The groups behind the letter include the AFL-CIO, the National Education Association, Service Employees International Union and United Auto Workers as well as left-leaning think tanks such as the Center for American Progress, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Economic Policy Institute and the Groundwork Collaborative.
The organizations involved argue that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act “made massive and permanent cuts to corporate taxes and temporary cuts to individual and estate taxes that have largely benefitted the wealthy and eroded tax revenues even further.” They say the 2017 overhaul was “a large and costly mistake” and “a failure on its own terms” because it did not raise wages for most Americans even as the compensation for top corporate leaders soared.
Fiscal Times
May 24, 2024
The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning national think tank, estimates the average Minnesota family with an infant and a preschooler pays roughly 37 percent of their household income for care.
EDITORIAL: The real cost of coal for West Virginia
VOX
May 24, 2024
Then there are the industries that are passing on West Virginia because we’re passing on renewables. A 2019 report from the Economic Policy Institute looked at the multiplier effect of certain industries: Information technology creates 573 indirect jobs for every 100 direct jobs ; professional, scientific and technical services create 418 ; durable manufacturing creates 744 ; and nondurable manufacturing creates 514. In comparison, mining (not just coal) creates only 390 indirect jobs for every 100 direct jobs.
The Dominion Post
May 24, 2024
Figure 3: Union Win Rate, NLRB Elections (Compiled by author on the basis of NLRB data as well as Lawrence Mishel, Lynn Rhinehart , and Lane Windham, “Explaining the Erosion of Private-Sector Unions” [Economic Policy Institute, 2020])
Jacobin
May 24, 2024
“Federal labor law still applies to every worker in these states who’s in a private sector job, and workers are organizing actively, despite these new state laws and will continue to do so,” Jennifer Sherer, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s State Worker Power Initiative, told Lawrence.
Sherer believes the bills could be preempted by lawsuits from workers who believe the new laws interfere with their rights or from businesses who feel the legislation unfairly threatens their access to subsidies they otherwise qualify for.
Politico Morning Shift
May 24, 2024
Domestic workers—of which non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic Asian American and Pacific Islander, and Hispanic women together make up more than half, according to the Economic Policy Institute—have historically been left out of workers’ rights policies and protections.
Stacker
May 23, 2024
At Wednesday’s hearing, the sole Democratic witness, Lynn Rhinehart of the Economic Policy Institute, made note of another anti-labor bill sponsored by a Republican Education and the Workforce Committee member, Representative Rick Allen of Georgia. Under the bill, it would no longer constitute an illegal unfair labor practice for a business to reject a job applicant on the basis of that person’s being “an employee or paid agent” of a labor union. The goal is to combat something called “salting,” wherein a person gets himself hired so he can organize a worksite. This is, Rhinehart pointed out, “a solution in search of a problem,” given that hiring a single pro-union employee hardly guarantees that other employees will agree to join one. The bill’s true purpose, she said, was to “open the door to blatant anti-union discrimination that has been illegal since passage of the [National Labor Relations Act of 1935].”
New Republic
May 23, 2024
Unionizing provides workers with gains in pay, benefits, and working conditions, and non-benefit workers take advantage of it, as well, said Lynn Rhinehart, a senior fellow at the Economic Policy Institute.
Medill News Service
May 23, 2024
According to a recent report from the Economic Policy Institute, nearly 45,000 student workers at private colleges and universities nationwide have unionized via election since 2022, reflecting a more pro-labor stance among the youngest generation of workers. “Under the National Labor Relations act, depending on who’s in office, there have been different board decisions at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) about whether graduate students, teaching assistants, [and other student workers] have the right to form unions,” said Margaret Poydock, a senior policy analyst at EPI and author of the report.
LA Public Press
May 20, 2024