Media clips
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Richard Rothstein appeared on Fresh Air.
Fresh Air May 4, 2017 -
The Washington Post/Tracy Jan
“If Trump signs the bill and doesn’t speak out against this, that will contradict everything he has said about ‘Hire American,’ ” said Daniel Costa, the director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Council. “This appropriations bill gives companies incentive to hire underpaid indentured workers.” … In landscaping, which accounts for about half of the H-2B visas issued, the unemployment rate was 8.6 percent for the first quarter of 2017, nearly double the national rate, said Costa, of the Economic Policy Institute. The unemployment rate is 11.3 percent in fishing and forestry, he said, and 10 percent in construction, where there are three unemployed workers for every job opening. Costa said the institute’s research has shown that wage rules often allow seasonal workers to be paid less than local average wages for U.S. workers in similar jobs. The H-2B workers, he said, earn no more than undocumented workers, on average. The workers are also vulnerable to abuse by their employers, to whom they are bound, he said. Rules requiring employers to recruit and hire Americans first are not vigorously enforced, Costa added. Trump’s proposed budget includes cuts to an already understaffed Labor Department, further impeding its ability to enforce immigration rules.
The Washington Post May 4, 2017 -
New OT bill allows employers to offer time off instead of cash
USA Today/Roger Yu
Worker advocates criticized the bill and say it’s a move by businesses to avoid paying overtime pay. “This is a lousy bargain for the employees,” wrote Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, in a blog.
Eisenbrey says the bill empowers employers to dictate when employees can take time off. “There’s no guarantee that (employees) will get to take the leave when they need it,” he wrote. “If the employer thinks the requested time off would be unduly disruptive to its operations it can refuse the request.” “Simply put, HR 1180 is a scam. It pretends to offer a benefit to employees, but in reality it’s a benefit to employers who get to schedule overtime work but delay paying for it for up to 13 months,” he said. Getting time off under the bill would also amount to the employee making a zero-interest loan of overtime pay to the employer, Eisenbrey said. “Employees who have no paid vacation or paid sick leave will feel pressured into giving up their right to receive overtime pay in order to have some hope of getting time off in the future.”
USA Today May 4, 2017 -
Celine speaks at 1:00 mark.
Marketplace May 4, 2017 -
Labor Board Rule to Speed Up Union Elections Shows Mixed Results
Bloomberg BNA/Hassan Kanu
Celine McNicholas, labor counsel at the Economic Policy Institute, disagreed with the management-side lawyers’ interpretation of the data on win rates. She also had a different take on the purpose of the rule. The rule was designed as “a modest update of the procedures” to accommodate modern technology like online petition filing and providing emails instead of just mailing addresses, she said. McNicholas said she looked at the NLRB’s own data. “I would point out that the union win rate looks like 65 percent in the year after the rule, and 66 percent in the year before, so that’s not exactly in line with what’s being said” by Fisher Phillips, McNicholas told Bloomberg BNA. (Celine quoted throughout)
Bloomberg BNA May 4, 2017 -
Why a $15 Minimum Wage Is Good Economics
The American Prospect/Jared Bernstein and Ben Speiberg
The questions we should be asking are about workers’ experiences: First, how many workers would benefit from this policy, who are they, and how badly do they need the money? Research by David Cooper at the Economic Policy Institute finds that the Raise the Wage Act of 2017 would give 41 million workers a raise. It would disproportionately benefit women and people of color and would provide additional income to the families of nearly one-quarter of the nation’s children. Fifty-five percent of the workers who would benefit come from families with incomes currently lower than $50,000 a year, and these are families that generally rely on those workers for the bulk of that money. Second, among the much smaller number of workers who could potentially experience some form of displacement, what might the impact on their living standards be? How likely would they be to get another job at the new, higher wage? Forthcoming research by Cooper, Larry Mishel, and Ben Zipperer shows that turnover in the low-wage labor market is already quite common. More than one-fifth of the lowest-wage workers can be expected to transition either into or out of a job during any three-month period. As Mishel notes, “We don’t live in a binary world where people either work or get excluded from employment forever. A reduction in total work hours can be absorbed over the course of a year in many ways—reduced weekly hours, fewer weeks worked, fewer multiple jobs.” In other words, the increase could lead to some low-wage workers ending up with higher annual earnings while working fewer hours over the course of a year
The American Prospect May 4, 2017 -
By comparison, the CPC is much better politically situated to actually enact their proposals, should Democrats win power. Perhaps most importantly, they are not lying about what’s in them. It’s all laid out, clearly and honestly, with realistic assumptions and funding mechanisms. As laid out by the Economic Policy Institute, it would run a large short-term fiscal stimulus to reach true full employment. Additionally, it would boost food stamps, unemployment spending, and the Earned Income Tax Credit. It would also spend $2 trillion on infrastructure over 10 years.
The Week May 4, 2017 -
The People’s Budget provides a basic road map for where we have to go. It outlines what we are for, not simply what we are against. Prepared in conjunction with the Economic Policy Institute, it is bolstered by supporting charts and documents, as well as the EPI’s detailed economic analysis—which by comparison makes a mockery of the shoddy “skinny budget” and one-page tax “plan” that the Trump administration released.
The Nation May 4, 2017 -
“In 2013, nearly nine in 10 families in the top income fifth had retirement account savings, compared with fewer than one in 10 families in the bottom income fifth,” a report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found.
Buzzfeed May 3, 2017 -
As the Urban League focuses on protecting advancements, Valerie Rawlston Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy, said the 2017 Equality Index provides a “line in the sand” to measure what happens from now on.
NPR May 3, 2017