Media clips

• For Sen. Sherrod Brown, ‘dignity of work’ is essential to life

  Brown, Walsh, and Valerie Wilson, director of the Race, Ethnicity and the Economy Program at the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute, hit those themes in their interviews. Brown plans to pursue them legislatively if he returns to the panel’s top job after the November election, assuming Democrats hold the Senate this fall.

  Walsh made many of the same points. Both EPI’s Wilson and Walsh, a Laborers Local 223 member, emphasized such measures must reach those who have been left out and left behind, even in the current fast recovery from the coronavirus-caused depression.

  The anti-coronavirus laws Biden, Brown and Walsh pushed through “create a pathway to middle-class jobs, especially for workers of color” and people with disabilities, the Labor Secretary said. They need it, Wilson added.

  And DOL now will award job creation grants “and make sure we measure the outcomes” for those hardest-hit workers, the secretary promised.

  The worst damage from the pandemic was to Black woman workers, Wilson elaborated. They got hit two ways. Many of the occupations they were forced into, and which already were low-paying, such as home health care and restaurant servers, suffered the worst job losses. And even if jobs remained, the pandemic-caused national closure of schools forced thousands of working women to reluctantly quit, to take care of their own kids.

  “This continues to be a problem and a challenge,” Wilson said of the future facing those working women. “And it’s due to the larger structural problems” in the economy and society, she added—a polite way, though she didn’t say so, of endemic structural racism.

  People's Weekly World September 9, 2022
• Transcript: Future of Work: Economic Mobility
  Washington Post deputy business editor Damian Paletta speaks with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), David Madland, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and Valerie Wilson, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute, about the economic drivers and disparities that impact mobility in the labor market. Conversation recorded on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022.

  See article for full transcript of Valerie’s comments.

  The Washington Post September 9, 2022
• What the number of involuntary part-time workers tells us about the economy

  The measure of involuntary part-time employment gives us a sense of how much slack or unmet potential is in the labor market, per Elise Gould, senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute.

  “When that number is lower” — like it’s been in the last couple of years — “it means that there are more opportunities and fewer people are scrambling to get additional hours,” Gould said.

  That’s good news for workers, who have lots of options and additional leverage vis-a-vis employers, Gould said.

  Marketplace September 9, 2022
• Five Financial Tips for Incoming College Students

  Teresa Ghilarducci is the Schwartz Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research. She’s the co-author of “Rescuing Retirement” and a member of the board of directors of the Economic Policy Institute.

  Bloomberg September 9, 2022
• The U.S. unemployment rate rose in August, and Black workers’ labor force participation declined

  “There is some volatility in these numbers but seeing a downward trend in employment and participation is worrisome,” said Elise Gould, senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute.

  CNBC September 9, 2022
• Experts on the impact of economic disparities on worker mobility

  Join Washington Post Live for a special series that explores how the labor market is responding to dramatic disruptions brought on by inflation, automation, gigification and the pandemic. Part one of the series unpacks the economic drivers and disparities that impact mobility in the labor market, featuring Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), David Madland, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and Valerie Wilson, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute.

  The Washington Post September 9, 2022
• Experts on the impact of economic disparities on worker mobility

  Join Washington Post Live for a special series that explores how the labor market is responding to dramatic disruptions brought on by inflation, automation, gigification and the pandemic. Part one of the series unpacks the economic drivers and disparities that impact mobility in the labor market, featuring Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), David Madland, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and Valerie Wilson, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute.

  The Washington Post September 9, 2022
• Inflation pushes minimum wages higher in Colorado and some other states

  In total, 27 states and Washington, D.C., will raise their minimum wages next year, either because of inflation or previously scheduled increases, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning Washington, D.C., think tank. A lower minimum wage for workers who earn tips also will increase in many of those states.

  “Employers are having to compete to attract staff, and this is particularly true in low-wage industries such as leisure and hospitality,” said David Cooper, director of the Economic Analysis and Research Network at the Economic Policy Institute.

