The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009, but state and local governments have enacted higher wage floors in recent years. Typically, they include specific annual raises for the first few years and then increases annually in amounts tied to inflation. “2013 is really when the current wave started,” David Cooper, a senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “There were already seven states that had automatic adjustments for inflation, primarily on the west coast.” Cooper’s organization general supports minimum wage hikes.
Bloomberg BNA
June 13, 2018
Many places have already gotten rid of the subminimum wage for tipped workers, including California, Minnesota, Hawaii, Montana, Oregon, Alaska, Washington, and Nevada, and a number of cities. According to the Economic Policy Institute, poverty rates for servers and bartenders are much lower in states that don’t allow a subminimum wage.
Think Progress
June 13, 2018
The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit, has published an explanation of the case and why it matters, saying: “If the court rules for Janus, it will likely have the most significant impact on workers’ freedom to organize and bargain collectively in 70 years.” Here is that piece, published on the website of the institute, which gave me permission to publish it.
The Washington Post
June 13, 2018
(U.S. Edition) President Donald Trump is preparing to meet with North Korean President Kim Jong-Un in Singapore. We’ll look at how much the area is spending to host the two leaders, and what both countries are hoping to get out of this meeting. Afterwards, we’ll recap this weekend’s G7 summit between various world leaders, which includes the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Germany. According to Ian Bremmer, founder of political risk consultancy the Eurasia Group, this was the geopolitical equivalent of Trump firing Comey. Plus: We talk with the Economic Policy Institute about new data showing the gig economy isn’t actually taking over the workforce. Today’s podcast is sponsored by Battelle (battelle.org/campaign/qi), Indeed (Indeed.com/marketplace), and Michigan Economic Development Corporation (planetm.michiganbusiness.org). (06/11/2018)
Marketplace
June 12, 2018
“What’s at stake with Janus is state and government workers’ ability to effectively collectively bargain,” said Celine McNicholas, the director of labor law and policy at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). As the law stands now in 22 states, state and local government employees who aren’t dues-paying members of a union are compelled to pay “fair-share” or “agency” fees for the union benefits they receive. (The other 28 states have “right-to-work” laws, which allow workers to decide whether or not to buy into unions.) (Celine, Julia and EPI data cited throughout)
CityLab
June 12, 2018
Arbitration has a long history, but its prevalence in the workplace is new. In 1995, only 7.6% of employers had instituted mandatory arbitration, according to a survey by the Government Accountability Office. Today 53.9% of nonunion companies have done so, per a survey last year commissioned by the Economic Policy Institute. This figure is sure to rise given the Supreme Court’s decision.
The Wall Street Journal
June 12, 2018
David Cooper is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute who has spent years studying the tipped minimum wage. “I don’t claim to be able to see the future and to say definitively what would happen if this should pass, but it’s not like there aren’t any other places that have done away with their lower tipped minimum wage,” he noted. “In those places, there still are restaurants, customers still tip when they go into those restaurants, and in fact, servers in those states make on average about 17 percent more per hour than tipped workers in states that have a lower minimum wage.”
The Intercept
June 12, 2018
Many economists question whether this poses a threat to national security, but, as trade expert at the Economic Policy Institute Robert Scott says, “The WTO can’t really force you to change your trade policy.” In fact, they have never ruled on such a case because either the tariff was dropped or the cases never moved forward. No previous case has been as significant as President Trump’s though.
The Inquistr
June 11, 2018
Lawrence Mishel, an economist for the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute and a long-time skeptic of the significance of the gig economy, said it wasn’t surprising that the report showed relatively little impact from online marketplaces. “A lot of this hype has been driven by the tech world believing that they are the center of the universe,” Mr. Mishel said. But Mr. Mishel said he was surprised by the slower growth in other areas. And he wasn’t the only one perplexed by the report.
The New York Times
June 11, 2018
“What this says to me is the vast majority of workers in the United States still have traditional jobs as their main source of income,” said Heidi Shierholz, a former chief economist at the Labor Department. “We should be spending most of our time thinking about boosting wages in traditional jobs so people don’t need a side hustle.”
The Washington Post
June 11, 2018