Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), told Insider that there’s a “theoretical horror story” of businesses hiring less — and thereby hurting the lowest-paid workers — when the minimum wage is increased. He said that those effects are smaller or even nonexistent in the real world.
“What happens is that yes, it is true that when you raise the minimum wage employers hire fewer low wage workers, that is correct,” Zipperer said. “On the other hand, the factor that’s really offsetting that is that, even though employers are hiring fewer workers, fewer workers are leaving their jobs.”
Business Insider
January 25, 2021
The Paris News
January 25, 2021
Overall, Biden faces a dilemma, said Robert E. Scott, a senior economist at the left-of-center Economic Policy Institute.
Scott described Biden’s agenda as “broadly progressive,” especially when paired with the $1.9 trillion coronavirus and economic relief proposal he has released. But its chances of enactment would fall if Biden is serious about securing bipartisan support, he said.
Politifact
January 22, 2021
Seen by labor advocates as someone who was focused on hampering the enforcement of rules he was sworn to uphold, Robb had brought a staunchly employer-friendly approach to the board. He sought to curtail union use of “Scabby the rat” (the inflatable used by some unions during strikes), urged the board to limit employees’ protected union activity, and sought to restrict employees’ use of company email to discuss workplace issues, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute.
Washington Post
January 22, 2021
And Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said that was problematic before, but with the pandemic, “it’s really shown us that there are gaps in our regular unemployment system that you can drive a truck through. We do have the ability to close them, like the existence of this program shows us that we can do it.”
Marketplace
January 22, 2021
“Sharon brings tremendous expertise, knowledge, and integrity to this important work,” said Thea Lee, president of the left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute. “OIRA has the potential to be a roadblock or an essential partner in ensuring that appropriate regulatory policy fairly balances diverse viewpoints and interests. Sharon is the right candidate for this critical position at this moment in history.”
Bloomberg
January 22, 2021
The Covid-19 pandemic has only accelerated this questioning—a return to an understanding of work as a site of struggle, not liberation. It has also introduced a new kind of laborer: the “essential worker,” tying together workers who typically are not seen as having a shared fate, from grocery store cashiers to nurses, food app delivery drivers to teachers. Workers in meatpacking plants, in Amazon warehouses, in critical infrastructure have been recognized as fundamental in maintaining society as we know it, even as their labor is demeaned and their lives endangered. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates that there are more than 55 million workers across 12 industries who now share this label: 70 percent didn’t have a college degree; one in eight were covered by a collective bargaining agreement. In frontline essential work, the Center for Economic and Policy Research found, women and people of color are overrepresented (disaggregated data on women of color was not presented). They also found that one-third of essential workers live in low-income families.
The New Republic
January 22, 2021
New York Times
January 22, 2021
“The top 1 percent of households claimed about 83 percent of the benefits of that tax law. There are very few African Americans in the top 1 percent,” said Valerie Wilson, director of Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy. “When we look at the economic well being of African Americans, we have to look not just at absolute progress, but at relative progress, and there has been absolutely no gains on that front.”
Washington Post
January 22, 2021
Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, praised Biden’s plan shortly after it was unveiled last week.
“Most importantly, this package is at the scale of the problems it is aiming to solve. To support the spending and investment needed to fully repair the labor market, we estimated in early December that roughly $3 trillion was needed. Less than one-third of this amount was included in the end-of-year recovery package, and the Biden administration’s proposal fills in the remaining amount,” Bivens said in a statement.
Newsweek
January 22, 2021
Sources
Economic Policy Institute, “Minimum Wage Tracker,” Jan. 7, 2021
Politifact
January 22, 2021
Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think-tank, argued that the CBO’s estimated job losses from enacting a $15 minimum wage are “overstated.”
“The crucial fact is that an employment decline as a result of a minimum wage increase doesn’t necessarily mean any worker is actually worse off,” she wrote in a July 2019 report. “For a wide variety of reasons, a sizable share of low-wage workers routinely cycle in and out of employment; each quarter, more than 20% of the lowest-wage workers leave or start a job.”
MarketWatch
January 22, 2021
And Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said that was problematic before, but with the pandemic, “it’s really shown us that there are gaps in our regular unemployment system that you can drive a truck through. We do have the ability to close them, like the existence of this program shows us that we can do it.”
Marketplace
January 22, 2021
“Sharon brings tremendous expertise, knowledge, and integrity to this important work,” said Thea Lee, president of the left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute. “OIRA has the potential to be a roadblock or an essential partner in ensuring that appropriate regulatory policy fairly balances diverse viewpoints and interests. Sharon is the right candidate for this critical position at this moment in history.”
