According to the Economic Policy Institute, the second quarter of 2024 saw a slight softening in a strong labor market as the national unemployment rate rose to 4%.
The national Black unemployment rate also rose to 6.3%. They’re statistics that spotlight an issue that local organizations are trying to address with campaigns and new legislation.
Spectrum News 1
September 9, 2024
The change would “absolutely” impact moderate-income workers, said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute. But, she said, “the vast majority of tipped workers do not bring in huge tips in a fine dining establishment.”
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But if there’s a benefit to the discussion about potentially ending taxes on tips, it’s that it’s “helpfully shining a light on tipped workers,” Shierholz added. She said she hopes that the conversation doesn’t end ultimately with taxes, but “brings it home” that “we also need to address the wage side.”
PBS Newshour
September 9, 2024
Recent years have seen relative spikes in work stoppages across industries, according to analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
The think tank highlighted the University of Michigan as one example. Graduate student workers at the flagship went on a five-month strike in 2023, the longest stoppage that year. Both sides filed charges against the other with the National Labor Relations Board.
Higher Ed Dive
September 9, 2024
The July jobs report, which showed a relatively paltry 114,000 positions added to the economy, was hardly a disaster. But it was a surprise slowdown. And in an election season, that makes it ripe for cherry-picking.
“The overreaction to monthly numbers is the most predictable thing in the world,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. “It feels extra important because there’s an election coming … that seems to add fuel to the overreaction fire.”
Monthly jobs numbers are volatile, so it’s important to zoom out and look at the longer trend, Shierholz says. For most of the Biden administration — and nearly half of Trump’s administration — unemployment was under 4%, hovering around half-century lows.
CNN Business
September 9, 2024
Restaurants have wanted to get their hands on all the tip money coming into their establishments for years, says Heidi Shierholz, president of the progressive Economic Policy Institute. With Trump as president, “they finally found an administration that would do it for them.”
Axios
September 9, 2024
In fact, two adults without kids would need nearly $30,000 more per year in San Francisco than in Miami to cover costs for housing, food, transportation, taxes, health care and other necessities, according to estimates from the Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
September 6, 2024
According to a September 2023 report from the Economic Policy Institute, “Over the last three decades, compensation grew far faster for CEOs than it did for the top 0.1% of wage earners (those earning more than 99.9% of wage earners). CEO compensation in 2021 (the latest year for which data on top 0.1% wage earners are available) was 7.68 times as high as wages of the top 0.1% of wage earners.”
Investopedia
September 6, 2024
Since the creation of NAFTA, the United States has lost 350,000 jobs in the auto industry while Mexico has gained 450,000. According to the Economic Policy Institute, China’s entry into the WTO has cost 3.5 million American jobs. It is increasingly hard to see how these trade arrangements benefited the American worker.
Newsweek
September 6, 2024
Lynn Rhinehart, a fellow at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute think tank and a former senior counsel to the U.S. labor secretary, said that the difference between a Trump-backed NLRB and a Biden-backed board “could not be more stark.”
In cases like the Bethany College decision, the Trump-backed board excluded workers from the protections of labor law, she explained.
Trump brought in management-side lawyers who favored corporate interests, Rhinehart said, while the Biden administration brought in union-side lawyers who have sided with workers in labor disputes.
Jacksonville Tributary
September 5, 2024