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
Connecticut has a serious income disparity problem: Last year, the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington D.C., ranked Connecticut third in income inequality based on 2015 data. But Needleman believes that economic disparities can’t be fixed in the state by increasing taxes on the wealthiest.
Zip06.com
August 6, 2019
A study last year by the Economic Policy Institute says membership in New York’s top 1 percent requires you to make more than $550,000 per year. But to really be considered part of the club, you’d have to be making closer to the average of $2.2 million.
The Riverdale Press
August 6, 2019
Another report from the Economic Policy Institute — Lower Relative Pay and High Incidence of Moonlighting Play a Role in the Teacher Shortage, Particularly in High-poverty Schools (May 9, 2019) — states:
New Age
August 6, 2019
The unrest stems in part from state cuts that have squeezed school budgets and teacher pay. An analysis last year from the Economic Policy Institute found that until the mid-1990s, teachers were paid nearly as much as other educated workers, but in 2017, they made 18.7 percent less.
The Washington Post
August 6, 2019
“We absolutely need to take note of this. Teachers have legitimate grievances. This indicates we’re going to see continued agitation,” said Lawrence Mishel, a labor market economist who studies teacher compensation at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank supported partially by teachers’ unions.
Ed Week
August 6, 2019
This statistic is among multiple jaw-droppers contained in a new Colorado-centric report from the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit that stresses its bipartisan nature. And Elise Gould, a senior economist for EPI, notes that the strain such expenses place on Coloradans crosses demographic lines.
Westword
August 6, 2019