The black-white unemployment ratio does tend to shrink a bit when the economy is doing well, said Janelle Jones, an analyst with the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “When the national unemployment is pushed that low, it has a huge impact on who gets hired,” Jones said. “It forces employers to expand hiring networks.”
The Huffington Post
August 16, 2018
This era reached its peak about 65 years ago, when despite postwar labor disputes and the national disgrace that was Jim Crow, the booming US economy helped it get the Cold War off on the right foot. Producing what has become known as the Great Compression, the high tax rates of World War II and explosion of the union movement had already made America significantly more financially equal by the late 1940s and early 50s. In 1954, often brandished as the high-water mark for the American labor movement, the share of the total national income going to the top 10 percent of the population was “only” about 32 percent, according to an analysis by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. In 2012, by contrast, the top 10 percent nabbed 48 percent of all income, while just about 11 percent of workers were represented by a union.
VICE
August 15, 2018
Working, unionised black women, according to the Economic Policy Institute, “are paid 94.9% of what their black male counterparts make”, while non-union black women make “just 91% of their counterparts”. Another study by the Economic Policy Institute shows that “unions help raise the wages of women and black and Hispanic workers – whose wages have historically lagged behind those of white men … Black and Hispanic workers get a larger boost from unionization than their white counterparts”.
The Guardian
August 14, 2018
The American Prospect
August 14, 2018
Workers in the top 10th of the U.S. pay scale saw their wages jump 6.7 percent from 2009 to 2017, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Workers in the bottom 10 percent saw a boost of 7.7 percent, largely the result of a slew of minimum-wage increases passed on the city and state level. But for those in the middle, wages have been flat or even slightly down. African American workers, male workers and people who graduated from high school but never completed college have had an especially hard time.
The Washington Post
August 13, 2018
Imagine, however, that the government instead decided to use its prodding power to improve the lives and incomes of truck drivers. Officials could, for example, do more to crack down on companies that misclassify employees as contractors to avoid paying for expenses and guaranteeing a minimum wage. The government also ought to require that trucking companies and freight customers compensate drivers for every hour of work, including the hours spent picking up and dropping off loads. What’s more, Congress could pass a law making clear that regardless of how the industry pays drivers — whether on a per-hour or a per-mile basis — drivers are entitled to earn minimum wage and overtime for all of the hours they put in.
The New York Times
August 13, 2018
Unions call the laws the “right to work for less,” a knock backed up by research. The Economic Policy Institute, for one, says wages drop by 3.1 percent in right-to-work states. Weaker unions also mean weaker protections for all workers, union or not.
Chicago Sun Times
August 13, 2018
The Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that studies conditions for low- and middle-class Americans, listed Charlottesville is in the fifteenth most unequal county in the U.S. in a 2018 study.
Mic
August 13, 2018
According to the Economic Policy Institute, wages go down by 3.1% in right-to-work states. And it’s not just about wages: These laws kneecap working-class power, and in doing so, stack the odds in favor of those wealthy few who want to privatize our schools, cut taxes for the rich and further mangle our health care. Plus, declines in union membership compound racial and gender inequality. It’s no wonder that when people are asked what they want, they choose better pay and better jobs.
CNN
August 10, 2018