Florida is at least the 16th state to introduce roll back child labor protections in the past two years, and the 13th state to introduce such legislation in 2023, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The 74
January 16, 2024
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) allows young workers to be paid below minimum wage—also known as a “subminimum wage” or “youth opportunity wage”—on a temporary basis. In D.C. and nine states including Washington, Illinois, and New Hampshire, employers can pay young workers subminimum wages permanently under state laws, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) published Jan. 8.
Quartz
January 16, 2024
De facto school segregation has nonetheless persisted, with the Economic Policy Institute reporting in 2020 that Black students are more than twice as likely to attend high-poverty schools as their white peers and that 60% of Black students are concentrated in high-poverty schools predominantly serving children of color.
Forbes
January 16, 2024
Putting aside billionaires, the gap between CEOs and workers alone has exploded over the last several decades. Between 1978 and 2022, top CEO compensation rose more than 1,200%, compared with the 15.3% rise in a typical worker’s compensation, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
MarketWatch
January 16, 2024
The need for paid sick days to help stabilize workers’ finances is clear through the data, according to an Economic Policy Institute report released in November. Compared to 63% of private sector workers having access to paid sick days in 2010, 78% now do, and during the same period, the percentage of the lowest wage workers who had paid sick days almost doubled, the think tank found. The report’s authors also calculated what workers would be giving up in housing, groceries, transportation and other essentials for their unpaid sick days.
“If we think about taking off work without any assets or savings, that could have a very big impact on the family budget,” said Hilary Wething, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, and one of the report’s authors. “If a worker loses wages for taking off five days for example, if they have RSV or their kid has RSV that could be their entire grocery budget for the month. If they take three days off, it could be the entire monthly budget of utilities and two days could be a monthly budget of gas, which could make it difficult to get to work. You can see how a series of events could cascade for them and become a much bigger problem than it had to be.”
States Newsroom
January 16, 2024
According to the Economic Policy Institute, Meta employs so many H-1B workers that it has declared itself an “H-1B dependent” firm in government filings for years because more than 15% of its total U.S. workforce is H-1B workers.
The Mercury News
January 16, 2024
“The franchise model is a major factor in child labor violations because it incentivizes a race to the bottom in terms of labor standards,” said Nina Mast, an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute who researches child labor laws.
The Washington Post
January 16, 2024
However, an analysis last year from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute concluded that if the merger proceeds, more than 700,000 grocery workers in 50 U.S. cities would see lower pay, with a collective loss totaling over $330 million.
Fortune
January 16, 2024
CEO compensation levels, the Economic Policy Institute has detailed, have “skyrocketed” some 1,460 percent since 1978.
Inequality.org
January 16, 2024
Richard Rothstein, distinguished fellow of the Economic Policy Institute and a senior fellow (emeritus) at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the author of many books including The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (Liveright, 2017) and co-author of Just Action: How to Challenge Segregation Enacted Under the Color of Law (Liveright, 2023), and Leah Rothstein, community organizer and co-author of Just Action, talk about their books on segregation, and reflect on Dr. King’s legacy.
WNYC Brian Lehrer Show
January 16, 2024