It costs a pretty penny for residents to live comfortably on Long Island, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The organization recently released its 2018 family budget calculator that estimates how costly it is to live in each of America’s 3,142 counties and 611 metro areas.
The group estimates a family of two adults and two children in the Nassau/Suffolk metro area would need to earn a combined $139,545 per year — or $11,629 a month — to live comfortably. (whole story)
Syosset Patch | March 23, 2018
The Tampa/St. Pete metro area ranks as a less expensive place to live compared to other Florida cities, according to the Economic Policy Institute. It’s really no surprise that the Tampa/St. Pete area was less pricey than Miami and West Palm Beach, but it was also less costly than the smaller cities of Naples and Sarasota.
The institute recently released its 2018 family budget calculator that estimates how costly it is to live in each of America’s 3,142 counties and 611 metro areas. (whole story)
Tampa Patch | March 23, 2018
Philadelphia is actually the least place to live in the five-county greater Philadelphia area, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The organization recently released its 2018 family budget calculator that estimates how costly it is to live in each of America’s 3,142 counties and 611 metro areas.
The group estimates a family of two adults and two children in Philadelphia would need to earn a combined $84,901 per year — or $7,075 a month — to live comfortably. (whole story)
Chestnut Hill Patch | March 23, 2018
The Economic Policy Institute recently released its 2018 family budget calculator that estimates how costly it is to live in each of America’s 3,142 counties and 611 metro areas. The group estimates a family of two adults and two children in Mercer County would need to earn a combined $94,171 — or $7,848 a month — to live comfortably. (whole story)
Princeton Patch | March 23, 2018
Union County is one of the priciest places to live in New Jersey, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The organization recently released its 2018 family budget calculator that estimates how costly it is to live in each of America’s 3,142 counties and 611 metro areas.
The group estimates a family of two adults and two children in Union County would need to earn a combined $92,937 per year — or $7,745 a month — to live comfortably. (whole story)
Summit Patch | March 23, 2018
The Economic Policy Institute recently released its 2018 family budget calculator that estimates how costly it is to live in each of America’s 3,142 counties and 611 metro areas. The group estimates a family of two adults and two children in Camden County would need to earn a combined $87,509 — or $7,292 a month — to live comfortably. (whole story)
Gloucester Township Patch | March 23, 2018
Bergen County is one of the most expensive places in live in New Jersey, information from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows.
The EPI recently released its 2018 family budget calculator that estimates how costly it is to live in each of the United States’ 3,142 counties and 611 metro areas.
The EPI estimates that a family of two adults and two children in Bergen County would need to earn $8,754 a month — or $105,042 annually — to live comfortably. (whole story)
Wyckoff Patch | March 23, 2018
Delaware County is one of the priciest places to live in the Philadelphia area, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The organization recently released its 2018 family budget calculator that estimates how costly it is to live in each of America’s 3,142 counties and 611 metro areas.
The group estimates a family of two adults and two children in Delaware County would need to earn a combined $93,136 per year — or $7,761 a month — to live comfortably. (whole story)
Randor Patch | March 23, 2018
New Jersey is one of the most expensive states in America, according to the Economic Policy Institute. But you may be able to find a place to live in New Jersey that won’t break your budget.
The organization recently released its 2018 family budget calculator that estimates how costly it is to live in each of America’s 3,142 counties and 611 metro areas. We have rankings of New Jersey places, county-by-county, based on affordability (see below). (whole story)
Toms River Patch | March 23, 2018
Worcester County is one of the cheaper places to live in Massachusetts according to the Economic Policy Institute. The organization recently released its 2018 family budget calculator that estimates how costly it is to live in each of America’s 3,142 counties and 611 metro areas.
The group estimates a family of two adults and two children in Worcester County would need to earn a combined $96,720 per year — or $8,060 a month — to “attain a modest yet adequate standard of living,” the organization said. (whole story)
Milford Patch | March 23, 2018
Myriad studies have demonstrated the extent of the wage theft, like a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute which found that 2.4 million workers lose $8 billion annually in the ten most populous states because of minimum wage violations alone, without accounting for overtime or other laws. This doesn’t happen because of honest employers who make a calculation error or can’t make payroll for one pay period.
