The labor-affiliated Economic Policy Institute also offered encouraging words, citing Chavez-DeRemer’s support for the PRO Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, which would protect organizing and collective bargaining rights for government employees.
“While Congresswoman Chavez-DeRemer’s support for these needed reforms is encouraging,” EPI general counsel Celine McNicholas wrote, “if confirmed, she will be Secretary of Labor for a president who steadfastly pursued an ambitious anti-worker agenda during his first term in office.”
LA Times
December 9, 2024
“We know the labor market doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” said EPI’s Gould. “Policymakers have a role to play in keeping the economy strong. I think what we’ve seen is measured rate cuts, and I think we will continue to see that.”
She added: “It’s yet to be seen what policymakers coming in are going to do that could impact the labor market; but it is a quite strong labor market that the transition is walking into.”
CNN Business
December 9, 2024
The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute has called on Chavez-DeRemer to fight for at least a $14 billion budget for the agency and defend the Biden rule to expand overtime protections to 4 million workers in court. The group also wants her to refuse to reinstate the Trump-era Payroll Audit Independent Determination program, which allowed employers to self report wage-and-hour violations to avoid penalties and litigation, among other promises.
EPI and the National Employment Law Project are also urging Chavez-DeRemer to finalize a standard to protect workers from heat on the job.
“If workers truly have an ally in Chavez-DeRemer, she will advance policies that improve workers’ lives,” EPI’s Director of Policy and General Counsel Celine McNicholas wrote. Chavez-DeRemer’s support of those policies “will reveal whether the second Trump administration will actually aid working-class Americans or be a continuation of his first administration’s agenda attacking workers’ rights,” McNicholas said.
Bloomberg Law
December 9, 2024
The two parties have been negotiating for about eight months. In many cases, it takes more than one year for a new union to reach their first contract deal with owners and management, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
WHYY
December 9, 2024
“The latest jobs data says the labor market is still going strong,” Elise Gould, senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in a post on social media. “After the softer numbers in October from the weather and striking workers, November bounces back with strong job growth along with upward revisions.”
The Hill
December 9, 2024
…records of workplace injuries and illnesses,” according to the Economic Policy Institute. His first-term nominees to top positions at the…[paywall].
Atlanta Journal Constitution
December 9, 2024
“The latest jobs data says the labor market is still going strong,” Senior Economist with the Economic Policy Institute Elise Gould posted on X. “After the softer numbers in October from the weather and striking workers, November bounces back with strong job growth along with upward revisions. On average, the economy added 173k jobs the last 3 months”
The Center Square
December 9, 2024
The Biden administration in 2021 narrowed the circumstances under which workers could be paid the tipped subminimum, reversing a Trump-era rule that increased use of the tipped subminimum, at a cost to workers that the Economic Policy Institute estimated at $700 million annually.
New Republic
December 9, 2024
Elise Gould, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said the three-month average of job growth at 173,000 jobs shows a fairly strong labor market.
States Newsroom
December 9, 2024
Heidi Shierholz, President of the Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist at the Department of Labor, says fears over automation and the risks posed by AI are overblown. She told Newsweek that “technological change has really never led to sustained reduction in the overall number of jobs,” and that change would instead be seen in the “composition” of the future job market.
Newsweek
December 9, 2024