Maine’s minimum wage will go up from $10 an hour to $11 a hour on Jan. 1, as yearly increases approved by voters in 2016 continue. Maine is among the 22 states and Washington, D.C. that have increased the effective minimum wage since January 2014, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C nonprofit think tank.
MaineBiz
January 4, 2019
SPRINT-T-MOBILE MERGER: National-security officials okayed T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint Monday, The Wall Street Journal reports. While the deal still needs approval from antitrust authorities, “executives have said they expect that process to end in the first half of next year,” according to the Journal. If the merger is approved, the U.S. wireless market will be reduced to three major players, including AT&T and Verizon, leaving retail wireless workers fewer opportunities for employment. Researchers at the Economic Policy Institute and the Roosevelt institute, two left-leaning think tanks, estimate that their average weekly earnings would decline 1-3 percent in most affected labor markets, and as much as 7 percent in the hardest hit markets. More from the Journal here; read the paper here.
Politico
January 4, 2019
Should the merger be approved, the majority of retail workers in the wireless service industry would see their weekly earnings drop by 1% to 3%, but could decline as much as 7%, according to a study released Monday. The effect would also reach retail employees at authorized dealers and its competitors Verizon and AT&T. The study was done by Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit and nonpartisan group that aims to include low- and middle-income workers in policy discussions, as a way to draw attention to how the merger would trickle down. (Whole story)
Fortune
January 4, 2019
The Economic Policy Institute, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., that is generally aligned with labor causes and considered to be left-leaning, has estimated that the increase will give approximately 677,000 workers in Missouri a raise. The group also says low-wage workers will earn an additional $870 million in wages between now and 2023.
The Joplin Globe
January 4, 2019
Today, a new report published by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute is projecting that most sales employees across the industry — that includes AT&T, Verizon and many smaller carriers — could be signed on for weekly pay of 1 to 3 percent less than current rates on average. Today, a new report published by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute is projecting that most sales employees across the industry — that includes AT&T, Verizon and many smaller carriers — could be signed on for weekly pay of 1 to 3 percent less than current rates on average. (Whole story)
Pocket Now
January 4, 2019
According to a recent national survey by the Economic Policy Institute, the average income of the top one percent in the Empire State is $2,202,489 while the average income for the bottom 99 percent is $49,617.
Salon
January 4, 2019
The earning Ridester has come up with in its report closely matches what the Economic Policy Institute(EPI) revealed in May of 2018.
Just as in the Ridester report, the EPI was looking to offer more clarity with, “A framework for understanding various pay and size concepts and a common terminology.”
Small Business Trends
January 4, 2019
Because the unemployment rates are so low in these cities, city officials said many of their Amazon employees were not previously unemployed, but instead came from other jobs. Despite the fact that Amazon creates new jobs in the areas it develops in, a February report from the Economic Policy Institute found that Amazon centers created little to no net job growth because the jobs created were offset by job losses in other industries.
Idaho Press
January 4, 2019
In a study Price co-authored for the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute, researchers found that Florida has the second largest income inequality gap in the country. In Hillsborough County, the top 1 percent of its residents earns 28.7 percent more than the bottom 99.
WUSF
January 4, 2019
NPR’s Audie Cornish speaks with David Cooper, senior economic analyst for the Economic Policy Institute, about minimum wage increases in 2019. (Whole story)
NPR
January 3, 2019