Media clips

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• In Defense of Bidenomics

  What’s more, as this Economic Policy Institute analysis outlines, union election petitions were up by 53 percent in 2022, and a further 3 percent in 2023. The first half of 2023 also saw an election win rate of 80 percent, as compared to 66 percent in 2020 or less than 60 percent in the 2000s.

  American Prospect August 20, 2024
• The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 for 15 years. How the election may change that

  Raising today’s federal minimum wage would help low-wage workers who are trying to earn a living and have a sense of economic security, said Ben Zipperer, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank that provides economic research.

  “The minimum wage has basically lost, 29%, 30% of its purchasing power over the last 15 years, simply because Congress has failed to update it,” Zipperer said.

  Lifting the minimum wage threshold to $15 per hour would increase the incomes of about 20 million workers, Zipperer said. That would include people who are low-wage workers who may be earning hourly pay that is slightly more than the federal minimum wage threshold.

  “Changes in wages don’t necessarily result in big changes in employment,” Zipperer said.

  “When you raise wages at a particular workplace, that makes it a lot easier to recruit and retain workers,” he said.

  CNBC August 20, 2024
• Mixed bag of news on joblessness in Alabama

  The Alabama Department of Labor is out with the State’s latest unemployment report. Communities in the State’s region known as the “Black Belt” are ranked as having the highest number of residents without jobs. However, quarterly figures from the Economic Policy Institute indicate that African American workers in Alabama have had better employment levels than much of the nation.

  Alabama Public Radio August 20, 2024
• ‘The company hires these people to basically lie to them’: Trucking company hires union busters to obstruct Florida drivers’ effort to unionize

  According to the Economic Policy Institute, companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on anti-union persuaders each year, although due to lackluster enforcement of reporting requirements, not all of it is publicly reported. Employers, by law, must also file reports, known as LM-10s, detailing how much they’ve spent on this persuader activity.

  Orlando Weekly August 20, 2024
• Fast Food’s Automation Problem

  In April, California raised the minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 an hour—the culmination of a long campaign by fast food workers across the state. Even in the state’s rural inland counties, where the cost of living is lowest, the new rate isn’t enough for a single adult without children to survive working forty hours per week, every week, for the entire year, according to the Economic Policy Institute’s cost of living calculator. 

  The Progressive Magazine August 20, 2024
• Why ‘drill, baby, drill’ isn’t an inflation policy

  But energy prices do impact the cost of consumer goods. In a report last year, the Federal Reserve said “higher oil prices drive up production and transportation costs throughout the economy, which are then passed through to food and core prices.” Economists are also making the connection between energy and economywide inflation elsewhere in the world — for instance, in France.

  “Energy is important. It goes into so much of what we consume and produce,” said Adam Hersh, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “It’s estimated that about 40 percent of the rise in inflation that we saw through the [coronavirus] pandemic were due to spiking energy prices.”

  When Biden was the candidate, it was clear that voters still held him responsible for inflation. It’s too early to say if that blame will shift to Harris.

  “It almost doesn’t matter what they had done,” said Hersh, referring to the Biden administration. “People are being squeezed by inflation, [so] they’re going to take the blame for it fairly or unfairly. I think in this case, it’s really unfairly.”

  E & E News August 20, 2024
• Harris — like Trump — wants to stop taxing tips. That’s a bad idea.

  We’ve all noticed how tipping has spread like wildfire; it seems like almost every purchase you make is now accompanied by a request for a tip, even when you received nothing resembling “service” at all. More importantly, tipping is a practice that has deeply racist roots; as an Economic Policy Institute report notes, “Following the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, formerly enslaved Black workers were often relegated to service jobs (e.g., food service workers and railroad porters). However, instead of paying Black workers any wage at all, employers suggested that guests offer Black workers a small tip for their services.” 

  MSNBC.com August 20, 2024
• Harris Needs to Put Working-Class Policy Before DC Decorum

  Failing to raise the minimum wage has kept millions of low-wage workers, mostly restaurant and service industry employees, from meeting basic financial demands, according to a 2023 analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank focused on economic trends and policies affecting workers.

  Jacobin August 20, 2024
• Secretive Project 2025 proposal could tax benefits for 15 million workers, costing families $12 billion in additional taxes

  Project 2025 proposes taxing employers on any non-wage benefits that exceed $12,000 per worker annually. This policy, which has received little public attention, could impact health insurance, retirement plans, and other employer-provided benefits that many workers rely on. According to an analysis by EPI Action, a nonpartisan research and advocacy organization affiliated with the Economic Policy Institute, this proposal could affect more than 15 million workers, resulting in an additional $12 billion in taxes if employers reduce or eliminate these benefits.

  Nation of Change August 20, 2024
• What’s All the Fuss About Tips and Taxes?

  “This wouldn’t help very many workers, and it could actually be very harmful to millions more, with the real benefits of this policy change going to employers and the wealthy at the expense of working people,” says David Cooper, researcher from EPI Action, a nonpartisan research and advocacy organization.

  NerdWallet August 20, 2024