  The minimum wage isn’t going up everywhere next year. Twenty-three states have no minimum wage increases scheduled. Twenty of those states set their minimums at or below the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The federal minimum wage, which amounts to an income of about $15,000 a year for somebody who works 40 hours a week, hasn’t changed in more than a decade.

  Cooper, of the Economic Policy Institute, said that $18 an hour in 2028 could be worth $15.50 an hour in today’s dollars.

  “It seems high, but when you consider what inflation might look like over the next few years, it’s probably not as high as it seems,” he said.

  Denver Gazette September 9, 2022
• California School District Asking Students’ Families To House Teachers Due To Soaring Home And Rent Prices

  With housing affordability in California, many teachers face issues on the 1st of the month. From 2014 through 2019, according to reports from the Economic Policy Institute, the state’s instructors earned 15.5% less than college-educated instructors.

  Blavity September 9, 2022
• New California law could raise fast-food minimum wage to $22 an hour
  But dozens of advocacy groups including the Economic Policy Institute, the National Employment Law Project and One Fair Wage urged the state in January to pass the bill.
  CNN Business September 9, 2022
• Fast-Food Workers Could Earn $22 an Hour in California Now

  Ten states have or are planning to institute a mandatory minimum wage of $15 an hour, and California just enacted a law on Labor Day creating the first-in-the-nation fast food council for chains like McDonald’s and Taco Bell that will set minimum wage standards — perhaps as high as $22 an hour. Laws like these are necessary because not every employer has met what many think of as a more-realistic living wage. According to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, these major food chains have the largest percentages of workers making less than $15 an hour.

  MSN September 9, 2022
• Iowa teachers earn less than college-educated peers

  Iowa public school teachers earn 16.3% less than their college-educated counterparts in other fields.

  • That’s according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning group, which advocates for fair pay for low- and middle-income workers.

  Why it matters: Teacher shortages are hitting schools in the Des Moines metro and across the country, and this pay gap can discourage college students from entering the profession, the report says.

  The big picture: The national pay gap between teachers and similarly educated non-teachers grew to a record 23.5% in 2021.

  • Inflation-adjusted weekly wages for teachers have remained essentially flat over the decades, increasing just $29 from 1996 to 2021, the institute found.
  • College graduates in other professions saw wages increase $445 in the same period.
  Axios September 9, 2022
• BlackRock CEO Larry Fink thinks he has a solution to inflation: bring people back to the office

  Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, suggested to Fortune in May that one reason for falling productivity might be some people returning to work in “lower productivity” jobs like restaurant work, which was suppressed during the COVID pandemic. (“Low productivity” is a technical measurement of economic output over hours worked, and does not imply that an employee’s job is easy.)

  Fortune September 9, 2022
• There’s a perk to having a female manager: better pay packages

  The male-female pay gap in the U.S. was 22.1% last year, per the Economic Policy Institute. The average American woman earns 83 cents to a man’s dollar, according to a gender and racial pay gap analysis by the American Association of University Women. Last year, the country’s highest-paid group, Asian men, earned more than double the lowest-paid groups, Black women and Latinx women.  

  Fortune September 9, 2022
• Why Economists are Talking About ‘Labor Hoarding’ and What You Need To Know About ItData suggests companies are holding on to employees as part of longer-term strategic thinking than we’re used to seeing in uncertain economic times

  Indeed, Labor hoarding was relatively popular in the economic literature at a few points in the 20th century, but mentions of the term dipped sharply after the late 1990s. Economist Heidi Shierholz of the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute said that when labor hoarding was popular, one would find that companies “didn’t want to just let [employees] go and then have to do the expensive retraining, rehiring on the other end when things got better.” What we’re seeing now could be viewed as a bit of a revival, she noted, calling labor hoarding a return to the way American companies used to behave during recessions.

  Inc. September 9, 2022
• The Surprisingly Disappointing Reign of Marty Walsh, Biden’s Labor Secretary

  Am I knocking Biden? Only insofar as he hasn’t given Walsh the kick in the pants he clearly needs to step up his game. Biden has been a solidly pro-labor president, especially given his narrow Senate majority. The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill will create, according to the Economic Policy Institute, nearly 800,000 jobs, including nearly 200,000 construction jobs, more than 80,00 jobs to expand the power grid, and nearly 73,000 jobs to expand public transit. 

