And the proposed tiered wage system only adds more confusion, argued the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that focuses on the needs of low- and middle-income workers, in its comments on the proposal. The department could consider simply establishing that au pairs should be paid the highest of the applicable local, state and federal minimum wages, the same rule that has been established in the Summer Work Travel program, the largest J-1 visa work program.
19th News
March 22, 2024
The federal estate tax should be an effective tool to slightly level the playing field between those who inherit wealth and those who have to work for a living. It should also ensure that family dynasties who’ve amassed enormous fortunes pay their fair share in taxes.
But because policymakers have repeatedly doubled and tripled the immense sums that can be passed on before the tax kicks in, the estate tax today affects almost no one.
CNN
March 22, 2024
Not all companies have responded to union drives with such hostility. Ben & Jerry’s and Microsoft have “tried to start a positive labor-management relationship,” the Economic Policy Institute reported on March 7, in an article arguing that the legal battle to ditch the NLRB relies on “long-rejected constitutional arguments about the agency’s structure.” EPI notes that none of the workers at Starbucks, Amazon or Trader Joe’s have a collective bargaining agreement yet, because these companies “have stalled the bargaining process.”
Counterpunch
March 22, 2024
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) noted in its analysis of the BLS figures that the share of nonunion workers who would like to have a union at their workplace is far higher than the share who actually have union representation,” a testament to the effectiveness of corporate union-busting campaigns and the need for much stronger federal labor laws.
Common Dreams
March 22, 2024
In 1965, the average chief executive’s pay at the 350 largest U.S. companies was about 20 times the average wage of their rank-and-file workers, according to the labor-affiliated Economic Policy Institute. In 2022, it was 344.5 times as much.
LA Times
March 22, 2024
The lowest-paid workers in the U.S. economy have seen their wages surge in the past four years, outpacing gains for any other group of earners, according to a new report from Economic Policy Institute – but their wages remain “grossly inadequate.”
Real wages of the lowest-paid workers grew 12.1% between 2019 and 2023, researchers at the left-leaning think tank found, surging faster than the wages of any other group of earners. That number is adjusted for inflation.
The trend is “a notable reversal of fortune for lower-wage workers in the U.S. labor market,” researchers wrote in the report, released Thursday.
MarketWatch
March 22, 2024
“Never in recent history has this dynamic been more clear,” researchers at the Economic Policy Institute noted in 2020 in a report on how unions benefit all workers during public health crises. Never has it been more important that all workers have a voice in the workplace and access to a union. Workers’ lives and the health and safety of working families depends on their ability to have a say in how they do their jobs.”
Next City
March 19, 2024
Minnesota’s minimum wage was just adjusted for inflation on Jan. 1 to $10.85 an hour for large employers and $8.85 an hour for other state minimum wages.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, women and people of color are benefitting the most from the change, but some lawmakers believe the pay bump still isn’t enough.
CBS Minnesota
March 19, 2024
While the number of workers represented by a union has increased (by 191,000 from 2022 to 2023), the share of workers represented by a union has decreased slightly, from 11.3% to 11.2%, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
MLK50
March 19, 2024