Agence France Press (AFP)
October 7, 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 7, 2024
“Are some folks still having a hard time? Absolutely,” noted EPI senior economist Elise Gould in a blog post. “Even when the unemployment rate is low, there are still sidelined workers, and it remains difficult for many families to make ends meet on wages that are still too low.”
CBS Moneywatch
October 7, 2024
Employers would be no different, and shifts to current pay structures should be expected. Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at EPI Action — a left-leaning nonpartisan organization advocating for economic justice — told Business Insider that businesses could pay their workers slightly less to allow employees to have the financial benefit of not having their overtime pay or tips taxed.
“Their employer can pay less to keep them but the worker is not worse off because now they don’t have to pay taxes on that,” Shierholz said.
Business Insider
October 7, 2024
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, state and local government employees earned, on average, about 10% less in total compensation—including pay and benefits—than their private-sector peers, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that receives some funding from labor unions. Post-COVID, that gap has only widened to about 14.5% less.
Route Fifty
October 7, 2024
“As a bundle, the policies are pretty terrible,” Dr. Josh Bivens, a Chief Economist and Senior Researcher with the Economic Policy Institute said. “They will raise taxes on the vast majority of households on net while cutting taxes for the very rich and maintaining the tax cuts on corporations. They will create all sorts of weird unintended effects. No big problem currently facing US working families is really addressed.
“If they’re all undertaken, it is a near guarantee that the result would be higher interest rates and higher inflation,” Bivens said.
The Independent
October 7, 2024
While in office, Trump set the overtime salary threshold lower than the one that had been set in a rule but had been blocked under former President Barack Obama, leaving millions of workers ineligible for automatic overtime, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute.
Michigan Independent
October 7, 2024
Special Guest: Heidi Shierholz
Heidi is President of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Under her leadership, EPI has fought for legislative and regulatory reforms that support collective bargaining, increase worker power, improve wages, benefits, and working conditions, and reduce racial and gender inequities. Heidi is a Former Chief Economist for the Department of Labor under President Obama. As Chief Economist for the DOL, she focused on boosting workers’ rights, wages, and benefits.
Maggie and the Millionaires Podcast
October 7, 2024
Although anxiety spiked following a weaker-than-expected July jobs report coupled with a drastic downward annual employment numbers revision, August’s solid job gains and Friday’s report — which included upward revisions to both July and August — should put those concerns to rest, Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said in an interview.
“The labor market is strong,” she said. “When we compare it to four years ago, during the pandemic, it’s clearly much stronger; but even when you compare it to 2019, before the pandemic began. Real wage growth is up, a lot of jobs have been added.”
CNN Business
October 7, 2024
Fiscal Times
October 7, 2024