Bloomberg
January 22, 2021
The Covid-19 pandemic has only accelerated this questioning—a return to an understanding of work as a site of struggle, not liberation. It has also introduced a new kind of laborer: the “essential worker,” tying together workers who typically are not seen as having a shared fate, from grocery store cashiers to nurses, food app delivery drivers to teachers. Workers in meatpacking plants, in Amazon warehouses, in critical infrastructure have been recognized as fundamental in maintaining society as we know it, even as their labor is demeaned and their lives endangered. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates that there are more than 55 million workers across 12 industries who now share this label: 70 percent didn’t have a college degree; one in eight were covered by a collective bargaining agreement. In frontline essential work, the Center for Economic and Policy Research found, women and people of color are overrepresented (disaggregated data on women of color was not presented). They also found that one-third of essential workers live in low-income families.
The New Republic
January 22, 2021
“The top 1 percent of households claimed about 83 percent of the benefits of that tax law. There are very few African Americans in the top 1 percent,” said Valerie Wilson, director of Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy. “When we look at the economic well being of African Americans, we have to look not just at absolute progress, but at relative progress, and there has been absolutely no gains on that front.”
Washington Post
January 22, 2021
New York Times
January 22, 2021
Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, praised Biden’s plan shortly after it was unveiled last week.
“Most importantly, this package is at the scale of the problems it is aiming to solve. To support the spending and investment needed to fully repair the labor market, we estimated in early December that roughly $3 trillion was needed. Less than one-third of this amount was included in the end-of-year recovery package, and the Biden administration’s proposal fills in the remaining amount,” Bivens said in a statement.
Newsweek
January 22, 2021
Sources
Economic Policy Institute, “Minimum Wage Tracker,” Jan. 7, 2021
Politifact
January 22, 2021
Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think-tank, argued that the CBO’s estimated job losses from enacting a $15 minimum wage are “overstated.”
“The crucial fact is that an employment decline as a result of a minimum wage increase doesn’t necessarily mean any worker is actually worse off,” she wrote in a July 2019 report. “For a wide variety of reasons, a sizable share of low-wage workers routinely cycle in and out of employment; each quarter, more than 20% of the lowest-wage workers leave or start a job.”
MarketWatch
January 22, 2021
New York Times
January 22, 2021
Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, praised Biden’s plan shortly after it was unveiled last week.
“Most importantly, this package is at the scale of the problems it is aiming to solve. To support the spending and investment needed to fully repair the labor market, we estimated in early December that roughly $3 trillion was needed. Less than one-third of this amount was included in the end-of-year recovery package, and the Biden administration’s proposal fills in the remaining amount,” Bivens said in a statement.
Newsweek
January 22, 2021
Sources
Economic Policy Institute, “Minimum Wage Tracker,” Jan. 7, 2021
Politifact
January 22, 2021
Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think-tank, argued that the CBO’s estimated job losses from enacting a $15 minimum wage are “overstated.”
“The crucial fact is that an employment decline as a result of a minimum wage increase doesn’t necessarily mean any worker is actually worse off,” she wrote in a July 2019 report. “For a wide variety of reasons, a sizable share of low-wage workers routinely cycle in and out of employment; each quarter, more than 20% of the lowest-wage workers leave or start a job.”
MarketWatch
January 22, 2021
“It’s a disaster. Those kids who have already got the worst of Covid and its consequences are the ones who are going to face a larger lack of sufficient, and sufficiently qualified, teachers,” said Emma Garcia, an education economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington. “It’s going to have negative consequences immediately and it’s going to take them longer to be able to catch up.”
New York Times
January 21, 2021
Coronavirus has exacerbated many harsh and long-standing inequities in our state. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black and Latinx people are suffering disproportionately higher infection and death rates from COVID-19. Black workers also make up the majority of essential workers in several sectors, including food, agriculture, and industrial, according to a recent Economic Policy Institute report. These already vulnerable workers are frontline heroes who put their health and safety at risk to protect ours. Yet despite their incredible sacrifices, many of these workers earn minimum wage, without access to earned sick time, hazard pay, or death benefits.
West Orlando News
January 21, 2021
El rescate de la pandemia es urgente. La COVID deja ya 402,000 muertos ya y todo indica que no se ha llegado al punto de inflexión para la mejora. La de la COVID es una crisis económica que la BLS (Oficina de Estadísticas Laborales) dice que mantiene a más de 10 millones en el desempleo, aunque el daño es mayor. El Economic Policy Institute cifra en 26.8 millones de trabajadores los que carecen de empleo definitiva o temporalmente o con menos horas de trabajo y/o sueldo, algo más del 15% de la población en edad de trabajar.
El Diario
January 21, 2021