  The New Republic September 9, 2022
• Companies Are Required to Report Their Union Busting, but Many Don’t

  Employers who hire these third-party consultants are just as bad. LaborLab’s analysis of LM-10s filed in 2021 found that $26 million was reportedly spent by companies to hire consultants. But nearly 90 employers have still not filed the LM-10 for that year, even though it should have been done by March of this year. The total amount spent on union busting, then, could end up being much higher—a 2019 Economic Policy Institute report found that an estimated $340 million a year was spent on union avoidance companies between 2014 and 2018.

  American Prospect September 9, 2022
• This chart shows how union membership has declined over the years

  According to a 2021 post from The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), unions can have different positive impacts on workers and others. For instance, the 17 states with the highest union densities “have state minimum wages that are on average 19% higher than the national average and 40% higher than those in low-union-density states.” But it’s not just pay.

  For instance, EPI says that union workers are also more likely to have paid sick days than their peers.
  Business Insider September 9, 2022
• The lasting impact of “right to work” laws
  • When wages are lowered for union workers, it also means that competing non-union employers are able to pay lower wages,” she said. She pointed to research from the Economic Policy Institute that found wages in right-to-work states were 3.1% lower than non-right-to-work states after accounting for differences in the cost of living.
  • Another study found that states with these laws see lower political participation than states without them, as well as reduced support for the Democratic Party specifically.

  Missouri voters overwhelmingly voted against a state version of the law in 2018, and no law has passed since. “It’s become an increasingly unpopular policy,” said Elise Gould, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

  Axios September 9, 2022
• Inflation may raise your minimum wage—but will it help?

  In total, 27 states and Washington, D.C., will raise their minimum wages next year, either because of inflation or previously scheduled increases, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning Washington, D.C., think tank. A lower minimum wage for workers who earn tips also will increase in many of those states.

  “Employers are having to compete to attract staff, and this is particularly true in low-wage industries such as leisure and hospitality,” said David Cooper, director of the Economic Analysis and Research Network at the Economic Policy Institute.

  The minimum wage isn’t going up everywhere next year. Twenty-three states have no minimum wage increases scheduled. Twenty of those states set their minimums at or below the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The federal minimum wage, which amounts to an income of about $15,000 a year for somebody who works 40 hours a week, hasn’t changed in more than a decade.

  Cooper, of the Economic Policy Institute, said that $18 an hour in 2028 could be worth $15.50 an hour in today’s dollars.

  “It seems high, but when you consider what inflation might look like over the next few years, it’s probably not as high as it seems,” he said.

  Fast Company September 9, 2022
• September 9, 2022
  September 9, 2022
• How Scientology Exploits Foreign Workers The church has used an obscure visa to bring in thousands of laborers — and benefit from their toil.

  “That’s just insane,” says Kent Williams, a litigator known for successfully representing hundreds of workers in a wage-theft lawsuit against Chipotle. “Prisoners make more than that.” How much value Scientology derived from immigrant workers is a matter of conjecture, relying on a significant number of variables: how many hours per week they worked, for how many years, at what nominal pay, and so on. But labor lawyers specializing in wage-theft cases do attempt to make such calculations. Four of these experts (Nicole Hallett, the director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School; Daniel Costa, the director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute; David Cooper, the director of the Economic Analysis and Research Network at EPI; and Williams) agreed that based on estimates provided by former Scientologists, CIS data, and tax documents obtained by sources, over the past 30 years Scientology’s use of foreign workers has probably saved the church hundreds of millions of dollars and potentially more than $1 billion.

   
  New York Magazine September 8, 2022
• While Campaigning on “Parental Control,” Top State Officials Champion School Vouchers

  Fifteen other states and the District of Columbia have voucher programs (six have educational savings accounts and nineteen have tax-credit scholarships), the oldest being one in Milwaukee. The program there began in 1990 and has expanded around the state, with less than 5 percent of Wisconsin students participating. In 2007, the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, found that “it is still not possible to measure whether voucher students in Milwaukee perform better or worse than their counterparts who remain in public schools.”

