The left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute attempted to fill the data void by producing an analysis of its own. EPI predicts the proposed rule on tips would lead to $5.8 billion changing hands from workers to businesses, rather than being redistributed among employees as the DOL leadership suggested.
Bloomberg BNA
February 1, 2018
The numbers reflect a legacy of racial inequality, said Valerie Wilson, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute. Research has shown persistent discrimination in hiring — and firing, she said. “Even when we look at people with the same levels of education,” Wilson said, “we typically find that the black unemployment rate is really close to, if not higher than, double the white unemployment rate.” Networks are also important, Wilson said. “If you live in an impoverished community and few people in your neighborhood have a job, then your network has a lot of holes in it,” she said. “It’s more difficult to be aware of and get connected to job opportunities.”
Marketplace
January 31, 2018
Democrats rejected the proposal out of hand, but that doesn’t mean Republicans will reconsider E-Verify. In the context of a Dreamer deal, maximalist Democrats are just as opposed to internal enforcement as they are to changes to border security or chain migration. Daniel Costa, a policy analyst for the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, says Democrats “oppose the measure in the context of not legalizing the current illegal population.” (Daniel quoted throughout)
National Review
January 31, 2018
The other big topic is regulations. Trump and the GOP have managed to fight, stall, or roll back a host of rules. They’re making it easier for employers to run unsafe workplaces, and are trying to make it easier for restaurant owners to steal workers’ tips. They’re making it harder for workers to claim overtime pay, or to sure their employers for violations. All of these changes will lower Americans’ pay and worsen their work conditions in coming years, while making their lives less financially secure and more chaotic. (Also links to nominal wage tracker)
The Week
January 31, 2018
It’s easier to demonize people — especially foreigners — than machines, the children of invention. What’s more, imports from countries with cheaper labor, weaker worker protections and threadbare environmental standards will be seen as unfair. Thea Lee, a former deputy chief of staff of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. who now heads the Economic Policy Institute, notes that workers’ anger is directed against “the particular set of rules about globalization that we chose,” which spreads benefits among financiers and corporations while disregarding workers.
The New York Times
January 30, 2018
“There are three major indicators of economic well-being by which we commonly measure racial economic inequality—median hourly wage, median household income and median family net worth or wealth,” wrote Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, earlier this month. “If taken alone, each of these measures might lead you to draw dramatically different conclusions about the current state of racial economic inequality.” (Valerie quoted throughout)
CBS News Moneywatch
January 30, 2018
“He’s reaping the rewards for staying the course of sound decisions made by the Obama administration,” Janelle Jones, an economic analyst at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, told me Monday during a phone interview. “There’s nothing in [Trump’s] policies that have led to a quick turnaround in black unemployment over the past 12 months.” (Janelle quoted throughout)
Think Progress
January 30, 2018
Federal regulations save the government more than $100 billion per year, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. A new report that reviews the Trump administration’s de-regulatory agenda cites OMB data from 2009 to 2015 for the claim. “The Trump administration and congressional Republicans have been successful in repealing many existing regulations and making it more difficult for government agencies to effectively regulate industries,” the researchers write. The report argues that regulations “have a modestly positive or neutral effect on employment” by creating jobs in new fields. “Factories making lead paint shut down after regulations banning lead paint were issued in the late 1970s, but enterprises manufacturing lead-free alternatives arose in their place,” the report says.
Politico Pro
January 30, 2018
This is not, incidentally, because an increase in the labor supply has no adverse effects for anyone. Rather, as Heidi Shierholz of the liberal Economic Policy Institute emphasizes in her overview of the literature, it’s that “earlier immigrants are the group that’s most adversely affected by immigration” because they are the people whose skill sets are most likely to put them in direct competition with new immigrants. Across a range of estimates, the effects on wages “tend to be very small, and on average, modestly positive.”
VOX
January 30, 2018
As the Economic Policy Institute reports, 76 percent of the increase in union membership in 2017 was workers under 35 years old, even though this group accounts for less than 40 percent of total employment. But this attitude reflects their work experience, not their entitlement. Millennials earn 20 percent less than boomers did at the same age. Far more of these individuals work in “pink-collar” sectors—education and health care, sectors that have doubled in size since 1990 and which contain the country’s most militant unions—than in the niche digital-media sector that often draws attention. In truth, this is a story about how the erosion of working conditions is leading student debt-saddled employees to identify with the working rather than the managerial class. (EPI cited throughout)
The Nation
January 30, 2018