Media clips
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The effects of the H-1B visa program on wages is of particular interest to both economists and American unions. The Public Policy Institute of California, which has received funding from the tech industry, published a paper in December 2011 that shows H1-B visa holders are paid more than native workers and are more educated.
Hira, who previously conducted studies funded by the pro-union Economic Policy Institute, studied a smaller sample of H1-B workers and companies from 2010 to 2012 and found companies like Infosys typically paid foreign engineers only the minimum threshold that permits companies to bypass certain requirements under immigration law.
ABC News November 8, 2013 -
Lower tax burdens: Prior to the 1980s, taxes were much higher for the rich. The top income tax rate in 1980 was 70 percent. In 1945 it was 94 percent.”Why would you pay someone millions of dollars a year if the government was going to take 90% of it?” said Lawrence Mishel, President of the Economic Policy Institute.Now, the top tax rate is 39.5 percent. Lower taxes mean there’s now more of an incentive for people to chase, and for companies to give, huge paychecks.
CNNMoney November 8, 2013 -
The effects of the H-1B visa program on wages is of particular interest to both economists and American unions. The Public Policy Institute of California, which has received funding from the tech industry, published a paper in December 2011 that shows H1-B visa holders are paid more than native workers and are more educated.
Hira, who previously conducted studies funded by the pro-union Economic Policy Institute, studied a smaller sample of H1-B workers and companies from 2010 to 2012 and found companies like Infosys typically paid foreign engineers only the minimum threshold that permits companies to bypass certain requirements under immigration law.
ABC News November 6, 2013 -
On the other side, groups like the Economic Policy Institute assert that the H-1B program is filled with loopholes that allow firms to hire guest works without first recruiting qualified and available U.S. workers. As the report explained, high-skilled guest workers may be taking the jobs that equally qualified college-educated workers could fill. If the number of guest workers rises as provided for in the bills Congress is presently considering, there will be more guest workers and STEM green card holders than college graduates in the information technology areas. Guest workers will more than fill the STEM jobs available, as an earlier report by the EPI noted.
The Washington Post November 6, 2013 -
There’s no question that a part-time economy has taken hold in the U.S.
Since 2007, the rate of Americans working part-time rose from 17% to nearly 20%, a trend that has as much to do with the sluggish economic recovery as with employers’ general wariness about hiring.
And it can be worrisome for today’s young workers.
One in five college graduates are considered underemployed in the U.S., according a report by the Economic Policy Institute, leading many young adults to scrape by with a patchwork of part-time, contract or temporary gigs and none of the usual benefits of full-time employment, like health care and retirement accounts.
That leaves a lot of workers with a nagging uncertainty about being able to pay next month’s rent. Others, meanwhile, wouldn’t have it any other way, preferring the flexibility and freedom that comes with not being tied to a 9-to-5 office job.
Yahoo Finance November 5, 2013 -
Less well-covered has been the assault on workers’ rights as part of a coordinated, strategic, national and ideological program. There’s been excellent coverage of efforts by individual state legislatures, particularly efforts to roll back unionization for public-sector workers in Wisconsin and Michigan. But there hasn’t been a solid overview of how all these efforts hang together and how extensive and coordinated they are.
That has changed with a remarkable paper by the University of Oregon’s Gordon Lafer for the Economic Policy Institute, titled “The Legislative Attack on American Wages and Labor Standards, 2011–2012.” Lafer documents how extensive anti-labor efforts have been with the wave of newly conservative state governments, and he paints a picture of the forest that arises out of all these anti-labor trees.
The Washington Post November 5, 2013 -
EPI Research Associate Gordon Lafer describes the implications of his latest paper in The Nation, saying, “None of this comes from individual legislators. . . . This is coordinated and national.”
The Nation November 1, 2013 -
There are plenty of problems in public education, but here’s the biggest, from Elaine Weiss, the national coordinator for the Broader Bolder Approach to Education, a project of the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute that recognizes the impact of social and economic disadvantage on many schools and students, and works to better the conditions that limit many children’s readiness to learn.
The Washington Post November 1, 2013 -
For women, the good news is that, according to the latest payrolls data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of jobs held by women is now higher than when the Great Recession officially began nearly six years ago, in December of 2007.
But the bad news is that while some women have certainly scored good jobs, others are struggling with positions that are low-paid, part-time or temporary, and perhaps lacking benefits. Economists say that’s partly because the sectors that have seen some of the strongest jobs gains amid the tepid economic recovery, such as leisure and hospitality, tend not to pay that well.
“It’s the low-wage industries that are disproportionately growing right now,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
NBC News November 1, 2013 -
Last year, Tennessee school teachers lost their collective bargaining rights. So did municipal workers in Oklahoma. And farm workers and childcare providers in Maine. Research assistants in Michigan, too.
These attacks on labor were not isolated instances of ideological union-busting, according to areport released today by the Economic Policy Institute. The study traces the rise of a broad and coordinated campaign, fueled by corporate cash and conservative state legislators, to strip workers in both public and private sectors of their rights.The Nation November 1, 2013