Nationwide, 9.3% of U.S. workers make at or near their state’s minimum wage, according to estimates from the Economic Policy Institute.
CNN Money
March 31, 2016
A recent report by the Economic Policy Institute found that 51 percent of the Massachusetts workforce does not have a college degree, but that almost two-thirds of the U.S. workforce overall has not completed college.
Boston.com
March 31, 2016
Many of the people who explain economics to the general public, such as the bloggers at Marginal Revolution or the creators of the EconTalk podcast, have libertarian leanings. A number of conservative think tanks, such as the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute, employ university-trained economists to promote free-market policies to the public. In recent years, this libertarian influence has been balanced out by more left-leaning voices—the New York Times’ Paul Krugman, the University of California-Berkeley’s Brad DeLong, and think tanks like the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, Center for Economic and Policy Research and Economic Policy Institute. But libertarians’ head start in marketing—which goes back all the way to Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek in the mid-20th century—will take a while to overcome.
Bloomberg
March 31, 2016
He was the dean of the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management from 1987 to 1993 and a founder of the Economic Policy Institute, an influential progressive research group. In his heyday, he charged speaking fees of $30,000 and was one of the most sought-after economists on the lecture circuit.
The New York Times
March 30, 2016
While that gap between male earners in the 95th and 50th percentiles saw its biggest rise, last year’s increase only extended a long-running trend. “It is the most, but to say that inequality hasn’t been growing for the last 35 years would be wrong,” said Elise Gould, an economist with the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute who conducted the analysis earlier this month, as part of a larger report on wage inequality.
The Washington Post
March 30, 2016
While the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, U.S. law allows employees who receive tips to be paid just $2.13. Tipped workers are more than twice as likely as normal workers to fall under the poverty line, according to a 2011 study from the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the labor movement.
The Huffington Post
March 30, 2016
A somewhat open question is whether bridge jobs are truly bridges to retirement or just another job change, perhaps one of many, in a seemingly unending working career. “I don’t want to be too Pollyannaish about bridge jobs because part of this is likely a reaction to the erosion of retirement security in the U.S.,” says Monique Morrissey, an economist with Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank with ties to organized labor. Morrissey says older Americans are facing a gradual erosion of retirement benefits. Specifically, she points to the transition to 401(k)s over defined-benefit pensions, as well as the eventual increase in the retirement age up to 67, a move she says amounts to an “across-the-board cut in benefits.”
Associated Press
March 30, 2016
Mileage tracking isn’t the only piece of infrastructure that is needed to make drivers’ lives easier and more profitable. More suitable insurance plans need to be developed, for example. And a key piece of the puzzle is the evolution of our legal standards for employment: Do we need to invent a new legal status which is neither employee nor contractor but has some characteristics of both? (The case for a new legal status is strongly challenged in a recent analysis by Economic Policy Institute.)
U.S. News & World Report
March 30, 2016
Well, new research from the Economic Policy Institute says the Uber employment structure isn’t as novel as it seems. “Gig economy” companies like Uber argue that their workers aren’t employees because they make their own hours and work independently, while workers of those companies say they are employees because they’re required to follow strict sets of guidelines, such as accepting a minimum number of jobs per week. The researchers looked into both sides’ claims and found that Uber workers look a lot like employees. “Various on-demand employers argue that gig work, like Uber and Lyft, represent a huge shift in the relationship between workers and employers and the W-2 status just doesn’t apply,” EPI President Lawrence Mishel said. “In fact, when you look at the realities of being an Uber driver, it is difficult to see something that differentiates it from other types of employment.”
Fusion
March 30, 2016
Of course, those who advocate for immigrant workers would never argue that all is well with the status quo—in which unauthorized workers are forced to work for low wages in unsafe and unhealthy conditions. But it’s worth noting that by some estimates, it would cost consumers less to pay these essential farmworkers a living wage than to deport them. A 40% increase in farmworker wages, a report from the Economic Policy Institute found, would cost American households only about $16 more a year—just a 3.7% increase in fruit and vegetable spending compared with what they spend today.
Quartz
March 30, 2016