The 800,000 Dreamers who have benefited from the program “will become instantly deportable and lose the ability to work legally and contribute to the United States, and will be effectively left without labor rights and employment law protections in the workplace,” noted Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning economic think-tank, in a blog post.
CBS Moneywatch
September 6, 2017
But Daniel Costa, a researcher for the Economic Policy Institute, said that while this decision might in theory free up jobs at big companies, it will force DACA recipients into less regulated sectors such as the service industry, where wages are much lower. “People who have DACA are still the lowest priority for deportation, and probably have more ties to the U.S. than other unauthorized immigrants, which means they are unlikely to leave anytime soon unless they get removed,” he said. Those who don’t leave voluntarily, he said, “will be forced to work for lower wages, or without authorizations.”
San Francisco Chronicle
September 6, 2017
U.S. employers bring in guest workers for unskilled work through three visa programs: the H2-A visa for agricultural workers, the H-2B visa for non-agricultural workers, and the J-1 visa for exchange visitors. H-2A visas are for crop workers. H-2B visas are concentrated in landscaping, forestry, amusement and recreation, housekeeping, and construction. J-1 visa holders are typically young people from other countries who come to the U.S. as au pairs, camp counselors, and interns. Daniel Costa of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute estimates that 450,000 temporary laborers enter the U.S. annually through these three visa programs.
Bloomberg
September 6, 2017
Should these workers not lose their jobs, the Economic Policy Institute notes that they would still become instantly deportable and effectively left without labor rights and employment law protections in the workplace.
Business Insider
September 6, 2017
Labor Day in the U.S. is a way to honor workers and to celebrate the American labor movement. Unions played a huge role in many of the gains American workers got from the labor movement, including five-day workweeks and minimuim wage. We look at a new reporter from the Economic Policy Institute on today’s unions and how they fit into the economy.
Wisconsin Public Radio
September 6, 2017
Romney didn’t try to make every dollar he could, or anywhere close to it. The same was true among many of his corporate peers. In the early 1960s, the typical chief executive at a large American company made only 20 times as much as the average worker, rather than the current 271-to-1 ratio. Today, some C.E.O.s make $2 million in a single month.
The New York Times
September 6, 2017
Josh Bivens, the director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, whose board includes presidents of several labor groups, including the AFL-CIO, said in an interview Tuesday that even if public pension funds reap market gains because of a corporate tax cut, workers might not see more money in their paychecks because the plans have defined benefits, which provide recipients with a set monthly payment in retirement based on a formula. … Some state pension funds faced severe losses in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Bivens said he was skeptical that a corporate tax cut could help “really move the dial” on underfunded pensions. Long-term rates of return for funds “could be nudged up, but not enough to salvage terrible underfunding,” Bivens said.
Morning Consult
September 6, 2017
“Caring about workers seems to be much more prevalent,” said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in the District. But Trump’s attention on union workers alone probably hasn’t kicked up labor’s popularity, he said. Back in 2008, when the auto industry took a tumble, unionized workers took a reputation hit from which they’ve seemingly just recovered. (Approval for unions dropped to an all-time low in 2009 at 48 percent, the Gallup data show.) “People demonized unions, especially in the south, as though they were the Communist Party,” Mishel said. Unions, at the time, took blame for not being able to save jobs or demanding too much from employers.
The Washington Post
September 5, 2017
The rollback of labor rights and protections since Trump took office is staggering. It puts worker safety at risk and guarantees that many workers will earn less, but that’s not all. Measures to help victims of discrimination receive redress are on the scrap heap. Unions are running scared. “It’s a death by a thousand cuts,” explains Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
The Nation
September 5, 2017
New research from the Economic Policy Institute finds that workers covered by a union contract earn 13.2% more in wages on average than nonunion workers who have similar levels of education and experience. But importantly, the report concludes that black and Hispanic workers get even more of a boost from unionization than their white counterparts, suggesting that stronger unions could help to close longstanding pay disparities. While 42% of U.S. workers overall are barely scraping by at jobs that pay less than $15 an hour, that figure is much more pronounced for black workers (54%) and Latino workers (60%). Closing those gaps—and raising pay for all low-wage workers—is crucial.
Fortune
September 5, 2017