“Child labor laws are under attack in states across the country, just as violations of these standards are rising,” Jennifer Sherer, the senior state policy coordinator for the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning labor think tank, said in a recent statement. “The trend reflects a coordinated multi-industry push to expand employer access to low-wage labor, with the end goal of rewriting federal child labor laws and other worker protections for the whole country.”
The American Independent
July 31, 2023
A report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) last year showed the average weekly wages of teachers went up only $29 from 1996 to 2021.
The Hill
July 31, 2023
Twenty-four states have increased their minimum wages by legislation or ballot measure since 2016, according to the Economic Policy Institute. These include red states like Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas. The most recent statewide increases are going into effect this summer in Connecticut, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington D.C.
24/7 Wall St.
July 31, 2023
Daniel Costa, who is the author of the report and the director of Immigration Law and Policy Research at the EPI, noted that “an employer may select an entire workforce composed of a single nationality, gender, or age group” under the program.
Further, “employers and recruiters can also weed out workers who might dare to speak out against unlawful employment practices, assert their legal rights, or organize for better working conditions by joining or forming a union … by firing them and effectively forcing them to leave the country, or by threatening to blacklist them … ,” Costa said.
LA Progressive
July 31, 2023
At least nine states have introduced laws that would allow children as young as 14 to serve alcohol, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
These changes come amid a tight labor market across much of the U.S., with some employers still struggling to fill positions. But children working in factories or serving alcohol encounter safety risks, with the EPI noting that the latter puts kids at risk of sexual harassment and increases the chances that those child workers will consume alcohol.
CBS Moneywatch
July 31, 2023
And the Economic Policy Institute says over 120,000 workers were involved in major work stoppages last year.
Newsy
July 31, 2023
“The lack of compliance with the limited [disclosures] that the law does require is just so shameful,” said Celine McNicholas, policy director at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
…
McNicholas, of the Economic Policy Institute, noted that large companies like Amazon have gotten attention for their big anti-union expenditures, but many smaller firms still spend “$200,000 as a matter of course.” She believes most people aren’t aware of the resources corporations pump into these campaigns.
“If there were greater transparency,” she said, “there would be greater outrage at how employers respond to union organizing.”
Huffpost
July 31, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor economic think tank, estimated it would raise wages for close to 28 million workers, or nearly one-fifth of the American workforce, by about $3,100 a year. Focusing in on the restaurant industry, the Economic Policy Institute estimated the bill would raise wages for nearly 3.6 million restaurant workers directly, and drive up pay for some 2.3 million more, or what it estimated as 58% of the restaurant workforce.
Restaurant Dive
July 31, 2023
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“I am optimistic that we are getting a soft landing — that we are already seeing inflation moderate dramatically and we will continue to see inflation moderate and not see a big rise in unemployment,” said Heidi Shierholz, a former chief economist at the Department of Labor who is now director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute. “If we do have a recession, it will have been a policy failure. It will have been because the Fed raised rates too much,” she added.
Financial Times
July 31, 2023
The report also found that workers in lower-wage jobs are up to 14 times more likely to need to change occupations than those in highest-wage positions — another factor that doesn’t bode well for women. According to the Economic Policy Institute, women are paid roughly 22% less than men.
Entrepreneur
July 31, 2023
“It’s almost like wartime change in the composition of demand,” Josh Bivens, chief economist of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, told me. “We tried to shove a bunch of that demand into sectors whose global supply chains were collapsing because of Covid.”
VOX
July 31, 2023
Others counter that the disparities in racial and ethnic achievement in the workplace remain so large that they need to remain a focus for employers. For example, the typical Black worker earned 24% less than their white counterpart in 2019, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank based in Washington. And that gap was larger than the 16% gap in 1979, even though African Americans have narrowed the Black-white gap in high school and college completion during that time.
Christian Science Monitor
July 27, 2023
Since 2021, seven states have passed laws to lower the minimum age for serving alcohol in restaurants. Some of those laws decrease the threshold to 16, 17 or 18. There’s now a proposal in Wisconsin to lower the age all the way to 14. So where is this coming from?
“The restaurant industry was hit pretty hard during the pandemic,” said Nina Mast, an analyst at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. She recently authored a report about states lowering age limits for alcohol service positions.
“And employers are really looking for ways to fill these positions in the industry with younger workers and workers they can pay lower wages,” she said.
Mast means teens. Her organization has tracked ways the food service industry has already violated child labor laws — from overly long hours to hazardous working conditions. Millions of young people are already working in the industry.
Marketplace
July 27, 2023
As the entire neoliberal paradigm has been impeached, both by dissenters and by reality, mainstream foundations are now investing heavily in thinkers and institutions whom they touched only gingerly, if at all, not so long ago.
As these heterodox ideas have triumphed, they have helped spawn a far larger, younger, and less lonely cohort of activists and critics. I could spend the rest of this post listing names: Lina Khan, Barry Lynn, Ganesh Sitaraman, for starters, and the entire Economic Policy Institute network.
The American Prospect
July 27, 2023
Cites EPI research.
Since 1980, most American workers have seen modest income growth, but income for the top 1% has grown much faster. Lindsey Reiser traveled to Ohio and Florida for Meet the Press Reports to hear from different families, sharing similar struggles, about what constitutes a living wage.