The Hill | March 23, 2018
Deeply disturbing is the reality that, in 2018, Black people still suffer the brunt of systemic racism and inequality. Comparing the Kerner Commission report to today’s reality, it is shocking how far we haven’t come. In a must-read follow-up briefing by the Economic Policy Institute, titled “50 years after the Kerner Commission,” researchers Valerie Wilson, Janelle Jones (who appeared on WURD to discuss it), and John Schmitt observed that: (lists key findings)
WHYY | March 23, 2018
Companies and advocates are watching the case closely, particularly given the new significance amid the #MeToo movement, where women are coming together to speak out against sexual harassment in the workplace. More than half of private-sector employers have mandatory arbitration procedures, and 30 percent of these include class action waivers, the Economic Policy Institute reported in a study last year.
The National Law Journal | March 23, 2018
The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, estimates that the rule would likely transfer about $5.8 billion in tips each year from workers to their bosses — about 16.1 percent of all their tips. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta reportedly tried to hide an internal analysis showing that the rule could take $640 million from workers (an initial analysis showed it would actually take billions of dollars), according to a Bloomberg investigation. Now the agency’s inspector general is investigating the allegations.
VOX | March 22, 2018
As the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute has noted, “the rule doesn’t actually require that employers distribute ‘pooled’ tips to workers. Under the administration’s proposed rule, as long as tipped workers earn minimum wage, employers could legally pocket those tips.” Why not just tweak the language? Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta claims his department doesn’t have the legal authority to ban tip theft; Congress would have to do it. It’s hard to say precisely how much pay America’s servers could see siphoned off if Trump’s regulation takes effect, in part because there’s a lack of good data about tip theft in general. But it’s possible to make an reasonable estimate. The Economic Policy Institute, for instance, thinks that restaurant workers could lose $5.8 billion annually in the bargain. The Department of Labor, on the other hand, has been officially silent on this point. Despite the fact that federal law requires government agencies to perform a cost-benefit analysis for new regulations, the proposal that department put out in December did not contain any estimate of the economic toll the regulation change might take on workers. The administration claimed that it couldn’t produce such an analysis, because it was too hard to predict how restaurants, their employees, and customers would react to the change.
Slate | March 22, 2018
‘According to an analysis published by the Economic Policy Institite (EPI) in January, even the internal analysis that the Department of Labor successfully repressed downplayed how much the tip-stealing rule would harm workers. While the Labor Department ultimately concluded that the rule could cost workers $640 million per year in earned tips, EPI found that the actual number would be somewhere around $5.8 billion—with $4.6 billion of that coming from the pockets of women. In a statement on Wednesday, Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at EPI, argued that Acosta should withdraw the rule and “focus on things that promote the Labor Department’s mission of serving working people, not undermining their earnings.” (includes Josh’s tweets)
Common Dreams | March 22, 2018
Previously, the DOL found that the total amount that workers could lose out on was actually in the billions, but sources told Bloomberg Law in February that senior department officials “ordered staff to revise the data methodology to lessen the expected impact.” The left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute has estimated that workers would lose $5.8 billion—$4.6 billion of which would come from women working in tipped jobs—if the new rule was implemented.
Splinter News | March 22, 2018
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimated that if the Labor Department’s proposal to allow tip pooling was enacted, tipped workers would lose between $563 million and $14.2 billion in annual tips. EPI’s best estimate indicated an annual loss of $5.8 billion in income.
24/7 Wall St. | March 22, 2018
But progressive groups like the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and the National Employment Law Project say the rule lacks a safeguard to stop an employer from stealing a percentage of the workers’ tips.
