The Economic Policy Institute observed earlier this week that autoworker wages across the U.S. have fallen by 19.3% since 2008.
Salon
September 22, 2023
The inflation of the past three years is especially galling for autoworkers, who agreed to give up automatic cost-of-living increases in 2008 when two of the Big Three filed for bankruptcy and had to be bailed out by the federal government. Since then, workers’ inflation-adjusted income has fallen 19%, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
Fortune
September 22, 2023
Profits at the Big Three firms increased by 92 percent in the last decade and CEO pay increased by 40 percent in the same period, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute.
The Hill
September 22, 2023
A 2021 analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor think tank, estimated that without policy intervention, meeting that goal would cost the US auto industry 75,000 jobs, since the majority of EV powertrain components are produced and assembled elsewhere.
WIRED
September 22, 2023
Samantha Sanders, the director of government affairs and advocacy at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based thinktank, suggested Republican interventions on the strike were driven by opportunism.
“I don’t know what is the decision-making on their campaigns,” she said. “All I can say is, what is your track record? What have you done for workers? Have we reason to believe they would follow on these messages of support some of them express? I have not seen anything backed up by action while they were in office.
The Guardian
September 22, 2023
The union argues that the boost in pay and benefits is warranted because of the hefty profits and executive compensation at the auto companies. From 2013 to 2022, according to the Economic Policy Institute, profits at the Big Three leapt 92%, totalling $250 billion by last year.
U.S. News & World Report
September 22, 2023
CEO pay has skyrocketed more than 1,200% since 1978, compared to a 15.3% increase in a typical worker’s compensation, according to a new report out today from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Josh Bivens, chief economist for the EPI, and Luke Schaefer, associate dean for research and policy engagement at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Policy, joined Nick Austin on Detroit Today this morning to discuss how income inequality affects our economy and society as a whole.
NPR Detroit
September 22, 2023
Profits at the Big Three have almost doubled in the last 10 years, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Persistent high profits like this are evidence that markets are not functioning well, so we aren’t producing as much as possible with the resources we have available.
CNN
September 22, 2023
A new report from the Economic Policy Institute shows that average CEO compensation (including stock awards and options) was $25.2 million in 2022, a slight decrease from 2021, due largely to stock market declines. Since 1978, however, CEO compensation has soared by 1,209.2% compared with a 15.3% increase in a typical worker’s compensation. In 2022, CEOs were paid 344 times as much as a typical worker. Back in 1965, they were paid 21 times as much as a typical worker.
Counterpunch
September 22, 2023
Over the last two years, at least 14 states introduced or passed laws eroding child labor standards, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a progressive think tank.
“They do that in a variety of ways, either by extending hours, by expanding the industries in which young workers can work at, or allowing them to serve alcohol,” said Nina Mast, coauthor of the report.
AFP
September 22, 2023
Meanwhile the automakers rebounded from the financial crisis and began to make a lot of money — $250 billion from 2013 through 2022, according to the Economic Policy Institute. G.M. and Chrysler were prohibited from issuing big dividends or stock buybacks to reward shareholders as a condition of the federal bailouts they received, but soon after the government sold the last of its shares (in 2011 for Chrysler and 2013 for G.M.), they resumed big payouts in earnest. They also boosted top executives’ pay.
New York Times
September 22, 2023
The White House, naturally, didn’t agree. One official argued that the Bidenomics messaging extended well beyond manufacturing, as evidenced by several other papers and speeches on the president’s economic policy. The official also highlighted research from the Economic Policy Institute that found manufacturing industries have among the strongest linkages to jobs in other sectors, meaning a loss in manufacturing jobs affects jobs in other sectors.
Politico West Wing Playbook
September 22, 2023
And between 1978 and 2021, executive compensation at large American companies increased by more than 1,400 percent, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute said.
It climbed 37 percent faster than stock market growth and 18 percent faster than average full-time worker pay over the same period, the EPI analysis found.
Politico
September 22, 2023
Nationwide, autoworkers’ average real hourly earnings has fallen 19.3% since 2008, according to research from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
September 22, 2023
Profits at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis have grown 92% from 2013 to 2022, totaling $250 billion, according to the Economic Policy Institute. During that time, the CEOs at Ford, GM and Stellantis have seen their salary jump 40%.
