In 1975, 62 percent of full-time salaried workers qualified for overtime, according to the Labor Department, but because of inflation, today the share has dropped to 7 percent. Under the new rules, 35 percent of these workers will become overtime eligible. “Businesses have become accustomed to working low-level salaried employees long hours for no extra compensation, but the pendulum has swung too far, and it’s time to restore some balance,” Ross Eisenbrey, vice president at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said in testimony last week before the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
The Boston Globe
May 18, 2016
Many voters are enthusiastic about that anti-free-trade position, and for a reason. Yes, the vast majority of economists have concluded that free trade added U.S. jobs in such industries as transportation (aircraft and trains), energy, agriculture and services, while lowering prices for U.S. consumers. Free-trade supporters also point out that, since 1993, the U.S. economy has gained 30 million jobs. This figure dwarfs the jobs lost to NAFTA (about 682,900, according to an estimate from the Economic Policy Institute).
The Washington Post
May 18, 2016
But Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute—which played a role in formulating the regulation—said it was “certainly the biggest thing” the Obama administration has done “in terms of improving wages and salaries.”
Politico
May 18, 2016
According to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, the average family has just $5,000 in retirement savings, which is not enough money to retire comfortably. Among older workers, the median amount of retirement savings jumps to $17,000, meaning half of all such families have more than $17,000, and half have less.
The Boston Globe
May 18, 2016
The rule proposed by Labor last summer would raise that threshold to $50,440. However, law firms and worker advocacy groups say the final version lowers the proposed threshold slightly to $47,000. Still, about 5 million salaried workers are expected to be newly eligible for overtime. The rule, which likely would take effect in two to three months, also is expected to include a mechanism to raise the threshold annually. “It represents a significant step forward in the effort to boost wages for working people,” says Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute.
USA Today
May 17, 2016
However, some legal experts say the final version of the regulation likely places the threshold closer to a salary of $47,000—meaning that 5 million salaried workers are expected to be eligible for overtime under the rule. The change would most directly affect the service industry, particularly workers in hotels and restaurants, Gary Chaison, a professor of labor relations at Clarkson University, told Marketplace. “It represents a significant step forward in the effort to boost wages for working people,” Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, told USA Today.
Time
May 17, 2016
This year’s high school graduates were 10 years old when the economy hit the skids in 2008. Many college graduates in the class of 2016 were 14. Yet, their economic prospects remain darkened by the enduring effects of the Great Recession. That is not to say there has been no improvement. The class of ’16 has more and better-paying job opportunities than earlier post-crash graduating classes, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute. But for the most part, today’s graduates still face employment conditions that are worse than in 2007, the year before the recession, and are much worse than in 2000, when the economy was last at full employment.
The New York Times
May 16, 2016
Maine faced a potential crisis. The Pine Tree state already had suffered the decline of its traditional manufacturing industries, lumber and paper, victims of advances in technology and foreign competition. An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute estimated that cheap exports of Chinese goods cost Maine 11,400 jobs, or nearly 2 percent of total state employment, between 2001 and 2013.
The Washington Post
May 16, 2016
About 20 percent of the previous graduating class continued their education the fall after graduating. Nationally, about 26 percent of college graduates holding bachelor’s degrees ages 21 to 24 were enrolled in graduate school, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Hartford Courant
May 16, 2016
A leading advocate of the parasite economy is the National Restaurant Association (the other NRA), which has worked assiduously to keep wages low. The federal minimum wage for tipped workers, unchanged since 1991, is a shocking $2.13 an hour. Lest you think all those workers are raking in tips, as a small elite of servers in high-end urban restaurants do, the median hourly wage for restaurant servers, including tips, is just $9.25 per hour. Tipped workers are more than twice as likely as the average worker to fall under the federal poverty line, and restaurant servers nearly three times as likely, according to a 2011 study by the Economic Policy Institute.
Today, a majority of the money we collectively spend on anti-poverty programs doesn’t go to the jobless, it goes to the working poor. According to a recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, 69.2 percent of all public benefits go to non-elderly households with at least one working member, nearly half of whom work at least full-time.
The American Prospect
May 16, 2016