Media clips

---

• 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
• Kansas districts facing bus driver shortages as school year begins

  Research from the Economic Policy Institute shows that school bus driver employment continues to be far below pre-pandemic levels. In September 2023, nationwide, about 192,400 bus drivers were working in K-12 schools, down 15.1% from September 2019.

  KWCH-TV 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
• ‘Not tipping 20% makes you look like a fascist’: Why has tipping, once branded as ‘un-American’ and ‘anti-democratic,’ become such a hot political issue?

  Taxing tips is a double-whammy for underpaid workers. In fact, Nina Mast, economic analyst with the Economic Policy Institute, sees tips as a modern tool of racist oppression in the South. “Tipped workers are more likely to be people of color, women, women of color, or single parents, and are disproportionately born outside of the U.S.,” she wrote in a paper published last June.

  Tipped workers experience high rates of poverty, and are vulnerable to wage theft and sexual harassment, she said. “The South has the largest tipped workforce of any region. Tipped workers in the South are paid the second lowest median wage of any region, and most Southern states allow employers to pay tipped workers as little as $2.13 an hour,” Mast added. In that context, the culture of tipping is toxic and taxing tips seems punitive.

  MarketWatch 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
• New California bill would demand equitable hiring practices in infrastructure projects to support disadvantaged communities

  According to the Economic Policy Institute, Black people have the highest California unemployment rate of 8.2% despite only making up 4% of the population. That’s roughly double the unemployment rate for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, which sits at 3.8%, and significantly higher than the Hispanic population, who had the second-highest unemployment rate in the state at 5.8%. 

  CAP Radio August 20, 2024
• Some School Workers Now Get Unemployment Over the Summer. Here’s How It Works

  If every state were to make school workers outside the classroom eligible for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, employees would collectively earn $1.2 billion more per year than they currently do, according to a forthcoming data analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. Spending on K-12 education would increase by no more than half of 1 percent in any state if workers claimed unemployment benefits at the same rate they did during the first summer the Minnesota law was in effect, according to the group’s research.

  “We have created a series of jobs that are vitally important to the teaching of our kids but we don’t give them year-round wages, and they don’t even get 40 hours a week,” said Dave Kamper, a state policy strategist for EPI, who helped craft and study the potential impact of the Minnesota legislation. “By taking that job, they’re foreclosing the possibility of full-time employment year-round. UI is a reasonable step to address that.”

  Education Week August 20, 2024
• Harris and Trump steal from each other’s playbooks on economic policies

  What Democrats can point out in defense is rising wages relative to inflation. According to the Economic Policy Institute, average wages have beat the rise of inflation for the past year. Senate President Pro Tempore Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) noted that in a recent post.

  Washington Examiner August 20, 2024
• Most workers make about the same as before the pandemic — except in these states

  The inflation-adjusted wage spike early in the pandemic was somewhat misleading, both because 20 million low-wage service workers left the workforce temporarily and because prices for some things such as gasoline temporarily plummeted, noted Josh Bivens, chief economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

  As the economic recovery has progressed, workers are doing slightly better, Bivens said.

  “On the one hand, all else equal, you’d want better wage growth over four and a half years,” Bivens said. “On the other hand, we suffered a horrible economic shock in that period. Relative to other recessions and recoveries, this is superb wage performance, even with the inflation.”

  Stateline August 20, 2024
• Horsford announces bill to make sure high-end earners can’t exploit an end to tax on tips

  The Economic Policy Institute warned that eliminating taxes on tips could encourage companies to shift to more tipped occupations and prevent them from offering higher and more competitive wages.  

  Nevada Current August 20, 2024
• Gen Zers are investing their way out of the 9-to-5

  …current job, then you should change jobs.” (Research from the Economic Policy Institute indicates that since 2007 US employees have…[paywall].

  Business Insider August 20, 2024
• Cities can get money from reporting labor violations, but few have

  This financial incentive mechanism seems to be unique to Connecticut, according to Terri Gerstein, a workers’ rights lawyer of more than 20 years who served in leadership roles within labor departments in New York, was a researcher at Harvard Law School and the Economic Policy Institute and now heads the NYU Wagner Labor Initiative.

  The CT Mirror August 20, 2024
• Teacher shortages improve, but not everywhere

  “We would definitely still think that there’s a teacher shortage. It is improved in some ways, and in other ways, it’s stayed the same,” said Hilary Wething, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. 

  “I think there is some good news in that we’ve seen state and local education employment fully recover to pre-COVID levels, to February 2020 levels, of employment, but that’s not really the full context, because the employment levels in that industry in February of 2020 were still below what we would expect to have a fully robust education employment in our country,” Wething added. 

