap as 31% of Black Americans and 26% of Latinos make the federal minimum wage.
Breitbart
January 27, 2021
“A few years ago you hardly heard about college graduates taking unpaid internships,” the Economic Policy Institute’s Ross Eisenbrey told The New York Times in 2012, a statement that now feels bleakly quaint. “But now I’ve even heard of people taking unpaid internships after graduating from Ivy League schools.”
The New Republic
January 26, 2021
Nationally, 3,878,000 Americans were considered long-term unemployed (having gone six months without work while looking for work) as of December. That number accounts for fully a third of all unemployed Americans, and the Economic Policy Institute’s Elise Gould tells Bloomberg the percentage is “going to be continuing to rise.”
Grub Street
January 26, 2021
The last time the federal government raised the minimum wage was more than 11 years ago. It’s the longest span of time without an increase in just over 80 years. Now that President Biden is in office and Democrats control the House and Senate, a proposed $15 an hour minimum wage looks possible. But the question still lingers, especially in a pandemic: will this harm or hurt the economy? David Cooper, a senior economic analyst and deputy director of the Economic Analysis and Research Network for the Economic Policy Institute, talks to the Standard.
Texas Standard
January 26, 2021
A separate report issued by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) revealed that the impact was even greater on non-white younger workers. In the spring of this year, the unemployment rate for Asian American/Pacific Islander workers under 25 was 29.7%. Young black and Hispanic workers followed closely, at 29.6% and 27.5%.
Louisville Courier Journal
January 26, 2021
One target may be a 2019 advice memo opining that Uber drivers aren’t employees with labor rights under the NLRA, said Celine McNicholas, a former Obama-era NLRB official who works as labor counsel and director of government affairs at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Bloomberg Law
January 26, 2021
The “paid opportunity” promises $500 for 1 day of filming and an additional $1500 if the story is used—much higher than what most ride-hail drivers earn in net income each month, according to a study from the Economic Policy Institute.
VICE
January 26, 2021
Touting his proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour from the current $7.25 per hour, Biden said, “No one in America should work 40 hours a week making below the poverty line. Fifteen dollars gets people above the poverty line.”
Facts First: It’s true that some people who are currently below the poverty line would move above the poverty line if the federal minimum wage were raised to $15 per hour: the Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2019 that a $15 minimum wage “would move, on net, roughly 1.3 million people out of poverty.” Others offer different estimates; Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, said, “We believe the CBO estimate to be too pessimistic.” He said it is “more plausible” that between 1.9 million and 4.0 million people would be lifted out of poverty.
CNN
January 26, 2021
Those days are long gone. According to a 2019 study by the Economic Policy Institute, Uber drivers now earn around $9 per hour after factoring in expenses. Additionally, the cut taken by ride-hailing companies from each fare has risen from as low as 20% to sometimes more than half.
Common Dreams
January 26, 2021
The magazine quoted the Economic Policy Institute as saying Greenville County’s average cost for child care is about $500 for one child. It also found almost half of residents are within a 10 minute walk of a park.
The State
January 26, 2021
That’s good news for labor unions, but it’s important to make note of a crucial caveat: While the percentage of unionized workers rose, the overall number of U.S. workers represented by unions declined by 321,000 last year to 14.3 million.
If that’s slightly confusing, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a Washington, D.C. think tank, explains it like this: While unionization levels did indeed drop in 2020, unionization rates rose because workers belonging to unions experienced less job losses than non-union workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Where workers have been able to act collectively and bargain through their union, they have been able to secure enhanced safety measures, additional premium pay, and paid sick time, during the pandemic,” said EPI Director of Policy Heidi Shierholz. “Due to this, unionized workers have had a voice in how their employers have navigated the pandemic, including negotiating for terms of furloughs or work-share arrangements to save jobs. This likely played a role in limiting overall job loss among unionized workers.”
Michigan Advance
January 26, 2021
An examination of the same data by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows that while unionization levels dropped nationally in 2020, unionization rates rose because union workers have seen less job loss than non-union workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Where workers have been able to act collectively and bargain through their union, they have been able to secure enhanced safety measures, additional premium pay, and paid sick time, during the pandemic,” said EPI Director of Policy Heidi Shierholz. “Due to this, unionized workers have had a voice in how their employers have navigated the pandemic, including negotiating for terms of furloughs or work-share arrangements to save jobs. This likely played a role in limiting overall job loss among unionized workers.”
Researchers at EPI also point out that another factor explaining these figures is that industries with lower unionization rates, like leisure and hospitality, have tended to experience the most job loss during the pandemic, while sectors with higher unionization rates, like the public sector, have tended to see less job loss.
Workday Minnesota
January 26, 2021
“Unionized workers have had a voice in how their employers have navigated the pandemic, including negotiating for terms of furloughs or work-share arrangements to save jobs,” said Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. “This likely played a role in limiting overall job loss among unionized workers.”
She attributed more than half the gain in the rate of union membership to job losses among nonunion workers.
Newsday
January 26, 2021
After decades of declining unionization, in the middle of a pandemic, “the share of the workforce that’s represented by a union jumped up, from 11.6 percent to 12.1 percent,” said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute.
Shierholz said more than 20 million workers lost their jobs last year, union and non-union alike. But she said union workers “lost fewer jobs than their nonunion counterparts. And so the unionization rate actually rose.”
She said unions successfully negotiated furlough and work-share arrangements to preserve jobs.
NPR Marketplace
January 26, 2021
Advocates have also noted the policy’s potential to cut into racial and gender inequity. In cheering the Raise the Wage Act on Tuesday, the left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute said 23% of workers who would benefit from the policy are Black or Latina women.
CNBC
January 26, 2021
Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which played a pivotal role in backing the Fight for $15, sees considerable momentum behind a $15 minimum.
…
“A $15 minimum is the single most concrete way to reduce racial inequality, put money in people’s pockets and make material change in people’s lives,” Henry said. The Economic Policy Institute, a progressive thinktank, found that raising the minimum to $15 would help 25% of Black workers, 19.1% of Hispanic workers, 13.1% of White workers and 10.8% of Asian workers.
The Guardian
January 26, 2021
“A few years ago you hardly heard about college graduates taking unpaid internships,” the Economic Policy Institute’s Ross Eisenbrey told The New York Times in 2012, a statement that now feels bleakly quaint. “But now I’ve even heard of people taking unpaid internships after graduating from Ivy League schools.”
The New Republic
January 26, 2021
Nationally, 3,878,000 Americans were considered long-term unemployed (having gone six months without work while looking for work) as of December. That number accounts for fully a third of all unemployed Americans, and the Economic Policy Institute’s Elise Gould tells Bloomberg the percentage is “going to be continuing to rise.”
Grub Street
January 26, 2021
The last time the federal government raised the minimum wage was more than 11 years ago. It’s the longest span of time without an increase in just over 80 years. Now that President Biden is in office and Democrats control the House and Senate, a proposed $15 an hour minimum wage looks possible. But the question still lingers, especially in a pandemic: will this harm or hurt the economy? David Cooper, a senior economic analyst and deputy director of the Economic Analysis and Research Network for the Economic Policy Institute, talks to the Standard.
Texas Standard
January 26, 2021