The Hill | March 22, 2018
But while paying too much for a pillow or a television is one thing, the stakes get a lot higher when the misleading product you’re buying is financial advice. In fact, undisclosed conflicts of interest cost savers an estimated $17 billion annually, according to research from the Economic Policy Institute. EPI arrived at that figure by estimating the investment losses for people who were unwittingly buying retirement products from a financial planner who was paid on commission — and thus incentivized to recommend products that might be more expensive or risky than they needed to be. (Map included)
Mic | March 22, 2018
The progressive critique of globalization and trade deals has, in fact, received extensive validation in a number of recent studies by top economists. David Autor and Daron Acemoglu of MIT, along with a series of co-authors, have found strong statistical evidence confirming that the “shock” of increased imports from China caused massive job losses (up to 2.4 million) and significantly depressed wages for US workers, especially those with less education. Chinese imports, they found, have affected workers not only in the manufacturing industries that directly compete with imports, but also in local service sectors that serve communities impacted by the imports, as well as “upstream” industries that supply inputs to the import-competing firms. Estimates from Robert E. Scott of the Economic Policy Institute show even larger job displacement due to higher US trade deficits with Mexico and China. Whichever estimates one believes, free-trade advocates who ignore or deny these huge social costs have clearly brought the current wave of anti-trade backlash on themselves. (Rob cited throughout)
Jacobin | March 22, 2018
One of the first things you might do when thinking about moving (or actually moving) to a new place is get a rough estimate of how much it costs to live there. Any number of cost-of-living calculators might help you find that out, considering how far your current salary might go, or even comparing the costs of groceries. But if you want to project a little farther into the future, try taking a look at the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) budget fact sheets and family budget calculator. The EPI’s data measures how much money a family might need “in order to attain a modest yet adequate standard of living.” You might be surprised at how much your financial outlook changes as your household grows. (whole story)
Refinery 29 | March 22, 2018
Cost of living can look drastically different depending on where you are. It will cost a single person about $29,118 a year to live in Brownsville, Texas, for example, but in San Francisco, California, that expense more than doubles, to $69,072. That’s according to the Economic Policy Institute’s newly updated family budget calculator, which shows the income differently sized families need in order to attain a baseline standard of living across the U.S. In other words, it measures “what families need to get by,” says EPI Senior Economist Elise Gould. (whole story)
CNBC | March 22, 2018
All U.S. residents have skin in this game. Just ask Elise Gould, Zane Mokhiber and Kathleen Bryant at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a think tank based in Washington, D.C. The EPI just updated its Family Budget Calculator to reveal what families require to meet their living costs in all 3,142 counties and 611 metro areas across the nation. According to the EPI researchers, their report provides more comprehensive economic data than the federal poverty line and the Supplemental Poverty Measure. The key takeaway: Minimum wage is not a livable wage. While the EPI data adjusts for increased city and state minimum wages, “there is nowhere in the country where a minimum-wage worker — even a single adult without children — earns enough to meet the requirements of their local family budget,” according to Gould, Mokhiber and Bryant. (whole story)
MultiBriefs | March 22, 2018
Yet, when you look at the Economic Policy Institute’s interactive Family Budget Calculator, the cost of living in Philly presents a grim picture for those least able to afford it. For one adult, the average monthly cost of living is near $2,800 or more than $33,000 annually (cruel pocket book calisthenics when per capita income is just $24,000). Add a child to it, and the cost of living soars to more than $4,700 a month—or $57,000 a year. Watch the average monthly taxes go from $460 to nearly $700. Add another child and it’s nearly $75,000 a year in average living costs; two adults and two children it’s about $85,000, including nearly $1,000 a month in taxes alone.
Charles Ellison | March 22, 2018
Saying “there is no free lunch or road or bridge,” in paying to fix or improve the nation’s roads, bridges, subways, buses, airports and other infrastructure, the Economic Policy Institute is calling for raising the federal gas tax, retaining the key federal role and funding for such projects – and for keeping worker rights as part of the package. Those positions, laid out by EPI President Thea Lee at a March 7 House Transportation panel hearing, agree with those of transportation, building trades and other unions, but fly in the face of the anti-tax, anti-worker, anti-federal orthodoxy of Congress’s ruling Republicans. Lawmakers called two sessions on the GOP Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion 10-year infrastructure outline. Lee was the only witness the Democratic minority was allowed to invite.
Press Associates Union News | March 22, 2018
The President of AASHTO and a member of its board of directors testified this week at a hearing on Capitol Hill. In this Transportation TV News Brief on you’ll learn why AASHTO President John Schroer, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Transportation and Michael Lewis, executive director of the Colorado Department of Transportation were invited to speak before the Highways and Transit Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Also testifying Wednesday, March 7, were Chris Spear, President and CEO of the American Trucking Associations, Ed Mortimer, executive director for transportation and infrastructure at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Ms. Thea Lee, president of the Economic Policy Institute. Watch this News Brief and use this link to watch the entire hearing.
Transportation TV | March 22, 2018
There are numerous new condos and townhomes under construction in Downtown Sarasota, but can everyone afford them? A new study by the Economic Policy Institute estimates it costs a family of four living in Sarasota and Manatee counties over $80,000 to live adequately, but modestly. (whole story)
ABC 7 | March 22, 2018
Suncoast News Network | March 22, 2018
This comes from the just-released Economic Policy Institute’s 2018 update of its Family Budget Calculator. The calculator shows the cost of living for 10 family types in all of the nation’s 3,142 counties (and county equivalents) and 611 metro areas. But the income needed to acquire what the EPI calls an “adequate yet modest” life in Sarasota and Manatee counties doesn’t come anywhere near the average annual wage. That income in the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton metropolitan area is $41,870, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Herald Tribune | March 22, 2018