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
Valerie Wilson, a labor economist with EPI Action, said that while increasing the housing supply is an important step in addressing the country’s housing issues, building 3 million homes and rentals is an “ambitious goal.” But she believes it is “worth pursuing,” adding that it’s more likely to come to fruition if Democrats gain a numbers advantage in both houses of Congress.
Wilson said Harris’ plan to offer $25,000 on a house down payment for first-time buyers could be a tactic used to help bridge the gap in homeownership between Black and white Americans.
“That down payment is often a major barrier for a number of first-time Black homeowners, because there is less generational wealth and they are less likely to be in a position where parents can provide that down payment support or even purchase a first home for you,” said Wilson.
Capital B
September 3, 2024
According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, Americans without college degrees have lost nearly $2,000 a year in wages owing to trade with low-wage countries, even after accounting for cheaper consumer goods.
New York Times
September 3, 2024
Raising the lowest wage does give a group of earners a little more money, where higher earners likely see little to no impact, said Ben Zipperer, a senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. The lowest earners include a disproportionate number of women and people of color.
“If we do not raise the minimum wage, those are the people that continue to face the consequences of wage inequality,” Zipperer said. “When you raise the minimum wage, economic research does show that it reduces the number of people in poverty. That is both an important motivation and also an important consequence of a higher minimum wage.”
Colorado Sun
September 3, 2024
“The New Jersey lawsuit is primarily about overtime pay for farmworkers. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act exempts farmworkers from overtime pay (i.e., time and a half for hours worked over 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in a week),” said Daniel Costa, research director at the Economic Policy Institute.
The researcher says that only a small group of states have enacted state laws for overtime pay for agricultural workers, most notably California and, more recently, New York. “In both states, they are being phased in over a number of years until they reach the regular threshold enjoyed by workers in other sectors,” he says.
Telemundo
September 3, 2024
Features TV interview with Heidi Shierholz.
ABC News
August 26, 2024
Meanwhile, Black women are more likely to be working than white, Asian, or Hispanic/Latino women, which suggests Black men could face a unique set of challenges in the labor market, Valerie Wilson, a labor economist and the director of the Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity, and the economy, told Business Insider.
Holzer and Wilson shared why the employment gap between Black men and other groups persists, what’s driven progress in recent years, and what else can be done in the years to come.
Business Insider
August 26, 2024
Trump’s tariffs were in effect well before shockwaves from the COVID-19 pandemic caused inflation to soar. The Economic Policy Institute estimated in January 2022 — a time when inflation was still skyrocketing — that removing the tariffs would have offset no more than 7.2% of the run-up in consumer prices.
Yahoo Finance
August 26, 2024
Governments like manufacturing jobs because they have a strong halo effect. One manufacturing job creates an additional three to seven other jobs, according to numerous research and academic reports. The manufacturing multiplier —that is, how many jobs one manufacturing job creates—is one of the strongest of any sector, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Barron’s
August 26, 2024