The Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order has three major outcomes, according to Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, and the former chief economist at the Department of Labor. It protects workers, it protects tax-payer interests and it levels the playing field for government contractors. “It’s a very clear siding with unscrupulous government contractors over the workers,” Shierholz says of the efforts to undo the regulation. For Trump, in particular, she thinks it’s a bad move to have this be rolled back under his watch because “at, least optics-wise, has tried to say over and over that he’s on their side.”
Bustle
March 7, 2017
Child care is the single most expensive line item for families, according to data from the nonprofit and nonpartisan think tank the Economic Policy Institute, MarketWatch reported last year. In 500 of the 618 areas that EPI looked at, child care was parents’ biggest annual expense, averaging about $12,500 a year nationwide and climbing above $30,000 a year in Washington, D.C.
MarketWatch
March 7, 2017
“If employers don’t have to pay for people’s time, then they can use it without giving a thought to it, and they do,” said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute think tank, who consulted the Obama White House on crafting the reforms. “They’re very profligate with employees’ free time.”… Eisenbrey said he’s hopeful overtime reforms will be implemented ― if not Obama’s, then state versions, or perhaps a “halfway version” promulgated by the Trump administration. Trump’s original choice for labor secretary, fast-food executive Andy Puzder, was a vocal opponent of Obama’s reforms. It’s unclear where Trump’s new nominee, Alexander Acosta, stands on the issue.
Huffington Post
March 7, 2017
We take a look at how merit-based systems, like the one used in Canada, actually work with Ron Hira, professor of political science at Howard University and a research associate with the Economic Policy Institute. He has testified before the Senate on how high-skilled immigrants impact the U.S. economy and job market.
WBEZ
March 3, 2017
To understand why, consider this: Working women, on average, earn less than their male counterparts, so they have less money to save for retirement. Their median wage is 80 percent of men’s, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group.
The New York Times
March 3, 2017
If EPA regulations don’t murder American jobs in cold blood, why do so many of us think they hurt the workforce? “There are two separate issues,” said Josh Bivens, the Director of the Research of the Economic Policy Institute. “One is the cost of regulations—regulations tend to have gross costs and gross benefits, and people who don’t like regulations like to focus on the gross costs and ignore the benefits.”
Popular Science
March 3, 2017
“The most interesting and troubling thing about this is that it may very well be the ultimate block on modernizing workplace standards,” Celine McNicholas, labor counsel for the Economic Policy Institute, recently told The Huffington Post.
Huffington Post
March 2, 2017
“Nothing in the Act says you have to be in a union to exercise those rights,” said Celine McNicholas, Economic Policy Institute (EPI) labor counsel. “The argument that you hear a lot from Congressional Republicans, and we heard it at the hearing, is that fewer and fewer people are members of unions and that makes the board irrelevant. But increasingly there’s a lot of action around increasing the minimum wage—people coming together with their coworkers—that activity is covered by the [National Labor Relations] Act.”… Aloul called the joint employer standard “one of the regulatory outrages of the last several years,” saying it prevents franchisees like herself from working with their parent companies and growing their businesses. However, EPI’s McNicholas explains that what the joint employer standard is really about is “who should be at the bargaining table” when it comes to labor negotiations and “who’s on the hook when that goes afoul of the NLRA.”
In These Times
March 2, 2017
New York Daily News
March 2, 2017
How the plan is funded is key in determining what kinds of projects and jobs are created, Ross Eisenbrey, vice president and policy director of the Economic Policy Institute, told Business Insider. More direct federal spending pays for repairs to bridges and water treatment plants—projects that don’t attract profit-seeking private investors, Eisenbrey said. Tax credits will encourage projects that generate revenue, such as toll roads and bridges, many of which, like the Keystone XL Pipeline, experts say would happen with or without government funding. “The more it’s just a tax credit, the fewer jobs will be created,” Eisenbrey said. Eisenbrey thinks it’s likely Congress will pass a bipartisan infrastructure plan. “Unless the leadership is just dead-set against it, I think there will be an infrastructure program,” Eisenbrey said. “If this is a signature part of Trump’s program, I don’t see how even a Republican-dominated Congress can resist it.”
Business Insider
March 2, 2017