Media clips
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In fact, 2016 federal data showed that poor, black and Hispanic children are becoming increasingly isolated from white, affluent children in America’s public schools. Given that, how should Brown v. Board be evaluated? Given persistent school segregation, was it a failure? This post addresses that question. It was written by Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit created in 1986 to broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low- and middle-income workers. He is also a fellow at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and he is the author of books including “Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right, and “Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap.” His newest book, published this month, is “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.” He was a national education writer for The New York Times as well. (Rothstein column featured)
The Washington Post May 17, 2017 -
How the Labor Department Could Lift Many in U.S. Out of Poverty
Next City/Oscar Perry Abello
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) is charged with investigating cases of wage theft and bringing those cases to court, winning judgments and collecting back wages owed to workers. In FY2016, WHD collected more than $266 million in wages stolen from workers, on par with each of the five previous years. That’s around $730,000 a day in stolen wages recovered. But that is just barely the tip of the iceberg. In the 10 most populous U.S. states, 2.4 million workers lose $8 billion annually to minimum wage violations, nearly a quarter of their earned wages, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute. The report says this form of wage theft affects 17 percent of low-wage workers. The majority of workers with reported wages below the minimum wage are over 25 years old and are native-born U.S. citizens, nearly half are white, more than a quarter have children and just over half work full time. (whole story)
Next City May 17, 2017 -
Every year, U.S. workers lose out on billions in pay
CBS Moneywatch/Irina Ivanova
For some workers, it means getting paid $20 for an entire day washing cars. For others, it means being paid to perform at a football game after attending mandatory rehearsals for no money. Sometimes, it’s being hired to file papers, answer phones, make copies and run errands — as an unpaid intern. Or a waitress being required to give part of her tips to a restaurant’s manager. Labor advocates call these practices “wage theft,” and they hit millions of workers every year. In 2015, businesses underpaid workers by as much as $15 billion, the liberal-leanng Economic Policy Institute found in a recent report. By comparison, the total damage from property crime in the U.S. that year — larceny, burglary, car theft and arson — was $14.3 billion, according to FBI data. (whole story)
CBS Moneywatch May 16, 2017 -
“A lot of child care has to do with taking care of physical and emotional needs, like changing diapers or providing food,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. Caring for children demands nurturing instincts, such as knowing when to wipe away a tear or spotting a child who isn’t interacting with others. Artificial intelligence isn’t great at reading emotions or helping to regulate them. Those jobs, Gould said, aren’t going away — though a tough market prevents them from growing much. Preschools and day cares across the country, both public and private, tend to stay at or around capacity. The cost of employing licensed teachers is high, but raising the price of child care carries a risk of pricing out parents. This is one reason some economists argue the country’s child-care system needs more state or federal financial support to flourish. “There’s absolutely demand, you see that in the waiting lists,” Gould said. “But a lot of parents can’t get in or afford it.”
The Washington Post May 16, 2017 -
Report: 1 In 20 NY Workers Get Paid Less Than Minimum Wage
Gothamist/Nathan Tempey
Five percent of New York workers were paid less than the minimum wage between 2013 and 2015, according to a recent analysis of federal data. The report, by the union-backed Economic Policy Institute (EPI), analyzed data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau. Its authors found that among the 10 most populous states, New York has the third-highest rate of minimum wage violations, after Ohio and Florida. In all, 2.4 million workers in the 10 most populous states lost $8 billion annually to minimum-wage violations, an average of $3,300 per year for year-round workers, according to the report. The analysis excludes workers whose occupations are specifically exempted from minimum wage requirements, such as newspaper delivery workers, telephone operators, and seasonal farm workers.
Gothamist May 16, 2017 -
This workplace larceny is worse than you might think. The Economic Policy Institute, a think-tank that investigates labor issues, analyzed records for the 10 most populous states. Looking just at one form of wage theft–failure to pay minimum wages in each state–it documents $8 billion in annual underpayments. Extrapolated across the U.S. as a whole, it calculates a total of $15 billion a year in employer misappropriation, which is more than the value of all the property stolen during robberies, burglaries, and auto thefts across the country. (whole story)
Fast Co.Exist May 16, 2017 -
HERE’S HOW MUCH WORKERS MAY BE LOSING TO WAGE THEFT
Texas Standard/Alexandra Hart
Low wage workers in the United States may be losing out on billions of dollars annually, according to a new report on wage theft by the Economic Policy Institute, a non-partisan Washington-based think thank that studies economic and labor issues.The report takes a look at minimum wage violations in the nation’s ten most populous states – Texas among them – to quantify how much workers are losing. And the results are striking. In the states surveyed, 2.4 million workers lost out on about $8 billion each year. “Wage theft can occur in a lot of different forms,” says David Cooper, senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute and co-author of the study. “It could be an employer completely denying pay from someone, it could also be something as simple as asking them to work additional hours that they’re not paying them for … or even things like denying them meal breaks or not giving them a pay stub.”
Texas Standard May 16, 2017 -
To take one example of labor market weakness, underemployment among young college graduates is still elevated, with 9.9 percent “idled” or “sidelined,” compared with 8.4 percent in 2007, according to research by the Economic Policy Institute. These graduates are not counted as unemployed because they are neither working nor looking for work. Nor are they enrolled in further education. Another sign of underemployment is the share of recent college graduates who work in jobs that do not require a college degree. Recently, 43.5 percent of college graduates ages 22 to 27 were in “non-college” jobs, compared with 41.8 percent in 2007, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The New York Times May 15, 2017 -
Why wage theft is a serious problem in California
The San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Kevin Smith
What could be worse than working for minimum wage? How about working for minimum wage and having your employer cheat you out of a big chunk of your pay? That reality is evident in newly released figures from the Economic Policy Institute. The statistics show that low-wage workers in California lose nearly $2 billion a year to minimum wage violations committed by their employers. That equates to about $64 a week or $3,400 annually. That’s 22 percent of their earnings! If you’re slaving away at a job where your pay is that low the last thing you want to deal with is wage theft. Think about it: That $64 could have bought enough groceries to last the entire week, or it could have paid for a minor car repair (I say minor because we all know that auto repairs in the neighborhood of $64 are about as rare as seeing a live Tyrannosaurus Rex).Minimum wage violations hurt low-wage workers in every demographic category, but the institute’s report found that young people, women, people of color and immigrant workers are disproportionately impacted by these violations, as they are more likely to work in low-wage jobs. If the study — which covers more than 50 percent of the U.S. workforce — is representative of the country as a whole, the authors estimate that American workers are being cheated out of more than $15 billion a year
San Gabriel Valley Tribune May 14, 2017 -
Yet, there has been a price to pay, perhaps not in Newport Beach or Beverly Hills, but definitely in areas such as Lille, France, or Rust Belt Ohio, where workers and communities suffered for free trade “principles.” The trade deficit with China alone, notes the labor backer Economic Policy Institute, has cost the country some 3.4 million jobs between 2001 and 2015.
Los Angeles Daily News May 14, 2017