THE RETORTS FROM THE LEFT: Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee say the panel’s Republicans shouldn’t consider a tax bill before a measure gets an official score, Pro Tax’s Aaron Lorenzo reports. “It would be an insult to our constituent families and companies to push forward a back-of-the-envelope tax reform bill based on partisan guesswork instead of economic analysis,” they wrote. Democrats on the House Budget Committee also released their alternative budget, as our Budget team reported. On the tax front, Democrats called for expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and the child tax credit, and for a tax reform that ensures that top earners and corporations are paying their “fair share.” Along those lines, the progressive Economic Policy Institute has a new primer on tax reform — and, surprise, it doesn’t think tax cuts are a great idea or that corporate tax rate cuts create jobs.
Politico
October 4, 2017
“If you are a black homeowner, you are more likely to have a lower value on your home because of neighborhood segregation,” said Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity, and the economy. “Blacks couldn’t purchase in white communities where values were rising faster.”
The Washington Post
October 3, 2017
A study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute shows that 56 percent of nonunion private-sector employees are currently subject to mandatory individual arbitration procedures under the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act, which allows employers to bar collective legal actions by employees.
NPR
October 3, 2017
A win for employers would give the green-light to an already growing trend in which companies require workers to sign arbitration agreements waiving their right to bring class-action claims either in court or before private arbitrators. About 25 million workers are already bound by such agreements, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute think tank.
Reuters
October 3, 2017
The stakes are high. More than 55 percent of nonunion private sector employees in the U.S. have arbitration agreements in their workplaces, according to a recent report from the Economic Policy Institute, and many employers have added class action waivers to those agreements.
Bloomberg BNA
October 3, 2017
In the early 1990s, less than 4 percent of companies surveyed by the Government Accountability Office, an independent government agency, used mandatory arbitration for their employees. Today, more than half of private-sector non-union workers are subject to it, according to a report published last week by the liberal Economic Policy Institute. Forty-one percent of those employees—24.7 million workers—have also waived their right to class-action litigation. Alexander Colvin, an expert on arbitration at Cornell University and the author of the report, expects more companies to add these waivers if the Supreme Court declares them legally enforceable. Companies have a significant incentive to do so. In 2015, Colvin found that employees win 21 percent of arbitration cases, compared to 57 percent of cases in state court. (Employees are far less likely to pursue grievances when they’re subject to arbitration: Colvin estimates that workers are 50 times likelier to sue than to arbitrate.) Workers also get less money when they’re successful: $109,000 in arbitration compared to $575,000 in state court. Colvin says lawyers he speaks with are less likely to represent workers bound by arbitration because they take a share of the damages.
Mother Jones
October 3, 2017
Nationwide, mandatory arbitration clauses keep about 56% of non-union employees—roughly 60.1 million American workers—out of court, according to a report issued by the Economic Policy Institute last week.
Money
October 3, 2017
As lawyers prepared to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court today over the legality of mandatory arbitration clauses in employment contracts, a new study came out that underscores what’s at stake, estimating that more than 60 million workers are now covered by them. The Economic Policy Institute, which says its mission is “to inform and empower individuals to seek solutions that ensure broadly shared prosperity and opportunity” carefully timed the release of results to come as before a widely-watched case reaches the high court. he case is actually three cases involving different employers: Epic Systems Corp., a Wisconsin-based maker of software for health care systems and medical groups, Ernst &Young U.S. and Arkansas-based Murphy Oil Co. All invoked arbitration clauses in disputes with individual workers over overtime and other issues. The Supreme Court like will take months to decide the issue. And employers will be watching carefully. To gauge the potential impact of that ruling, the Economic Policy Institute surveyed 627 private employers with 50 workers or more nationwide, focusing questions on their nonunion workers. Author of the study was Alexander J.S. Colvin., a professor at Cornell University’s ILR School.
Human Resources Executive
October 3, 2017
“This is not normal, even in a change of administration,” says Celine McNicholas, a labor attorney at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, and a former counsel at the NLRB. Politics always affect agencies’ agendas, she says, but for the solicitor general to change his office’s stance before the Supreme Court for what appear to be political reasons “is a significant shift.”
Mother Jones
October 2, 2017
While most Americans are unprepared for retirement, rich older people are doing better than ever. Among people older than 65, the wealthiest 20 percent own virtually all of the nation’s $25 trillion in retirement accounts, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Washington Post
October 2, 2017