Media clips

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• Here’s how much you need to make to be in the top 1%, 5%, and 10% in the US — and 4 tips to help you get there

  Landing in the top 10% is a fairly attainable goal for upwardly mobile Americans. A study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that the average earnings of those in the top 10% were roughly $173,000 in 2020.

  MoneyWise May 12, 2023
• Fed Warned to Stop ‘Needless Rate Hikes’ as Inflation Cools for 10th Straight Month

  Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, called the new CPI data “good news for working people,” noting that “inflation is nearly back to pre-recession rates, while the unemployment rate is at 50-year lows.”

  Common Dreams May 12, 2023
• Mulroy moves forward on effort to protect workers from wage exploitation

  The people most affected by wage exploitation include Ivan Flores, who worked 17-hour days for a local landscaper but never got paid overtime.

  In fact, between 2017 and 2020, the Economic Policy Institute estimated U.S. workers lost out on $3 billion in wages due to unfair business practices. Often, the workers are in fields like food service and construction.

  WREG May 12, 2023
• $7.25 federal minimum wage is a ‘national disgrace,’ says Sen. Bernie Sanders, backing push for $17 per hour

  Economic research backs up the idea, according to Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, who spoked at Sanders’ event.

  Rising inequality means income has shifted away from low- and middle-income workers who are more likely to spend it, she said.

  The decline of the real value of the minimum wage is now more than 40% below where it was at its peak 55 years ago, Shierholz said.

  “Having a weak minimum wage is bad for the overall economy,” Shierholz added.

  In addition to reducing inequality, raising the minimum wage would also reduce pover

  CNBC May 12, 2023
• Highlighting ongoing educator shortages during Teacher Appreciation Week

  According to the Economic Policy Institute, nationally, the U.S. will be short more than 300,000 teachers by 2024.

  CBS 58 May 12, 2023
• Early child care workers ask Texas Legislature for $2.3 billion in funding

  The average annual cost for child care in Texas is $9,324 for an infant and $7,062 for a 4-year-old, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  Austin American-Statesman May 12, 2023
• Jobless claims are up, but unemployment is still low. What does that mean?

  Now, none of them is saying the Federal Reserve has achieved that elusive soft landing in its effort to balance interest rate increases with economic growth. But Shierholz at the Economic Policy Institute said so far, that does seem to be where we’re headed.

  “We see inflation coming down and unemployment not yet going up,” she said.

  Marketplace May 12, 2023
• ‘People are making a big deal about the increase in wage growth’: Economists cast a skeptical eye over ‘strong’ jobs report

  “While there is zero sign of a recession right now, if we do have a recession, it will be because the Fed raised rates too aggressively,” said Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist and director of policy at the progressive Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

  “It would undo a great deal of the enormous gains, including the equity gains, that have occurred in the current recovery,” she added.

  MarketWatch May 12, 2023
• Virginia teacher pay falls further behind the national average

  Another study from the Economic Policy Institute shows Virginia has the third least competitive teacher pay in the country when compared to other fields that require a similar level of education.

  WTVR May 12, 2023
• Is Your Monthly Retirement Income Enough? Here’s What Our Latest Poll Says

  “According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, nearly half of all working-age families in the United States have zero retirement account savings,” said Jim E. Carlson, CDAA, a financial planner and certified digital asset advisor at Carlson Planning Company. “The median for families with retirement savings was around $60,000. However, considering that experts often recommend having at least 10 times your final salary saved by retirement, it’s clear that many Americans may be underprepared.”

  GO Banking Rates May 12, 2023
• Fast federal response to pandemic key to US economic recovery, economists say

  “I think that this recovery was tremendous compared to any recovery in recent history because of the scale of the investments that were made by policymakers,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, pointing to the child tax credit as one example that helped fuel the strong recovery. “So I think the incredible bounceback that we saw in employment and wage growth was driven directly from, in large part, to the kinds of investments that policymakers made in things like shoring up the unemployment insurance system, making that stronger, making it a better safety net for many workers.” 

  States Newsroom May 12, 2023
• To Protect Our Children, Let’s Tax Our Rich

  The number of kids employed in direct violation of existing child labor laws, analysts at the Economic Policy Institute this past March reported, has soared 283 percent since 2015 — and 37 percent in just the last year alone. Last week brought the alarming news that three Kentucky-based McDonald’s franchises had kids as young as 10 working at 62 stores in four different states. Some of these under-working age children were working as late as 2 a.m.

  Inequality.org May 12, 2023
• Here’s how compensation of CEOs of top Triad employers compares to their rank-and-file employees

  The Economic Policy Institute said in an October report that “exorbitant CEO pay is a contributor to rising inequality that we could restrain without doing any damage to the wider economy.”

  Winston-Salem Journal May 12, 2023
• Study: Kroger-Albertsons merger will cost workers over $300M

  In a new policy memo, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) examined these labor market implications of the proposed merger. It found that the merger of two of the largest supermarket chains in the country will increase employer concentration and reduce the wages of all grocery store workers in affected cities across the country.

