“Recent improvements are taking place against a backdrop of many decades of too slow wage growth, increasing inequality, and a lot of misdirected public investment that has led healthcare and education to be a source of economic stress,” Moore says.
America was pulled out of a recession because of some “smart spending” such as stimulus checks, but that hasn’t fixed the persisting issues.
“The economy isn’t sick right now,” Moore says. “We don’t have the flu. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have chronic conditions that need to be treated.”
CNBC
February 2, 2024
With the federal wage remaining so pitifully low and decades out of date (according to the Economic Policy Institute, its relative value is at a 66-year nadir), it’s no coincidence that, as the API’s proposal notes, “Many of these job openings are in the retail and food services industries” — i.e. jobs that pay minimum wage or potentially less, in the case of waitstaff.
Truthout
February 1, 2024
West Virginia AFL-CIO president Josh Sword says that the law has had a negative effect on local unions and will hurt workers’ long-term ability to organize and advocate for better benefits; research from left-leaning groups like the Economic Policy Institute have found that employee wages are lower in states with “right-to-work” laws.
Mountain State Spotlight
February 1, 2024
“We’re getting a lot of stories about a specific chunk” of the labor market, said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC. By and large, blue-collar jobs have been in good shape — it’s the white-collar, professional services jobs in areas such as finance and technology that have been struggling. “But that level of layoffs is actually a normal part of our labor market,” she said.
Shierholz also explained that layoffs and unemployment insurance claims have been lower than they were before the pandemic.
Bloomberg
February 1, 2024
“Recent improvements are taking place against a backdrop of many decades of too slow wage growth, increasing inequality, and a lot of misdirected public investment that has led healthcare and education to be a source of economic stress,” Moore says.
America was pulled out of a recession because of some “smart spending” such as stimulus checks, but that hasn’t fixed the persisting issues.
“The economy isn’t sick right now,” Moore says. “We don’t have the flu. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have chronic conditions that need to be treated.”
CNBC
January 26, 2024
This year’s state and local minimum wage increases are estimated to impact 9.9 million workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute, which tracks minimum wage changes.
Of those 22 state increases on Jan. 1, 14 were due to automatic inflation adjustments. Two other places have automatic adjustments on July 1 each year: Washington, D.C., and Oregon. But the state with the highest increase as of Jan. 1 was Hawaii: a $2 increase to $14, representing a 28% bump.
NerdWallet
January 26, 2024
Between 2019 and 2022, the lowest-wage American workers (those in the 10th percentile of wages) saw their hourly wages grow 9 percent, adjusted for inflation, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), more than any other income bracket. The highest-wage workers’ earnings only grew around half as much:
Bank Rate
January 26, 2024
According to the Economic Policy Institute, Florida is one of 25 states (plus Washington D.C.) that have enacted such standards for minors 16 and older.
Orlando Weekly
January 26, 2024