The current federal minimum wage is about 36 percent of the median wage, said David Cooper, an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., where his expertise includes minimum wage and economic inequality. EPI is a nonprofit think tank that gets about a quarter of its funding from labor unions. A majority of funding comes from foundation grants and the small remaining part from individuals, corporations, and other organizations. “That is a pretty significant gap,” he said. “Back in the 1960s, (when the gap between the minimum and the median was at its smallest,) it was 54 to 55 percent of the median wage. “Twelve dollars by 2020 would put it right back to where it was in 1968 – 54 to 55 percent of the median wage,” Cooper said. “We just don’t know what would happen if we push the minimum wage higher than those levels.”
He said that in Germany, the minimum wage is about 58 percent of that country’s median wage. In France, it is about 63 percent of the French median wage. “There is precedent for other countries to do this,” he said of a minimum wage that is more than 55 percent of the median wage. “It hasn’t been part of the U.S. experience, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t have a minimum wage/median wage ratio up at that same level.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer
January 7, 2016
Raising New York state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour would increase pay for millions of New Yorkers by $15 billion and have the greatest impact on women and minorities in the workforce, according to a new study. The report from the union-backed Economic Policy Institute said a $15 minimum would directly benefit 2.4 million workers. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed gradually increasing the minimum from its current level of $9 to $15 by 2021. The proposal is expected to be debated by lawmakers during this year’s legislative session, which gets underway Wednesday in Albany. Of those who would be affected, three-quarters are over the age of 25 and slightly more than half are women or minorities. More than a quarter are the sole providers in their households. “The workers who would benefit from the higher minimum wage do not fit the stereotype of low-wage workers being teenagers from affluent families working part time,” wrote the report’s author, economic analyst David Cooper.
The Associated Press
January 6, 2016
There are a few ways to look at it. The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute regularly calculates the ratio between executive and median-employee pay — a ratio that has changed dramatically over the years. In 1965, CEOs made 20 times the salary of an average, non-management employee (we’re using the mean here, not the median, as we did above). That means that a CEO would have earned his employee’s salary by Jan. 19, at about 7 a.m.
By 1978, CEOs were making just less than 30 times the average employee. He or she (he) would have earned the average salary by Jan. 13, at about 6 a.m. Then things got crazy. In 1989, CEOs made 58.7 times their employees, pulling in the average income by Jan. 7. In 1995, it was 71.6 times, meaning that by about midnight on Jan. 4, a CEO had earned an average employee’s annual salary. The most recent figure from EPI is for 2014. That year, CEOs earned 303 times as much as the average, non-management employee.
The Washington Post
January 6, 2016
According to a fact sheet written by the Economic Policy Institute, in the long run immigrants do not reduce the employment rates of native-born Americans. But the institute says in the short run, immigration may slightly reduce the rates of unemployment of native born Americans. The impact is greater when the economy is weak.
NBC News
January 6, 2016
But other analyses of the academic data, by the left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and independent economist Joydeep Roy, place the modern diploma in a more complex economic frame. First, while Achieve compares various states’ graduation criteria, as EPI President Lawrence Mishel explains, “none of their comparisons are historical, showing a change from an earlier period.”
The Nation
January 6, 2016
GOP senators facing tough reelection bids include Sen. Rob Portman (R), of Ohio, a manufacturing hub, and Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R), of New Hampshire, which lost more than 20,000 jobs because of the trade deficit with China, according to a 2012 Economic Policy Institute study.
The Hill
January 6, 2016
Black wealth also has declined. The non-partisan Economic Policy Institute, in coordination with the liberal research institution Center for Popular Democracy, reports that black workers’ wages have fallen by 44 cents on the hour in the past 15 years, while wages of both Hispanic and white workers have increased by approximately the same amount.
Voice of America
January 6, 2016
The type of occupations dominated by women may play a role as well. For example, “public teacher employment is still below what it was in 2007,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “And that definitely disproportionately affects women.”
The New York Times
January 4, 2016
Not convinced? Here’s another study for you. In October, the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank focused on work force issues, found that the cost of child care for two children exceeds rent in 500 of 618 communities surveyed and in many parts of the U.S. — including in Washington, D.C. — the cost of child care exceeds that of state college tuition.
NPR
January 4, 2016
A family of four can meet its basic needs for $49,114 a year in Morristown, Tenn.—about half the income needed to raise a family in New York or Washington, according to the Economic Policy Institute’s family budget calculator released in August.
Wall Street Journal
January 4, 2016