Teachers have never been particularly well paid, but in recent decades their financial situation has gotten remarkably worse, mostly for two major reasons. The first is that pay has not grown, concludes a recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, which finds that relative teacher wages “have been eroding for over half a century.”
The Atlantic
July 30, 2019
Heidi Shierholz is quoted.
WOAI-AM
July 30, 2019
Recent analysis from the Economic Policy Institute found that raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour would benefit nearly 27,700 workers in Northwest Oregon. The Raise the Wage Act would raise wages for up to 33 million workers across the country. Today an individual working 40 hours per week and earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour earns only $15,080 annually, putting a family of two below the federal poverty level. Gradually raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour would lift millions of families out of poverty, address persistent wage gaps, help reduce poverty rates, and support working families.
The Chief
July 30, 2019
New Yorkers saw their minimum hourly wage salaries go up at the end of 2018. According to the Economic Policy Institute, about 464,000 minimum wage workers saw their paychecks increase, though how much depended on where one lives in the state.
Patch
July 30, 2019
Others, like the Economic Policy Institute, argue that America needs a $15 minimum wage, because workers deserve it. It would raise the pay for millions of workers who need the wage increase.
Newsmax
July 30, 2019
“The real (inflation-adjusted) minimum wage is now roughly 30 percent lower than it was in 1968, and it has been more than 10 years since Congress raised the minimum wage,” according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a leftwing think tank. The EPI argues inflation and growing costs of living (healthcare, housing, education) have made the current minimum wage of $7.25 insufficient to support a decent standard of living.
Citizen Truth
July 30, 2019
The Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, recently released a report noting that the United States is in the longest period in its history without a minimum wage hike since the earnings floor was created. The report notes that the spending power of a minimum wage worker is 17 percent less today than a decade ago, and 31 percent less than it was in 1968.
Northcoast Journal
July 30, 2019
Originally starting at 25 cents, the minimum wage has been raised nine times over the last 81 years, according to the national nonprofit Economic Policy Institute. While inflation, cost of living and other financial burdens have increased since the last increase in 2007, the existing minimum wage has created problems for many low-income Americans, the institute said.
Journal Record
July 30, 2019
The Raise the Wage Act, which applies to all federal employees, would affect an additional 33 million workers, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. These raises represent the difference between extreme financial hardship and relative security for huge swaths of the population. Their transformative benefits would fall disproportionately to women and people of color, and lift millions out of poverty.
Jacobin
July 30, 2019