Michigan Advance
September 22, 2023
During the country’s 2008 economic crisis, the auto industry was at extreme risk; GM and Chrysler (now Stellantis) agreed to bankruptcy and government-supported restructuring, according to the Economic Policy Institute September 12 article, UAW-automakers negotiations pit falling wages against skyrocketing CEO pay. While this deal saved jobs throughout the auto sector, it came with steep costs to workers. Union workers agreed to a wage freeze, entry of lower-wage “tiered” workers, and other concessions affecting retiree pensions and health care benefits, the article continued. In 2009, the companies suspended contractual cost of living adjustments and have not had one since.
Texas Metro News
September 22, 2023
Profits at the Big Three collectively rose by 92 percent, and CEO compensation jumped 40 percent from 2013 to 2022, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute released last week.
Inflation has eaten into auto manufacturing workers’ average hourly wages, which dropped 19.3 percent in real dollars since 2008, the left-leaning think tank found.
The Hill
September 22, 2023
Adjusted for inflation, wages for autoworkers in the United States have fallen 19 percent since 2008, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research group.
New York Times
September 22, 2023
Factoring in the nation’s 350 largest companies, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio was 20-to-1 in 1965, according to the Economic Policy Institute. That figure jumped to 59-to-1 in 1989 and 399-to-1 in 2021, EPI researchers said. The CEO-to-worker pay ratio for S&P 500 firms was 186-to-1 in 2022, according to executive compensation research firm Equilar.
CBS Moneywatch
September 22, 2023
Profits at the Big Three firms increased by 92 percent in the last decade and CEO pay increased by 40 percent in the same period, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute.
The Hill
September 22, 2023
Those across-the-board spending cuts reduced federal grants to states by $5.8 billion and took the biggest toll on Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota, Montana and South Dakota, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Route Fifty
September 22, 2023
Along the same lines, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute reported a year ago that “CEO pay has skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978; CEOs were paid 399 times as much as a typical worker in 2021.”
News Herald (Ohio)
September 22, 2023
Between 1979 and 2022, the inflation-adjusted annual wages of the top 1% of workers rose by 145%, while the average annual wages of the bottom 90% rose by only 16% — about a tenth as fast, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Several factors contributed to these trends, including deregulation, the decline of unions, and little change in the federal minimum wage.
CNN
September 22, 2023
The figure Sanders cited is nearly identical to a statistic from the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., liberal think tank. The organization annually calculates the ratio of pay between CEOs and workers making the average median salary. The group’s analysis isn’t confined to autoworkers.
In the institute’s most recent report, from 2021, the compensation ratio was 399-to-1. The institute looked at the 350 largest publicly owned U.S. companies by revenue, which includes two of the Big Three automakers, General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. The third of the Big Three, Stellantis N.V., a Netherlands corporation formed through a 2021 merger with Fiat Chrysler, was not in this group.
Politifact
September 22, 2023
Since 2013, profits at the Big Three have risen 92 percent, according to the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute. During that time period, the companies paid out nearly $66 billion in dividends and stock buybacks, $14 billion of that in this year alone.
New Republic
September 22, 2023
There’s been an effort in much of the media to suggest that the workers are being greedy. In fact, the workers made major concessions in order to help save the Big 3 companies during the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009. Since 2008, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), real hourly earnings for autoworkers have fallen 19.3%. If the companies were still struggling, the union’s demands might seem unreasonable. But that’s not the case.
Profits for Ford, General Motors and Stellantis have jumped by 92% over the past decade, to roughly $250 billion. According to EPI, forecasts for 2023 point to more than $32 billion in additional profits.
The Cap Times
September 22, 2023
And it’s astronomical by historical standards. According to a study of the 350 largest publicly traded U.S. firms by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, the CEO-to-Worker pay ratio was just 15-1 in 1965.
Associated Press
September 22, 2023
Video of Heidi at Politico event.
Politico
September 22, 2023
According to an analysis last year by the Economic Policy Institute, the heads of the top 350 publicly traded companies earned annual incomes that were on average 399 times greater than a typical worker in 2021, up from 59-to-1 in 1989. This means that some executives’ pay is significantly greater than 399 times their employee’s pay. In fact, the heads of 22 S&P 500 companies earn at least 1,000 times more than what their typical workers take home. (See if some of these companies are also among the companies planning the biggest mass layoffs this year.)
24/7 Wall St.
September 22, 2023
Adjusting for inflation, autoworkers have seen their average wages fall 19.3% since 2008, according to Adam Hersh, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. That’s because autoworker “concessions made following the 2008 auto industry crisis were never reinstated,” Hersh said in a recent blog post, “including a suspension of cost-of-living adjustments.”
CBS News
September 22, 2023