Wage gains have been strongest this year for workers earning $12 to $14 an hour and those at the top end of the pay scale who earn more than $60 an hour, according to a new analysis from the liberal Economic Policy Institute.
Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette
August 6, 2019
Executive compensation standards are off the charts for some U.S. execs, with CEOs at America’s largest firms making 312 times the annual average pay of the typical worker, according to a 2017 study by the Economic Policy Institute. And the big paychecks are far from the only perk.
MSN Money
August 6, 2019
According to researchers at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, state employees in Nevada earn between 1 and 13 percent less than their private-sector peers in total compensation, and their health care benefits are less generous compared to state workers in other parts of the country. Workers who advocated in Carson City for the legislation, however, went to great lengths to say that it was not just about wages and benefits, but also things like working conditions and safety. Rick McCann, head of the Nevada Association of Public Safety Officers, said for example that now his members can bargain over things like body-worn cameras and dashcams.
The Intercept
August 6, 2019
Demands in recent years by U.S. lawmakers to revalue the yuan have grown in direct proportion to the nation’s burgeoning trade deficit with China, which soared from $10 billion in 1990 to $315 billion in 2012. Critics of China’s currency policy claim that the undervalued yuan exacerbates global imbalances and costs jobs. According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute in 2011, the U.S. lost 2.7 million jobs – mainly in the manufacturing sector – between 2001(when China entered the WTO) and 2011, resulting in $37 billion in annual wage losses because these displaced skilled workers had to settle for jobs that paid much less.
Investopedia
August 6, 2019
Others agreed with the president. “It’s a good step and long overdue, because China has been guilty of massive currency manipulation for 20 years, and they certainly deserve to be called out,” said Robert Scott, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
The Washington Post
August 6, 2019
But earlier this year, the United States posted a trade deficit of about $900 billion, setting a record. America’s trade deficit with China is projected to balloon over the next several years, said Robert Scott, an economic expert at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. The value of the dollar has already been rising since last year.
The Washington Post
August 6, 2019
In the American political imagination, talk of the working class still conjures an image of gruff, salt-of-the-earth white men in the Rust Belt. While they’re certainly out there, at 59% of 25–64-year-olds, white people (and white men, especially) make up a declining share of the working class. The Economic Policy Institute projects that, by 2032, a majority of the American working class will be people of color. Women already make up nearly half of working-class adults in the country at 46%.
In These Times
August 6, 2019
The Economic Policy Institute, an economic-research organization, calls Scalia the “go-to lawyer for corporations wanting to avoid worker and consumer protections.”
The EPI refers to several cases, one in which Scalia opposed rules that would have required UPS and other employers “to pay for protective equipment needed to keep employees safe on the job.” He also challenged the DOL’s fiduciary rule that “safeguarded employee retirement security by requiring investment advisers are acting in the best interest of workers and do not have a conflict of interest.”
Human Resource Executive
August 6, 2019
AMHERST, Mass. – Economists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst along with colleagues from University College London and the Economic Policy Institute have found that the overall number of low-wage jobs remained essentially unchanged over the five years following increases to the minimum wage, and that affected low-wage workers overall saw a wage gain of 7 percent after a minimum wage increase. These spillovers extended up to $3 above the minimum wage and represent around 40 percent of the overall wage increase from minimum wage changes.
The research into the impacts of 138 prominent state-level minimum wage changes in the U.S. between 1979 and 2016 was conducted by Arindrajit Dube, professor of economics at UMass Amherst, Doruk Cengiz, a doctoral student in economics at UMass Amherst, Attila Lindner of University College London and Ben Zipperer of the Economic Policy Institute. Their report, “The Effect of Minimum Wages on Low-Wage Jobs,” was published in the August edition of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the highest ranked peer-reviewed publication in the field.
UMass Amherst
August 6, 2019
The Fed isn’t alone in concluding that low unemployment (3.7%) is attracting new workers. “There’s strong evidence that the tight labor market is drawing people in,” says Josh Bivens of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. He cites increases in the labor force participation rate for men and women aged 25 to 54, the prime-age workforce.
The Spokesman-Review
August 6, 2019