  The Hill August 20, 2024
• Trump and Harris agree on “no tax on tips.” They’re both wrong.

  “I’m not at all saying that workers won’t get anything,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute. “But I think that a meaningful share of the [federal] expenditures on a tax exemption like this will go to the employers of tipped workers.”

  That might be why industry lobbyists have backed the proposal. “It’s not a surprise that the National Restaurant Association loves this,” Shierholz said, referring to the lobbying group that represents many of the country’s major restaurant chains.

  At worst, the tax policy might even put a downward pressure on service sector wages by allowing employers to keep their workers’ baseline pay low because the tax cut could instead raise the workers’ take-home pay.

  “I think there is no question that it would” weigh wages down, Shierholz said. The only question, she says, is just how much.

  So while “no tax on tips” might make for a good sound bite or campaign slogan, it doesn’t necessarily translate to wise policymaking.

  VOX 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
• Why ‘drill, baby, drill’ isn’t an inflation policy

  Paywall. 

  E & E News 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
• The Trump and Harris campaigns are taking different approaches to courting this powerful voting bloc

  Though he has positioned himself as pro-union, Trump is no stranger to complaints about his labor policy and approach to worker rights. In 2020, the Economic Policy Institute released a report listing 50 ways the first Trump administration eroded worker rights and expanded corporate power.

  Business Insider August 20, 2024
• Trump and Musk: 4 Ways To Help Farmers in the US Economy

  Regardless, new immigration laws will have a deep impact on labor availability in agriculture and will need corresponding prioritization of worker programs and securing a consistent and law-abiding workforce for farms. Trump may need to address the growing farmworker wage gap as well, as detailed by the Economic Policy Institute.

  GO Banking Rates August 20, 2024
• The 10 States With the Most Union Members — How Do They Compare to States With the Fewest?

  According to the Economic Policy Institute, “RTW laws — and the phrase “right to work” itself — are intended to deceive and confuse. The misleadingly named policy is designed to make it more difficult for workers to form and sustain unions and negotiate collectively for better wages, benefits, and working conditions.”

  GO Banking Rates August 20, 2024
• Disney seeks to dismiss wrongful-death suit over app’s fine print

  Mandatory arbitration is now the norm in corporate America, The Post has reported. Because a majority of nonunion jobs in the country require arbitration, 60 million workers can’t sue in court, according to a 2018 report from the left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute.

  The Washington Post August 20, 2024
• Knox County Schools starts year off 30 bus drivers short

  It’s an industry that’s seeing less and less action. According to the Economic Policy Institute, there were more than 192,000 bus drivers across the country in 2023. That’s down more than 15% from 2019 and nearly 100,000 from a decade before.

  WVLT-TV August 20, 2024
• These are the 50 fastest-growing companies in metro Detroit

  Michigan and Ohio are both relatively expensive places to raise children compared to the fastest growing states in the U.S. The average cost for infant care in Michigan is $10,881 or $905 per month, according to the Washington, D.C., think tank Economic Policy Institute. Infant care for one child in the state accounts for 19% of a median family’s income. Infant care costs $9,697 in Ohio, or about $808 per month.

  Crain's Detroit Business August 20, 2024
• Forced labor persists in the U.S. food supply chain

  Stunning stat: Fewer than 1% of agricultural employers are investigated annually, but WHD finds wage and hour violations in 70% of its investigations, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  Axios August 20, 2024
• What Guaranteed Income Could Do for Young Americans

  Though Economic Policy Institute’s class of 2024 report notes that young high-school graduates experienced a “faster rebound” in job prospects and strong wage growth through the pandemic recovery, many young people are grappling with jobs that pay low wages or have inconsistent scheduling, an affordable housing crisis, and student debt. These crises, among others, have shaped coming of age for young people, bringing up questions of what it means to support people during a transitional period of life.

  Dame Magazine August 20, 2024
• Trump’s Overtime Pay Rule

  “While the administration may be trumpeting this rule as a good thing for workers, that is a ruse,” Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank partly funded by labor unions, wrote in a statement issued the same day. “In reality, the rule leaves behind millions of workers who would have received overtime protections under the much stronger rule, published in 2016, that Trump administration abandoned.”

  “It’s worth noting that if the rule had simply been adjusted for inflation since 1975, today it would be roughly $56,500,” Shierholz wrote. “This is more than $20,000 higher than the Trump administration’s level! I estimate that roughly 8.2 million workers who would have benefited from the 2016 rule will be left behind by the Trump administration’s rule.”

  FactCheck.org August 20, 2024
• 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