Media clips
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Delaware has nation’s lowest unemployment rate among African Americans
Delaware Public Media/James Morrison
The unemployment rate for African Americans in the First State was 5.8 percent in the first quarter of the year, while neighboring Pennsylvania had the nation’s highest rate at 11 percent. Janelle Jones prepared the report for the Economic Policy Institute. She said there’s probably a number of reasons why the unemployment rate is drastically different between Pennsylvania and Delaware. One is that Delaware has less black people than Pennsylvania. Another is that Pennsylvania’s large manufacturing industry has failed to recover from the recession, and a lot of African Americans were employed in these jobs. (whole story)
Delaware Public Media May 18, 2017 -
More than 14 percent of Ohioans live in poverty – a situation that new research suggests could be avoided for some if they weren’t being cheated out of pay. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) examined reports of minimum-wage theft in the 10 most populous states, including Ohio. Among the states, the report found each year that 2.4 million workers are being paid less than minimum wage, amounting to more than $8 billion in lost wages annually. Report co-author David Cooper, a senior economic analyst with EPI, says nearly 1 in 5 of these workers live in poverty.
Public News Service May 18, 2017 -
America is still segregated. We need to be honest about why
The Guardian/Richard Rothstein
The Guardian May 17, 2017 -
The Washington Post/Jared Bernstein
I just finished Richard Rothstein’s masterful new book, “The Color of Law,” on the history of explicit racial residential segregation in America, the vestiges of which remain crystal clear today. Then there’s this quick, powerful interview with Heather Ann Thompson on racial inequity and violence in the criminal justice system. (Rothstein cited throughout)
The Washington Post May 17, 2017 -
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