The Washington Post
August 27, 2018
Today we bring you a conversation with Celine McNicholas, the director of labor law and policy at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). In this interview, McNicholas discusses EPI’s latest report, which provides a blueprint for protecting all workers, whose rights are being attacked at every opportunity.
Truthout
August 27, 2018
Economic Policy Institute promotes First Day Fairness project:
First Day Fairness is the right of all workers to a fair system of work from their first day on the job. U.S. workers are essential contributors to economic growth in the U.S. and they deserve a fair share of that growth and a fair say in their working conditions. First Day Fairness requires a rebalancing of our current system to ensure that workers’ interests and concerns are served.
Daily Kos
August 27, 2018
Earlier today, the inestimable Meteor Blades gave a shout-out to the Economic Policy Institute’s new “First Day Fairness” project.
It’s a project we should all get behind, in my opinion. By that, I mean: all Daily Kos readers, all elected Democrats, and all soon-to-be elected Democrats. (Can’t wait for November 6!)
If you haven’t had time to read or glance through the detailed proposal, here’s a summary of the main points. Celine McNicholas, Samantha Sanders, and Heidi Shierholz, the authors of the report, argue that if we want to effectively counter our decades-long national slide into worsening inequality and “the erosion of workers’ bargaining power,” we will have to address each of the following problems:
Daily Kos
August 27, 2018
Meanwhile, a report by the Economic Policy Institute found that chief executives, flush with stock options, are making out like bandits. Last year, when stock options were taken into account, the chiefs at the 350 largest U.S. companies received an average of $18.9 million for their services, a nearly 18 percent increase over the previous year, and 72 percent since 2009. Nice work if you can get it.
Washington Post
August 27, 2018
Considering that the Economic Policy Institute estimates that average CEO pay is 271 times the nearly $58,000 annual average pay of the typical American worker, we should hold the C-Suite to a higher personal maintenance standard.
Thrive Global
August 27, 2018
According to the Economic Policy Institute’s cost-of-living calculator, the modern version of my dad wouldn’t do so well in the relatively low-cost Simi Valley area. The area is part of the Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura metro area, where a basket of necessities—that includes the price of fair-market housing, food, childcare, transportation, health care and other core costs—for a family of five is calculated at $11,131 per month. So for a family like ours to attain what the EPI describes as a “modest but adequate standard of living” that is a realistic “measure of economic security in America” in 2017, it would need to earn about $133,600 per year.
Fast Company
August 27, 2018
Family Promise of Forsyth County takes what it calls a “community-based approach” to the situation, partnering with local churches to house families for a week at a time. They provide a place to eat, shower and sleep. They help parents find more consistent or improved work, sometimes tweaking resumes or conducting practice interviews. They find childcare and sometimes provide transportation. Anything to help struggling families in a county that is the second-priciest place to live in Georgia, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute released this past March.
Forsynth County News
August 27, 2018
EPI ROLLS OUT POLICY PLAN: The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute released today a new policy agenda premised on the idea that employment rules are “rigged against working people from their first day on the job.” The agenda calls for an easier path to join a union, a ban on “right to work” laws, a higher minimum wage, and access to paid sick leave, among other demands. “Importantly, this is a practical agenda that progressive candidates could run on and a progressive Congress could pass on Day 1,” the group said in a related announcement. Read the plan here.
Politico Pro
August 22, 2018
EPI TO FED: DON’T RAISE RATES: The Federal Reserve should refrain from hiking interest rates, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute’s Josh Bivens and Ben Zipperer argue in a report released this morning. The pair contend the status quo will drive down unemployment and increase upward pressure on wages. “An extended period of low unemployment — sometimes called a ‘high-pressure labor market’ — could deliver large benefits by boosting wages and healing the economic damage done by the Great Recession and the slow recovery following it,” Bivens and Zipperer write. More from EPI here.
Politico Pro
August 21, 2018