Media clips
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Minimum-wage laws are among the most common preemption laws. As the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute writes in a report released this weekend, 25 states have passed laws preempting local salary increases since 1999, more than half of them in the last five years.
The Atlantic August 30, 2017 -
The picture is not pretty for minimum wage workers, many of whom work in the nonprofit sector and in the service industry. Childcare workers, domestic workers, nursing home aides, and fast food employees often face the most impact from this kind of back-and-forth between city and state government. According to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based research nonprofit, a report released Saturday said that Republican-controlled state legislatures increasingly use pre-emption laws to supersede local law. The report pointed to 33 labor and employment pre-emption laws passed by state governments since 2010. Examples from this report were cited by the Washington Post:
Nonprofit Quarterly August 30, 2017 -
We will continue to track these developments (and our work is made much easier by the invaluable Perkins Project run by the Economic Policy Institute). It is, at this point, no great insight to recognize Trump’s hypocrisy. But on Labor Day, it is nevertheless essential to document the damage his administration is doing to the American workforce.
The Washington Post August 30, 2017 -
CEO pay keeps growing faster than worker wages. These 7 charts show why that’s a problem for the US.
Imagine what you’d do with a million dollars. What about $10 million, roughly the annual salary of a CEO like Apple’s Tim Cook? Then think: What would you do with $89 million, the value of company stock a Monday SEC filing showed Cook has just received — or the more than $40 million he’s cashed in, according to CNNMoney? Whether or not Cook eventually gives away most of his wealth to charity, as he has pledged to in the past, his compensation figures remain staggering. And he’s not alone among CEOs, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, which found that CEOs at the 350 largest U.S. companies made 271 times what the average employee earned in 2016. These figures, shown in context over time below, demonstrate how just how stark income inequality has grown between top-earning executives and rank-and-file workers. “CEO compensation is still near or at historic highs,” EPI research assistant Jessica Schieder told Mic in an email. (whole story)
Mic August 30, 2017 -
Fifteen states passed bills to pre-empt labor legislation between January 2016 and July 2017, according to a report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio enacted legislation to pre-empt minimum wage hikes. The report noted that Missouri’s pre-emption law, which takes effect today, will stop St. Louis from enacting 2015 legislation that raised the city’s minimum wage to $11 by 2018. Arkansas, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio and South Carolina enacted legislation to pre-empt paid leave bills. Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio and Tennessee enacted legislation to pre-empt predictable scheduling legislation. Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin enacted legislation to pre-empt laws that require the use of project labor agreements and the payment of prevailing wage to workers on public construction projects.
Politico August 29, 2017 -
Missouri is not alone. A new report from the Economic Policy Institute says that such preemption laws have been in use since 2010, when Republicans began to witness successful campaigns to raise wages across the nation. In the past year and a half, 15 states have passed laws preempting advances in minimum wage and other labor standards like paid leave and fair scheduling laws, a rate that EPI calls “unprecedented.”
Splinter News August 29, 2017 -
Since the start of 2016, 15 states have passed 27 laws pre-empting local labor standards, according a study released Monday by the liberal Economic Policy Institute. That is thanks to the GOP’s strong advantage in statehouses across the country. Currently, the GOP controls 33 governorships and 67 of the 98 partisan legislative chambers. In 24 states, Republicans control the governor’s office and both state legislative chambers. “[C]onservative state legislatures are now using pre-emption to eliminate the authority of a lower level of government to regulate a certain issue. In practice, these laws are being used to strip authority from local governments who seek to increase protections for workers; the laws do so by prohibiting these local governments from increasing their labor/employment standards above the state floor,” said Marni von Wilpert, EPI’s associate labor counsel.
The Washington Examiner August 29, 2017 -
State legislatures are increasingly using preemption laws to block local-level measures to set higher minimum-wage levels, require paid sick leave and other workplace ordinances, according to a study by a left-leaning think tank. Fifteen states have passed 27 laws to preempt local labor and employment standards since the beginning of 2016, the Economic Policy Institute said in a study released on Saturday. States had passed 49 such laws in the previous 20 years, the report said. (Appears to be whole story, but pay walled)
Reuters August 29, 2017 -
The racial divide in Kansas City and across the U.S. is not just the result of individual prejudice, and developers like J.C. Nichols. We’ll discuss this and more, with author Richard Rothstein, who’s coming to Kansas City soon to talk about his new book, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.
Plus, is Kansas City’s art scene homogenous? One outgoing artist weighs in.
Guests:
- Richard Rothstein, author, researcher, Economic Policy Institute
- Lynnette Miranda, Chicago artist, Artists of Color Alliance
KCUR August 29, 2017 -
Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, said that doesn’t mean every young American is a fleeting hire. At the start of their careers, people are still figuring out what they like and what they’re good at, she said. And in a healthy economy, a job change generally leads to higher wages. “There is this narrative that millennials are jumping around a lot,” Shierholz said. “But moving around at the beginning of your career is not a new story. There’s more turnover than most people realize in the day-to-day labor market.” … In the meantime, the EPI’s Shierholz said, people should remember that while quitting is tough on employers, it can be great for workers. Workers voluntarily leaving jobs signifies to economists that they’re chasing better opportunities. “It feels like every generation gets pegged with an unflattering narrative when they’re young,” she said.
The Washington Post August 28, 2017