Media clips
-
Women tend to earn more than men when first out of college. But once they have kids, the typical mom earns less than similarly educated men and other women who don’t have kids, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Moms are also relegated to handling a disproportionate share of the household chores, which eats into the time they can spend at work and puts them at a disadvantage in high-wage, high-pressure jobs that demand long work weeks, the EPI study says.
CBS Moneywatch May 12, 2017 -
In Ohio, 5.5 percent of workers experienced this type of “wage theft,” according to the analysis released Wednesday by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Ohio’s current minimum wage is $8.15 an hour. In the 10 most-populous states that were the subject of EPI’s report, employers failed to pay the minimum wage to an average of 4.1 percent of workers. Florida ranked first with 7.3 percent and New York came in third at 5 percent. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that on the pay stub it says you’re only getting $4 an hour,” said David Cooper, the senior economic analyst, who co-authored the report with research assistant Teresa Kroeger.
The Plain Dealer May 11, 2017 -
In many low-wage industries, it’s all too easy for employers to short workers on the wages they’re owed — either because it’s done in a way that employees don’t notice, or they need the job too much to protest. How much this costs workers is difficult to pinpoint. But by one estimation, they lose out by more than workers in any of the 10 largest states, according to a new report from the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute. To put numbers on the phenomenon of “wage theft” — a broad term for practices such as not paying proper overtime, requiring work off the clock, denying legally required meal breaks, and misclassifying workers as independent contractors — the left-leaning think tank looked at data from a monthly Census Bureau survey that asks people how much houstomoney they make. (whole story)
Houston Chronicle May 11, 2017 -
New Study Warns of Wage Theft in US
Voice of America/Jim Randle
The Economic Policy Institute says the wage theft hits nearly one-fifth of low wage workers in the 10 largest U.S. states. The study’s authors say affected workers lose an average of $64 a week, or $3,300 a year out of their modest salaries. Young people, women, minorities and immigrants are often stuck in low-level jobs and thus are most likely to be affected by wage theft. EPI says the shortfall obviously hurts workers, but also slows demand for goods and services, which can crimp economic growth.
Voice of America May 11, 2017 -
“This is evidence of the last hired, first fired phenomenon,” said Valerie Wilson, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC. “As the recovery continues on you start to see the biggest improvements for the groups that were hit the hardest.”
Bloomberg May 11, 2017 -
The Lonely Women of the Rust Belt
City Lab/Alana Semuels
Indeed, the decline of men is not affecting all parts of the white community; highly educated workers, both men and women, are doing just fine economically. According to the Economic Policy Institute, white men in the top 20 percent of income-earners are actually working 4 percent more than they did in 1979; men in the bottom two income quintiles are working fewer hours than they did in 1979. (Women in all income quintiles are working more.) These educated workers are clustered in big cities, where good jobs are relatively abundant. In the areas where there are shrinking opportunities for people without a college education, men are dropping out of the workforce and women are left to carry them or live without them.
CityLab May 11, 2017 -
In the ten most populous states in the country, employers steal $8 billion a year from their employees simply by paying them less than the legally mandated minimum wage, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). For the 2.4 million workers who are affected — 17 percent of the low-wage workforce — that amounts to an average loss of $64 a week. Given that they’re making just over $200 a week, on average, they miss out on nearly a quarter of their earnings. (whole story)
Think Progress May 10, 2017 -
You’re not getting a raise and nobody knows why
The Washington Post/Ana Swanson
Elise Gould, a senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said that relatively sluggish wage growth “tells us that there’s still a fair amount of slack left in the labor market. The unemployment rate is missing part of the story of workers continuing to be sidelined.” Gould points to the employment-to-population ratio for prime-age workers, which measures the proportion of the population between the prime working ages of 25 and 54 who are employed. That figure stood at 78.6 percent in April, still significantly below where it was in 2007 and for most of 2008. “We have recovered a fair amount, but we still have a way to go,” Gould said. “If there was less slack, then employers would have to be offering better pay to attract and retain the workers they want, and they just don’t have to yet.” … Gould and other labor-friendly economists see these trends as ample reason for the Federal Reserve to hold off on raising interest rates. But other analysts see the threat of emerging inflation as a bigger risk, and believe the Fed should act now to raise interest rates to more normal levels.
The Washington Post May 10, 2017 -
Frontline May 10, 2017
-
In his new book Richard Rothstein explains how, for more than 100 years, the U.S. government practiced, enforced and allowed segregation in housing. Segregated public housing, whites-only suburbs, racially biased loan programs and a host of other practices hobbled African-Americans, Rothstein argues, leading to the deep socioeconomic and geographic divides that exist in the United States today. Rothstein calls his book “a forgotten history” because it was once known. Acknowledging and understanding this history again, he says, is the first step toward finding a solution.
- Richard Rothstein research associate, Economic Policy Institute; senior fellow, Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund; author “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America”
- Jim Carr Coleman A. Young Endowed Chair and Professor in Urban Affairs, Wayne State University; Visiting Fellow with the Roosevelt Institute; consultant to the National Association of Real Estate Brokers
- Nela Richardson chief economist at Redfin
- Sherrilyn Ifill president and director-counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
1A May 10, 2017