The people taking care of America’s children are some of the lowest-paid workers in the country, according to a study published Thursday by the Economic Policy Institute. The report found that nationwide, median pay for child care workers is $10.31 per hour — 39.3 percent less than the median wage of $17 an hour earned by workers in other sectors. In fact, a look at official data shows that median child care worker pay is only slightly higher than median pay for retail salespeople, which is $10.29 an hour.
The Huffington Post
November 6, 2015
The release of 2015 scores on the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), or the Nation’s Report Card, finds either stagnation or dips in both reading and math in both 4th and 8th grades for the first time in 20 years. The results have prompted much ado. But much of that ado is, at the end of the day, about nothing. There has been speculation that this two-year dip suggests the Common Core isn’t working, that the Standards are needed more than ever, and even that the results are to be expected given the 7-year starvation of school budgets since the onset of the Great Recession. All of this is debatable, but more important points about NAEP have been captured beautifully in a serious, well-designed study that assesses NAEP scores as they were intended to be assessed – longitudinally, and with the benefit of relevant controls. The study, Bringing It Back Home, was produced by Stanford’s Martin Carnoy, Emma Garcia of the Economic Policy Institute, and Tatiana Khavenson of the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow, and released by the Economic Policy Institute at the end of October.
The Huffington Post
November 6, 2015
The coalition gained national attention last summer after crashing an annual central bankers’ meeting in Jackson, Wyo., arguing that the Federal Reserve should keep interest rates low amid sluggish wage growth and inflation. Interest rates came up again at yesterday’s Dallas Fed meeting. “We urged Robert to vote in support of keeping short-term interest rates at essentially zero,” said Josh Bivens, research and policy director for the Economic Policy Institute. “The concern is that the economy hasn’t returned to a full recovery, there’s plenty of slack to be taken up and the risk of tightening too soon is much higher than letting rates stay low. That burden falls disproportionately on low-wage workers and people of color.”
Dallas Morning News
November 6, 2015
The trade deficit is a problem because it means demand within American borders is driving economic activity in other countries instead of here. That arguably makes it the single biggest drag on America’s ability to create jobs here at home and reach full employment. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has estimated that eliminating currency manipulation could create between 2.3 million and 5.8 million new American jobs.
The Week
November 6, 2015
As Andrew J. Cherlin points out in “Labor’s Love Lost,” his study of the disintegration of the working-class white family, the share of blue-collar jobs in the U.S. economy declined from 28 percent in 1970 to 17 percent in 2010. Work in the service or retail sectors was no bargain, either: As research by Valerie Wilson of the Economic Policy Institute demonstrates, the real median hourly wage for white men with no more than a high school diploma declined from $19.76 in 1979 to $17.50 in 2014.
The Washington Post
November 5, 2015
Those are just some of the more startling findings from a new analysis of state-level unemployment data released by the progressive Economic Policy Institute on Tuesday. The quarterly report compiles the latest unemployment figures by ethnicity in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Historically, African American unemployment nationwide has been about double the white unemployment rate. But the EPI’s figures reveal striking disparities in certain states.
The Huffington Post
November 5, 2015
The unemployment rate for Hispanics in Florida has fallen to nearly pre-recession levels, according to a study released Wednesday. But the unemployment rate for African Americans remains high, said the left-leaning nonprofit Economic Policy Institute in a national report on how the job picture has changed for workers of different races since the economic went belly-up. In the third quarter of 2015, about 6 percent of Hispanic workers in Florida were unemployed, compared to 5.6 percent at the end of 2007, EPI found.
Miami Herald
November 5, 2015
Despite all this, Flakes is doing better than many other child care workers because 15 percent of them live below the poverty line, or double the poverty rate for workers in other occupations, according to new research from The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
“They have a hard time affording child care and making ends meet,” said EPI senior economist Elise Gould, who wrote the research report. “We think of child care workers as being one step up from being elementary school workers, but they are much more similar to cashiers or food service workers” in terms of pay.
CBS Moneywatch
November 5, 2015
According to a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, the median wage for child care workers is $10.31. That’s not just a small figure on its own; it’s also very low compared to what these workers could make elsewhere. Even when compared to other workers with the same gender, race, educational attainment, age, geography, and a number of other factors, EPI found that child care providers make 23 percent less. And even those figures are likely underestimating the problem, given that any provider who is self employed and working out of her own home — providers who are likely to earn even less than those in, say, centers — aren’t counted. “Despite the crucial nature of their work, child care workers’ job quality does not seem to be valued in today’s economy,” the report notes. “They are among the country’s lowest-paid workers, and seldom receive job-based benefits such as health insurance and pensions.”
Think Progress
November 5, 2015
The Economic Policy Institute reports that about $1 billion a year is recovered on behalf of wage-theft victims nationally and that the figure indicates a much deeper problem. Even though it is against the law to steal wages, the penalties, such as fines ranging from $75 to $300, are minimal.
Philadelphia Inquirer
November 5, 2015