  Texas Monthly September 8, 2022
• California school district asks parents to house teachers as costs surge

  Teacher salaries have remained stagnant across the country since 1996, and a report from the Economic Policy Institute shows California teachers were paid 17% less than comparable college-educated workers last year.

  The Hill September 8, 2022
• A COVID-19 testing startup with ‘no history of success’ faces lawsuit over accuracy claims

  While millions of Americans lost jobs during the pandemic, the payouts to leaders at the three publicly traded Utah firms (Domo, Qualtrics and Co-Diagnostics) outpaced the nearly 19% jump in compensation to CEOs during the pandemic, according to research from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. 

  USA Today September 8, 2022
• Pennsylvania’s minimum wage to stay $7.25 while neighboring states see increases in January

  “It has not been this low in value since February 1956, since the time Elvis Pressley had his first number one hit, Heartbreak Hotel, February 1956,” said Dave Kamper with the Economic Policy Institute. 

  “There is no place in this country where you can meet the standard of living of an adult and a child on a minimum wage job in this country. None,” Kamper said.    

  “Real wages for workers, which is what a worker’s wages is actually worth in terms of what they can buy, have fallen through the pandemic rather than actually gone up. Indexing minimum wage to inflation is a way to make up for that,” said Kamper. 

   

  CBS September 8, 2022
• State and Local Jobs May Take Until 2026 to Recoup Pandemic Losses

  For Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute, part of the challenge for local governments involves raising the appeal of public-sector employment, whether it’s by enhancing benefits, improving working conditions or boosting salaries.

  Bloomberg September 8, 2022
• For Sen. Sherrod Brown, ‘dignity of work’ is essential to life

  Brown, Walsh, and Valerie Wilson, director of the Race, Ethnicity and the Economy Program at the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute, hit those themes in their interviews. Brown plans to pursue them legislatively if he returns to the panel’s top job after the November election, assuming Democrats hold the Senate this fall.

  Walsh made many of the same points. Both EPI’s Wilson and Walsh, a Laborers Local 223 member, emphasized such measures must reach those who have been left out and left behind, even in the current fast recovery from the coronavirus-caused depression.

  The anti-coronavirus laws Biden, Brown and Walsh pushed through “create a pathway to middle-class jobs, especially for workers of color” and people with disabilities, the Labor Secretary said. They need it, Wilson added.

  And DOL now will award job creation grants “and make sure we measure the outcomes” for those hardest-hit workers, the secretary promised.

  The worst damage from the pandemic was to Black woman workers, Wilson elaborated. They got hit two ways. Many of the occupations they were forced into, and which already were low-paying, such as home health care and restaurant servers, suffered the worst job losses. And even if jobs remained, the pandemic-caused national closure of schools forced thousands of working women to reluctantly quit, to take care of their own kids.

  “This continues to be a problem and a challenge,” Wilson said of the future facing those working women. “And it’s due to the larger structural problems” in the economy and society, she added—a polite way, though she didn’t say so, of endemic structural racism.

  People's Weekly World September 8, 2022
• Transcript: Future of Work: Economic Mobility
  Washington Post deputy business editor Damian Paletta speaks with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), David Madland, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and Valerie Wilson, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute, about the economic drivers and disparities that impact mobility in the labor market. Conversation recorded on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022.

  See article for full transcript of Valerie’s comments.

  The Washington Post September 8, 2022
• What the number of involuntary part-time workers tells us about the economy

  The measure of involuntary part-time employment gives us a sense of how much slack or unmet potential is in the labor market, per Elise Gould, senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute.

  “When that number is lower” — like it’s been in the last couple of years — “it means that there are more opportunities and fewer people are scrambling to get additional hours,” Gould said.

  That’s good news for workers, who have lots of options and additional leverage vis-a-vis employers, Gould said.

  Marketplace September 8, 2022