In a new report, the progressive think tank Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found evidence that employers are increasingly brazen in seeking to obstruct workers’ attempts to unionize. Records of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which oversees private-sector labor rights and union elections, reveal that in more than 40% of the 3,260 union elections during 2016 and 2017, employers have been charged with unfair labor practices aimed at undermining electoral procedures and retaliating against pro-union workers.
Truthout
December 17, 2019
The Economic Policy Institute nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank this week published a series of telling charts that “paint a picture of increasingly inadequate retirement savings for successive generations of Americans — and large disparities by income, race, ethnicity, education, and marital status.”
MarketWatch
December 17, 2019
The rule “will make it harder for workers who want a union in their workplace to demand a fair election,” Celine McNicholas of the Economic Policy Institute said in a statement. She added that “the NLRB acted without providing the public with notice or the opportunity to comment.”
LaborPress.org
December 17, 2019
As Celine McNicholas, director of government affairs and labor counsel at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), put it in a statement: “This is just the most recent example of the Trump NLRB elevating corporate interests above those of working people.”
Common Dreams
December 17, 2019
From 1979 to 2018, according to the Economic Policy Institute, Americans’ hourly output went up about 70%, while the hourly wages and benefits of the typical worker essentially stagnated, increasing less than 12% after adjusting for inflation. A study published last month by the Brookings Institution showed that 44% of all U.S. workers ages 18 to 64—53 million people—now hold low-wage jobs, with median annual earnings of just $17,950.
The Wall Street Journal
December 13, 2019
The Idaho Mountain Express reports that Blaine County workers, who sustain the multi-million dollar mansions and glitz of Ketchum and Sun Valley, have seen wages fall to their lowest point since 2005, even as rent has continued to increase. And the Economic Policy Institute calls Blaine the “most unequal county” in the state.
Idaho Statesman
December 13, 2019
Compounding the bottom tier wages of Florida teachers is that the teaching profession has been falling behind comparable professions, requiring the same level of education, for many years. According to Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, the comparability gap of two percent in 1994 between teachers and comparable professions has risen to 17 percent.
Citrus County Chronicle
December 13, 2019
Twenty-six states and Washington, D.C., have changed their minimum wage laws since 2014, according to the Economic Policy Institute, which produces a minimum wage tracker. States that will gradually increase to $15 an hour include New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and California, as well as Washington, D.C. Several other states are on their way to increasing their minimum wage to $12 or $13.50.
Sun Sentinel
December 13, 2019
According to the Economic Policy Institute, wage theft in the U.S. totals $15 billion. While wage theft is very prevalent, it is very often unreported. The part that troubles me most, not only as a worker but as a human, is that low-wage workers are the most frequent victims of wage theft. The workers who work paycheck-to-paycheck are a lot of those victims.
The Montgomery Herald
December 13, 2019
On the website of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, there is a detailed compilation of hourly wage levels by race, ethnicity and gender. It shows that among workers with no more than high school degrees, white men saw their inflation-adjusted hourly wages rise from $21.22 in 2016 to $21.88 in 2018. Sixty-six cents an hour isn’t much of a raise. But in an era of wage stagnation, it is something.”
Salon
December 13, 2019