NBC News Meet The Press
July 27, 2023
The impact on essential workers is equally troubling. During the global health crisis, these dedicated workers kept stores open and communities fed, yet they may now face the risk of wage cuts or job losses. The Economic Policy Institute warns that one in four grocery workers in the United States, regardless of the chain they work for, could see their wages lowered if this merger is approved.
Times of San Diego
July 27, 2023
The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute has found that 21 million workers make below $15 an hour….
Business Insider
July 27, 2023
Despite these obstacles, a labor resurgence seems to be gaining momentum nationally, particularly among young and immigrant workers. In some service and other low-wage industries, organizing drives are proliferating. High-profile union campaigns at Starbucks, Amazon, Trader Joe’s, Recreational Equipment, and other major employers are making headlines. [Shierholz 1/19/2023]
Counterpunch
July 27, 2023
The story comes amid a landscape in which CEOs earn much more than their employees. According to an Economic Policy Institute report, “In 2021, the ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker compensation was 399-to-1 under the realized measure of CEO pay; that is up from 366-to-1 in 2020 and a big increase from 20-to-1 in 1965 and 59-to-1 in 1989.”
The Daily Dot
July 27, 2023
Abortion-rights advocates have long pointed to the economic consequences of restricting access to safe abortions and reproductive care as one of myriad reasons the procedure should be protected. The Economic Policy Institute concurs, stating in a report that “in states where abortion has been banned or restricted, abortion restrictions constitute an additional piece in a sustained project of economic subjugation and disempowerment.”
Baltimore Fishbowl
July 27, 2023
A full 70% of U.S. Labor Wage and Hour Division investigations of farms stem from contractors. And the violations investigated are more outrageous, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute.
“A relative handful of ‘bad apples’ account for a large share of all violations and the back wages owed,” the report’s authors note. Those authors are an impressive lineup — Daniel Costa, Director of Immigration Law and Policy Research at EPI, Philip Martin, Professor of Agriculture and Resource Economics at the University of California, Davis, and Zachariah Rutledge, an applied economist with a Ph.D. from UC Davis.
Growing Produce
July 27, 2023
After studying the top 15 H-2B occupations that include the leisure industry, the Economic Policy Institute concluded that persistently flat wages undermine the claim that labor shortages exist.
Palm Beach Post
July 27, 2023
During this summer of heat, smoke, and flash flooding, food delivery workers have been braving the streets to bring New Yorkers our food. Biblical weather isn’t delivery workers’ only challenge, though: their pay in New York City averages around $7 per hour without tips, and there’s a high rate of workplace fatalities, after which survivors generally get little or no help from the apps.
It was welcome news, then, that New York City in June set a rule establishing a pay floor for delivery workers of $17.96 per hour, a rate that would land workers around minimum wage, accounting for expenses, unpaid wait time, and other factors. This rule was passed pursuant to a hard-fought law sought by a worker group, Los Deliveristas Unidos.
New York Daily News
July 27, 2023
There are at least nine states — including Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, New Mexico, Alabama, Wisconsin, and Idaho — that have enacted or introduced laws that would allow minors ages 14 to 17 to serve alcohol, according to a report from Economic Policy Institute.
Business Insider
July 27, 2023
In the last fiscal year, the federal agency found 835 businesses violating child labor laws. Its fines and penalties averaged about $5,300 each. Do you think that’s stringent enough to dissuade would-be violators? Me neither.
What’s worse, “these numbers represent just a tiny fraction of violations, most of which go unreported and uninvestigated,” the labor-affiliated Economic Policy Institute observes.
…
What’s the big deal with allowing teens to serve alcohol? “Numerous studies have found that underage servers are more likely to sell alcohol to underage buyers,” reports Nina Mast of the Economic Policy Institute. “In general, greater access to alcohol is associated with higher rates of underage consumption. Permitting younger workers to serve alcohol will provide underage youth — both workers and customers — with increased proximity to direct and indirect alcohol-related harms that are especially acute for young people.”
LA Times
July 27, 2023
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the top 1% of Americans make over 26 times more than the bottom 99% and hold 21% of the nation’s total income.
Business Insider
July 27, 2023
Euclid City Council has voted to enhance wage theft protections.
The ordinance, unanimously approved July 17, will stop Euclid from conducting business with any company that was found to have participated in any form of wage theft in the past three years.
The ordinance would protect some of the estimated 213,000 Ohioans that according to Policy Matters Ohio have been paid below the minimum wage. Nationally, according to the Economic Policy Institute, workers lose an estimated $15 billion per year, which also causes states and local governments to lose out on the tax dollars associated with those payments.
News Herald (Ohio)
July 27, 2023
Forty-four states have at least one law preempting localities from regulating the minimum wage, scheduling, paid leave or other work-related issues, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that tracks the laws.
The Washington Post
July 27, 2023
More states are letting teenagers serve alcohol in bars and restaurants as they roll back child labor protection laws, reports my colleague Nathaniel Meyersohn.
At least nine states have introduced bills to lower the minimum age for serving alcohol since 2021, according to a report released Thursday by the Economic Policy Institute.
Seven states have enacted those bills, with more looking to follow suit.
CNN
July 27, 2023
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a worker paid the $7.25 federal minimum wage earns 27.4% less in inflation-adjusted terms than what their counterpart was paid in July 2009 when the minimum wage was last increased, and 40.2% less than a minimum wage worker in February 1968, the historical high point of the minimum wage’s value.
The Guardian
July 27, 2023