According to a published 2019 report, the Economic Policy Institute found that the poverty rate among restaurant workers in those states was significantly lower than in states that do not require employers to pay the state minimum wage.
Worcester Telegram and Gazette (Massachusetts)
October 1, 2024
Josh Bivens, the chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank funded by labor unions, wrote in June that a mass deportation would create particularly bad bottlenecks in the food supply chain. He added construction to the list of acutely vulnerable sectors in an emailed statement to Business Insider and said that “the upward price pressure could be significant and pretty long-lasting.”
Business Insider
October 1, 2024
There’s an interesting history to why, nicely reviewed for the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) by Nina Mast. As with so much in American life, the full history goes back to slavery, or, more precisely, the period just after Emancipation. Former slaves often found employment in food service and other service jobs, but, as Mast puts it, “instead of paying Black workers any wage at all, employers suggested that guests offer Black workers a small tip for their services.”
Jacobin
October 1, 2024
Consider CEO pay (a glaring lacuna in the Business Roundtable’s 2019 missive about the new era of corporate responsibility). A report from the Economic Policy Institute found that in 2022, the projected average compensation of CEOs at the 350 largest publicly owned US companies was $25.2 million. Meanwhile, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio was approximately 344-to-one, meaning it would take nearly 350 years for a typical employee to match what their CEO made in just one year. Compare that with 1965 when the ratio was 21-to-one.
Bloomberg
October 1, 2024
“Michigan’s in the process right now of reversing a lot of damage that was done to its state labor laws, and you could foresee that they might join some other states who have begun to get more ambitious,” said Jennifer Sherer, acting deputy director of the Economic Analysis and Research Network.
Sherer said the Michigan bills reflect a broader trend across states including Montana, Missouri, Illinois and New Hampshire, where lawmakers and residents have voted down right-to-work legislation and ballot initiatives.
Capital & Main
October 1, 2024
The average American needs to be making an average annual income of at least $421,926 in order to be considered part of the top 1%, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The average income of everyone else (the “bottom 99%”) is $50,107.
MoneyWise
October 1, 2024
The political and union “concerns are linked and related,” said Jennifer Sherer, who leads the Worker Power Project at the Economic Policy Institute. “The vast majority of workers are in a position where if they decline an employer request, even if it’s something that might seem outlandish” such as attending a political candidate visit to the workplace or a Bible study, “most workers have a reasonable fear that could come with some consequence.”
Bloomberg Law
October 1, 2024
Trump NLRB appointees, the union contends, were too friendly with employers, hurting employees’ unionization efforts. The former president also finalized a rule restricting federal employees’ union activity, according to the Economic Policy Institute, and his OSHA team fielded fewer health and safety complaints, according to the National Employment Law Project.
HR Brew
October 1, 2024
Comparing pre-pandemic earnings with recent data may show a clearer picture because income in 2020, when the pandemic shuttered the economy, skewed higher due to millions of low-income workers losing their jobs that year, effectively excluding them from earnings data, according to left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Because of that, comparisons between 2020 and other years may not be apples-to-apples.
CBS Moneywatch
October 1, 2024
The sky-high job growth was bound to slow, in part because the economy lacked room for expansion after employers had hired the workers they needed and a dwindling number of unemployed people remained on the sidelines, according to Valerie Wilson, a labor economist who runs the program on race, ethnicity and the economy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
“We expected job growth at some point to slow down,” Wilson said. “To me, that alone isn’t cause for concern.”
ABC News
October 1, 2024