“Donald Trump knows how to take advantage of working people,” he said as part of an accusation against Trump for “waging war on workers and the middle class.” Walz also criticized Trump for blocking efforts to raise the minimum wage and for supporting right-to-work laws, which he said weaken unions and undermine workers’ rights.
Fact check: Trump did oppose efforts to raise the federal minimum wage because he said it was up to the individual states to address. According to Politico, he also supported “right-to-work” laws, which are widely criticized for weakening unions by reducing their financial resources and undermining workers’ rights and collective bargaining power. Trump’s administration did roll back numerous worker protections and regulations designed to safeguard labor rights, as detailed in this report from the Economic Policy Institute.
Racine County Eye
September 3, 2024
To buttress their arguments against Trump, speakers at the event said the former president named corporate lawyers to the National Labor Relations Board, which then “systematically rolled back workers’ rights to form unions and engage in collective bargaining with their employers” and sought to enact rules “aimed at overturning existing worker protections,” according to the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive research group that has received some funding from labor unions.
When Mr. Biden took office, however, his appointees made it easier for workers to form unions, EPI said.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
September 3, 2024
Teachers are paid less than others in occupations requiring similar education, according to the Educate Maine report. The Economic Policy Institute found that Maine teachers made 24 percent less than comparable workers statewide in 2021, the 16th highest pay penalty in the nation.
Bangor Daily News
September 3, 2024
The additional rules detract from the intent of providing unemployment insurance, according to experts like Chandra Childers, senior policy and economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
“At a larger, macro level, it would allow the economy to work better, especially during periods of recession, because now people have money that they are spending,” she said. “The flip side of that is if you make it harder to access, restrict duration, or restrict benefits, then what it does is it makes workers more desperate. It is an effort, essentially, to force workers to take any job, so therefore, they are not able to bid up the quality of jobs.”
Alabama Reflector
September 3, 2024
Many progressive organizations contribute to retirement funds for employees; the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is offering a whopping 9.25% employer-provided 401k retirement contribution. Many organizations in this ecosystem are unionized.
Teen Vogue
September 3, 2024
We should eagerly fund these and all agencies so they can provide services for all—not run them to the ground, as has happened with the postal service, which, according to the Economic Policy Institute, has suffered from attacks by “anti-government ideologues and special interests [that] have long sought to privatize, shrink, or hobble” it.
Current Affairs
September 3, 2024
Over the past three years, 28 states have introduced bills to weaken child labor laws and a dozen states have enacted them, the Economic Policy Institute reported in February.
USA Today
September 3, 2024
According to data from the Economic Policy Institute, child care in Pennsylvania falls $2,692 shy of reaching the average price of in-state tuition to a four-year college. But their data shows the average cost for infant child care in the state to be $11,842, making up 17.5% of the median family’s income.
CBS Philadelphia
September 3, 2024
The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 an hour for over 15 years, being introduced in 2009. This is the longest period without an increase since the base salary was created. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), this wage has the same purchasing power as someone in the 1950s, while the highest minimum wage in history was during the 1960s: the wage was the equivalent of $13 in today’s money.
El Diario
September 3, 2024
Why that specific dollar amount? Harris was thinking along economic lines, and she sold the policy as one that would erase the teacher wage gap, as documented over the years by the Economic Policy Institute. As of the most recent report, with data through 2022, the institute estimated that educators earn 26% less in weekly wages than other workers with similar academic credentials.
The 74
September 3, 2024