Unions can “promote economic equality and build worker power, helping workers to win increases in pay, better benefits, and safer working conditions,” said the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Pushes by unions for higher wages seem to be working, as the 17 states with the highest union densities “have state minimum wages that are on average 19% higher than the national average.”
The Week
October 3, 2024
Immigration has undoubtedly changed the U.S. economy, especially since the pandemic. About 50 percent of the labor market’s extraordinary recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data.
The Washington Post
October 3, 2024
Agence France Press (AFP)
October 3, 2024
“We should really be leaning into taxes for the rich,” Heidi Shierholz, chief economist at the Department of Labor under the Obama administration and now president of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), told Capital & Main. Harris’ cutoff of $400,000 for tax hikes suggests anyone making less than this figure is not rich. Shierholz argued that while there are different ways to define the term, this limit may be too high: “In my mind, essentially every possible way of defining the wealthy will include some people making less than $400,000 a year.”
Capital & Main
October 3, 2024
But whether or not Khan remains in a Harris administration, the FTC would likely continue on a similar track, says Heidi Shierholz, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Harris may even widen the FTC’s remit. With voters still experiencing sticker shock at the grocery store, Shierholz says, “I think one of the ways she will address price increases is through the antitrust route”—by blocking the Kroger-Albertsons merger, for example.
Fortune
October 1, 2024
The Economic Policy Institute separately found that roughly 1,800 U.S. factories shuttered during Trump’s first term.
Common Dreams
October 1, 2024
The letters were released days after the Economic Policy Institutereleased an analysis showing that CEO pay has soared by 1,085% since 1978 while the pay of typical U.S. workers has grown by just 24%.
Common Dreams
October 1, 2024
Joseph Costello, a Kamala Harris campaign spokesperson, reacted to Donald Trump’s speech in Erie, Pennsylvania, picking on the former president’s comments about overtime pay.
“As president, Trump took executive action to rip away overtime pay for *millions* of workers, including nearly 5 million workers without a college degree,” Costello said on Twitter/X.
Costello attached a link to a paper by the Economic Policy Institute titled: More than eight million workers will be left behind by the Trump overtime proposal.
The Guardian
October 1, 2024
During Trump’s term, the NLRB — a quasi-judicial body with up to five members appointed by the president — acted on all 10 items in a 2017 corporate wishlist from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit nonpartisan think tank.
Capital & Main
October 1, 2024
Several other states are considering similar legislation. The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, estimates that 60 million workers could soon be protected by such bans.
Huffpost
October 1, 2024