  The Stand May 12, 2023
• Ronald Steel, Critic of American Cold War Policies, Dies at 92

  Lauding the book, Alan Tonelson, a fellow of the Economic Policy Institute at the time, wrote in The New York Times Book Review: “In a political climate where the labeling of all dissenting foreign policy voices as ‘isolationist’ is praised in the news media as responsible leadership, Mr. Steel’s essay is a rare example of clarity, wisdom and intellectual integrity.”

  New York Times May 12, 2023
• Are Reparations the Remedy?

  The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute has released a study arguing that wealth for the top 1 percent has grown by double digits while falling for the remaining 99 percent. 

  Providence Magazine May 12, 2023
• Ferro: Republicans fight child labor regulations

  This month two online publications — Vox and The Guardian — have featured news of a longtime Republican push making advances in 10 state legislatures. Much of the reporting is based on a March 14 report from the Economic Policy Institute.

  The topic? Child labor laws.

  Idaho Press May 12, 2023
• As H-1B visa registrations near 1M, odds of a visa decline

  Program critics are urging U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to look deeper at H-1B petitions coming from tech companies, “some of which are laying off tens of thousands of workers,” said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute.

  TechTarget May 12, 2023
• Downside of higher pay? Fewer hours, fewer jobs, Twin Cities minimum wage study says

  Some economists also remain skeptical of the researchers’ findings that St. Paul’s minimum wage increases, which didn’t start taking effect until 2020, led to job losses in 2018 and 2019 as employers anticipated the coming changes. Ben Zipperer of the Economic Policy Institute called that finding “completely implausible.”

  Minneapolis Star Tribune May 12, 2023
• 9 questions about the debt ceiling, answered

  “I’d definitely say 2011 was a step forward in how aggressively the debt ceiling was weaponized to secure partisan policy goals,” Josh Bivens, the director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, previously told Vox. “I’d say 1995 was also important; [House Speaker Newt] Gingrich threatened this but didn’t take it as far as the GOP did in 2011.”

  VOX May 12, 2023
• A Money Mystery: What Happened To The Lowest Earners’ Pandemic-Era Cash Stash?

  However, there are reasons to believe Hoyt’s model may show a real trend. The topsy-turvy pandemic era job market has helped out the lowest-paid workers quite a bit: Between 2019 and 2022, wages for the bottom 10% of workers grew 9% after adjusting for inflation, an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, found.

  Investopedia May 12, 2023
• Ohio could soon loosen its child labor laws

  With passage, Ohio would join a small train of states rolling back child labor laws. Arkansas, Iowa, New Hampshire and New Jersey enacted such policies in 2022 and 2023. Another six states have considered but not yet passed them, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The EPI, a progressive think-tank, called the state attempts part of a “coordinated campaign backed by industry groups intent on eventually diluting federal standards that cover the whole country.”

  Cleveland.com May 12, 2023
• ‘End the Absurdity’​: Experts Say Biden Must Not Let GOP Force ‘Catastrophic’ Default

  After outlining the impacts of a default—including cuts to Inflation Reduction Act climate provisions that “would be literally catastrophic”—Economic Policy Institute experts Josh Bivens and Samantha Sanders also asserted Tuesday that “all of this clearly calls for abolishing the debt limit to keep irresponsible congressional majorities from holding the nation’s economy hostage to its policy preferences in the future.”

  Common Dreams May 12, 2023
• Kroger-Albertsons merger could cost grocery workers $334M, study says

  Kroger Co.’s planned $24.6 billion acquisition of Albertsons Cos. could cost grocery workers $334 million in lost wages, a new study shows.

  Cincinnati Business Courier May 12, 2023
• Unemployment for recent college grads is the lowest in a generation

  The class of 2023 is entering a job market “that is much stronger than it was just one year ago, stronger than it was before the pandemic even began,” said Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute.

  Marketplace May 12, 2023
• 8 things to know: Banks that closed the most branches; Brown Advisory expands in D.C.

  A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute determined the deal would result in lower wages for 776,000 grocery workers in 55 metro areas. Collective annual pay for those employees will fall by $334 million, or about $450 per worker, Cincinnati Business Courier reports.

  Baltimore Business Journal May 12, 2023
• Unemployment rate sinks in April for Black and Hispanic workers, but holds steady for Asians

  “Unemployment rates remain low across the board and historically low for Black workers,” said Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy.

  CNBC May 12, 2023
• Missouri teachers deserve better pay and sufficient support

  Research from the Economic Policy Institute shows that, after adjusting for inflation, teachers’ average weekly wages have been relatively flat since 1996 — almost 30 years.

  Missouri Independent May 12, 2023
• Teachers earn $67K on average. Is push for raises too late?

  It reached a record 23.5% in 2021, with teachers earning an average 76.5 cents for every dollar earned by other college-educated professionals, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

  Associated Press May 12, 2023
• Kroger responds to ‘lost wages’ merger report: ‘Poorly sourced analysis’

  Kroger is firing back after a report from the Economic Policy Institute claimed a merger between the Cincinnati-based grocer and Albertsons would cost workers over $300 million in lost wages annually.

  Supermarket News May 12, 2023