“The CEO compensation at the largest firms has grown by several orders of magnitude more quickly than those of regular workers, whose wages have remained relatively stagnant,” says Lawrence Mishel, distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute. “These executives push for exorbitant pay because it’s a measure to them of their value and standing, but I have a hard time believing they are three hundred times more valuable than a typical employee who is good at their job.”
Variety
May 1, 2019
I was also shocked at the frequency with which wage theft happens. Reputable studies from several years ago estimate that two-thirds of all low-wage workers in the country have experienced at least one form of wage theft. The amount of wages stolen each year in Minnesota may be in the hundreds of millions of dollars: nationally, the Economic Policy Institute has estimated that $50 billion a year is stolen in wage theft. That’s more than three times the value of all the goods stolen through robbery, burglary, larceny and auto theft combined.
Workday Minnesota
May 1, 2019
The numbers clearly back this up. A 2017 report by the Economic Policy Institute, Diversity in the New York City Union and Nonunion Construction Sectors, showed that more than half of unionized construction workers are people of color. Black workers in particular have a 5% higher share of employment than in the nonunion sector.
Crain’s New York Business
May 1, 2019
NAFTA may have been a dream for large corporations, but it was a nightmare for the working-class. Some 700,000 well-paying jobs were lost as a result of NAFTA according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Daily Caller
May 1, 2019
According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI):
- The average household aged 56-61 has amassed a $163,577 nest egg.
- Over the course of a 20-year retirement, $163,577 amounts to just $8,178 a year, or $681 a month, of income.
- The median savings for that age group is just $17,000, which means a large number of workers have far less than the average.
- An estimated 41% of households aged 55-64 have no retirement savings at all.
- An estimated 21% of married Social Security recipients and 43% of single recipients 65 and over-rely on their monthly benefit checks to provide at least 90% of their income.
Iris
May 1, 2019
Another meta-analysis comes in a new research paper by economists at the University of Massachusetts, University College London, and the Economic Policy Institute. They studied data from 138 cities and states that raised the minimum pay between 1979 and 2016 and found that low-wage workers received a 7 percent pay bump after the minimum wage law went into effect, but that there was little or no change in employment.
VOX
May 1, 2019
438,000: Estimated number of Oklahoma workers who would directly benefit if the minimum wage was increased to $15 by 2024. [Source: Economic Policy Institute]
Oklahoma Policy Institute
May 1, 2019
While arbitration is often used to settle disputes outside the legal system, many see it as an erosion of workers’ rights. According to the Economic Policy Institute, outcomes obtained through that method are, on average, weaker and success is less likely than when employees bring litigation to the courts. But, employees are generally forced to waive their rights to sue, to participate in a class action lawsuit, or to appeal when they sign contracts containing arbitration clauses.
The Consumer Warning Network
May 1, 2019
American wages have been slow to recover since the 2008 recession overall, but teacher salaries remain notably low. The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute reported on Wednesday that weekly wages for public-school teachers have steadily declined since the mid-1990s, even as wages rose for comparably educated professionals in other industries. Teachers earned, on average, 21.4 percent less than other college graduates in 2018, up from 5.3 percent in 1993. States simply aren’t paying new teachers enough to continue to attract people to the field, even though a national teacher shortage is gradually becoming more severe.
New York Magazine
May 1, 2019
* -$21 — the amount by which average, inflation-adjusted weekly wages of U.S. public school teachers decreased between 1996 and 2018 (Source: Economic Policy Institute: The teacher weekly wage penalty).
The Courier-Tribune
May 1, 2019