Another witness on the committee’s panel was having none of it. Economist Monique Morrissey of the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute explained the drawbacks from employers’ “avoiding legal responsibility for these workers,” including the workers’ inability to maintain their standard of living in retirement, lower wages and lower Social Security. Morrissey threw cold water on employers’ claims that the novel “gig” arrangements are incompatible with traditional employment benefits. First of all, she observed, these arrangements are not so novel. Second, they’re really just stratagems to cut labor costs. “They should already be employees,” she said of “independent contractors” employed by companies such as Uber and Lyft. “I don’t have any sympathy for companies who want it both ways.” (Monique cited throughout)
Los Angeles Times
February 13, 2018
Critics counter that the legal status of those business models shouldn’t be allowed to go unchallenged. “It is important not to fall into the trap of accepting these arrangements as inevitable and innovative when the situation might better be described as a race to the bottom,” said Monique Morrissey, economist with the union-affiliated Economic Policy Institute at the same hearing.
The Washington Examiner
February 13, 2018
The only problem? Many states, already strapped for cash, are unlikely to come up with the needed funding. State and local governments already account for 77 percent of public infrastructure spending in the U.S., according to the Economic Policy Institute. And more than half of states have faced budget shortfalls during the last two years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
CBS Moneywatch
February 13, 2018
Josh Bivens, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, said the country isn’t well prepared for the next recession. “We have managed to make UI incredibly non-protective,” Bivens said. “If we want the UI system to not be a complete joke in the next recession, it’s going to depend on Congress and the president.”
February 12, 2018
Over at the Economic Policy Institute, budget analyst Hunter Blair said the tax law is an opportunity to set up a progressive response. “Progressives should use [this bill] as a springboard for real progressive tax reform. That would be reform that raises revenue that we need to honor and expand our commitment to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and other social insurance programs, and doing so progressively,” he said. He suggests the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s budget blueprint as one model for repeal and replace. That budget would impose a financial transaction tax, increase tax rates on the highest earners, and establish a “hard work tax credit” for households with a family income of less than $150,000.
The Intercept
February 12, 2018
But that explanation has not satisfied Democrats, who say it could result in employers pocketing billions of dollars from workers. A study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found the rule would cost tipped U.S. workers $5.8 billion a year, including $224 million for tipped workers in Ohio. That study found an estimated 16.1 percent of all tips would be pocketed by an employer. Tipped workers nationally earn a total of $36.4 billion annually.
The Columbus Dispatch
February 12, 2018
Historically, Amazon has beat the we’re-creating-jobs-drum in moves like this, especially when the jobs are operational and targeted toward lower and middle-class communities. However, as the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) noted in a recently-published report, counties that have Amazon fulfillment centers don’t observe a boost in the local economy as promised. It’s also been widely reported that some Amazon warehouse employees haven’t always worked under the best conditions.
Salon
February 12, 2018
Add one more thing to the list of retro things young Americans are rediscovering: Unions. According to the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, 76 percent of new union members in 2017 were under 35. That’s pretty significant, considering that workers 34 and under make up just 40 percent of the country’s total workforce. In short, young workers may be kicking off a trend that could strengthen a labor movement that’s been brought to its knees by decades of attacks from employers, corporations, and hostile lawmakers.(Snapshot image included)
Mother Jones
February 9, 2018
According to a recent study by the Employee Rights Advocacy Institute for Law and Policy, 80% of Fortune 100 companies have used arbitration agreements to settle workplace disputes since 2010. Another recent paper, by the Economic Policy Institute, found that more than 60 million American workers are now bound by the agreements.
Los Angeles Times
February 9, 2018
Last week, President Trump’s Department of Labor (DOL) hid an internal analysis that showed that its so-called tip-pooling rule would allow employers to pocket billions in workers’ tips. They claimed that they were “unable to quantify” the rule’s effects. But we now know that they did, in fact, conduct an analysis—they just didn’t want the American public to see the result, so they buried it. I discussed what happened and what this policy is all about with Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist at the Department of Labor under President Obama. (whole interview with Heidi)
Talk Poverty
February 8, 2018