Removing all of the chain stores, he said, “raises a big red caution flag about the representativeness of their sample.” Thus, argues Reich, the interpretation reached by the study is questionable. He adds that the UofW report failed to provide any evidence that “their sample is representative of all jobs in Seattle and Washington.” Similar criticism of the study’s methodology has been leveled by others, including Ben Spielberg of Teach For America and by Ben Zipperer and John Schmitt of the Economic Policy Institute.
Bloomberg
July 11, 2017
Labor economists at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, estimate that about 17 percent of US workers have unstable schedules. That, in turn, is linked to higher rates of work-family conflict and stress.
VOX
July 11, 2017
A recent study on Seattle’s $15-an-hour minimum wage law reignited the debate over whether higher minimums help workers by lifting pay or harm them by leading employers to cut hours. The study, by University of Washington researchers, found more harm than good, a result that was at odds with a large body of previous research and was challenged by other economists who saw flaws in the study.
The New York Times
July 8, 2017
It’s tempting to say I thought anyone who worked couldn’t be poor. That’s naïve. Real wages for the two-thirds of Americans without a four-year degree have dropped since 1979, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Meanwhile the cost of a degree has roughly doubled over the past three decades. Today, half of American jobs pay about $37,000 or less each year, a quarter pay about $23,000 or less, and a family of four qualifies for SNAP at $32,000 or less. No wonder just over half of all SNAP families work, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. In America, “real” poverty is not about a lack of work, but a lack of compensation.
The New York Times
July 8, 2017
In St. Louis, the minimum wage was going to increase to $11 an hour in January. Now, that won’t happen. And the Economic Policy Institute estimates 38,000 workers could miss out on a raise.
CBS News
July 7, 2017
Moreover, as law professor and health policy expert Nicholas Bagley notes, arbitration tends “to favor the repeat players who hire them — companies, not consumers.” Several studies have found that forced arbitration typically produces worse outcomes for consumers and workers. An Economic Policy Institute study of employment cases, for example, found that employees are less likely to prevail before an arbitrator, and that they typically receive less money if they do prevail.
Think Progress
July 7, 2017
Unfair — and Unfixable? The Simple Truth About Salaries
Knowledge @ Wharton
The wage gap between black and white Americans is the largest in 40 years, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In 2015, the difference in hourly pay between blacks and whites widened, with blacks making an average of 27% less than whites with the same experience and educational level, according to the EPI.
Knowledge@Wharton
July 7, 2017
Job growth surges in June
The Washington Post/Ana Swanson
“If employers indeed really needed those workers and they couldn’t find them, then they would take all the steps they could take to get them. And the first very clearly is to increase wages,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. As the economy continues to heat up, workers who have more trouble finding jobs due to lower education, prison records or racial discrimination will have an easier time finding a job. Gould points out an encouraging sign in the rapid drop in the African-American unemployment rate, to 7.1 percent in June from 8.8 percent one year ago. Though the rate is still much higher than the overall unemployment rate, it has fallen three times as fast as the overall rate has during the last year.
The Washington Post
July 6, 2017
Elise Gould, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said in a written statement, “I look forward to more months like June” when it comes to job creation. But wage growth, she said, remained slack: “At the current rate of growth, it is clear that employers need to do little to attract and retain the workers they want and any significant signs of labor shortages are simply not showing up in the data.”
Politico
July 6, 2017
“At the current rate of growth, it is clear that employers need to do little to attract and retain the workers they want and any significant signs of labor shortages are simply not showing up in the data. At 2.5% wage growth, the Federal Reserve should get the message that there is still no worrying sign of inflationary pressure from wage growth and they should continue to let the economy recover.” — Elise Gould, Economic Policy Institute.
MarketWatch
July 6, 2017