The presence of unions may also signal support for, and provides organizing around, other state policies that benefit workers, said David Kemper, the senior state policy coordinator at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank that supports unions. In general, right-to-work states scored lower on a number of issues, from wages to workplace safety conditions to political participation, according to a report by Illinois Economic Policy Institute. and the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
FiveThirtyEight
March 31, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute found that a year of infant care can cost Wisconsinites more than tuition at a public college. Families have started to plan pregnancies around the availability of care, as they encounter years-long wait lists at child care centers.
Wisconsin Watch
March 31, 2023
That second assertion, sadly, is on the money. As a recent survey by the Economic Policy Institute demonstrated, teacher pay has been falling relative to the pay of other college graduates since 1979.
American Prospect
March 31, 2023
And yet, the rich continue to grow richer. According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, CEOs now make 400 times more than the average worker. The Gini coefficient, a measurement of inequality, has risen from 0.353 in 1974 to 0.494 in 2021. The top one percent of the United States held 27% of the nation’s wealth in 2021, a higher share than the middle 60% of households by income.
People's Dispatch
March 31, 2023
In just the last year, the number of children employed in violation of child labor laws increased 37%, according to the Economic Policy Institute. (paywall).
The Guardian
March 31, 2023
Though a majority of Americans support unions, just a small fraction of workers—about 12%—are actually in one. Labor experts say one reason for that discrepancy has to do with the efforts companies have made to fight or derail union organizing. And all those efforts have come at a hefty cost: Employers spend more than $400 million a year on “union-avoidance consultants,” according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Fast Company
March 31, 2023
(paywall) … the American Rescue Plan Act—that led to a rapidly growing economy and very strong demand for workers, said a report from the Economic Policy Institute.
MarketWatch
March 31, 2023
According to the Economic Policy Institute, New York is the most unequal state in the country, where the richest 1% take home 31% of all income. (Nationwide, the richest 1% take home 21% of all income.) Rather than directly addressing the need for stable housing, incomes, and health care, we’ve seen these basic services replaced by ever more intensive and invasive policing: stop-and-frisk, quotas, abusive anti-crime units, homeless sweeps and the broad criminalization of young people of color.
City and State New York
March 31, 2023
As a recent analysis from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reveals, the much-publicized Youth Hiring Act of 2023 is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the weakening of child labor standards. Over the past two years, some ten states have either introduced or passed legislation in this vein, with eight of such bills appearing in the past few months alone.
Jacobin
March 31, 2023
The data come from Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute who runs the tracker “How many low-wage workers are in the U.S.?” Before the pandemic, fast-food workers, home health aides, janitors and other low-wage workers saw modest pay increases largely due to 30 states raising their state minimum wages above the $7.25-an-hour federal requirement, Zipperer says.
Washington Post
March 31, 2023
According to a report last year from the Economic Policy Institute, the average weekly wages of U.S. public school teachers increased $29 from 1996 to 2021. The weekly wages of other college graduates rose by $445 in the same period. What the report calls “the teacher weekly wage penalty” is greater than 20% in 28 states (in Maine, it’s 24%), where teachers are paid less than 80 cents on the dollar compared to similar college-educated workers in those states.
Central Maine
March 31, 2023
Workers in the 10th percentile, that is those making less than 90% of everyone else, saw real wages (or those adjusted for inflation) grow 9% between 2019 and 2022, according to a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute. They earned $12.57 per hour in 2022, or $26,145 annually. It’s the biggest hike they’ve seen in decades as measured by business cycles, which are periods of economic growth followed by a contraction and possible recession.
CNBC
March 31, 2023
That roughly 2-to-1 relationship between Black and white unemployment has held true for a long time, according to Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. The gap is especially harmful during times of crisis — when Black workers routinely face unemployment rates upwards of 15 percent — but it also means that Black and other marginalized workers can see their unemployment rates drop faster than white workers.
FiveThirtyEight
March 31, 2023
Over the course of 2019 through 2022, the 10th percentile real hourly wage, which represents the lowest-earning workers, grew 9%. This jump can be attributed to policies passed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the tightening labor market from low unemployment, giving workers increased leverage over their employers, according to research from the Economic Policy Institute released on Thursday.
The Washington Examiner
March 24, 2023
Cites EPI research on corporate profits.
Breaking Points
March 24, 2023
“It’s a really troubling moment right now,” said Jennifer Sherer of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “We should be strengthening the system, including making sure that the permitting and the permissions and the vetting are stronger, not weaker.”
Bloomberg Law
March 24, 2023
Between 2019 and 2022, the lowest-paid saw their real income grow 9%, according to a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute. Even accounting for inflation, income for workers in the bottom 10% grew faster than in any recovery since 1979.
“It’s incredibly unusual how well they did,” said Elise Gould, EPI senior economist and one of the report’s authors.
CBS Moneywatch
March 24, 2023
States across the country are attempting to weaken child labor protections, just as violations of these standards are rising, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. The group issued a report this week that identifies 10 states as introducing or passing bills weakening child labor standards in the past two years alone.
Route Fifty
March 24, 2023
“I think it’s a sign of the times,” said Jennifer Sherer, a senior state policy coordinator for the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). “It is a sign of how stark extreme inequality has become, how aware the majority of workers and voters are of how unequal our economy and unequal our power is distributed in our workplaces right now.
“It’s a sign of the growing interest in reviving unions, and an acknowledgement of their really important role that they play in leveling the playing field and rebalancing that power.”
Michigan Advance
March 24, 2023
Contracts ratified last year called for first-year wage raises averaging 5.7%, the review of 817 deals showed. That marks a significant jump over the 3.7% average first-year increase in agreements ratified in 2021, and the highest average rate in more than 30 years.
Features quote from Celine (paywall).
Bloomberg Law
March 24, 2023
According to an important new report from the Economic Policy Institute, or EPI, at least 10 states have introduced bills weakening child labor protections during the past two years, and four have enacted them—New Hampshire, Arkansas, New Jersey, and (here’s one I missed) Iowa, which last year lowered (from 18 to 16) the minimum age for workers in childcare centers. The EPI report also said that the number of child labor violations has nearly quadrupled since 2015, from 1,012 to 3,876.
The New Republic
March 24, 2023
According to the Economic Policy Institute—which has come to similar data-driven conclusions as the aforementioned paper—Michigan’s reversal of the GOP’s anti-union statute would be “the first time a state has repealed a RTW law in nearly 60 years.” The victory is all the more significant because of the state’s historic position as having had “the highest unionization rate in the country” and correspondingly high median wages before Republicans passed an RTW law in 2012. But in the past decade, unionization rates and wages both fell in Michigan. In other words, the state’s RTW law had its intended result.
LA Progressive
March 24, 2023
Stalling negotiations is just one union-busting tactic many companies use to disengage and deflate unions and workers. The Economic Policy Institute states that in 2019, nearly 45% of employers were charged with breaking federal laws against unions.
Retriever
March 24, 2023
Studies show that workers suffer economically in states ruled by right-to-work laws. They lead to greater economic inequality in highly unionized areas by blunting the power of labor unions, per a 2020 study. An Economic Policy Institute study from 2015 found that wages in right-to-work states were 3.1 percent lower than in non-right-to-work states.
Talking Points Memo
March 24, 2023
Others work because they can’t afford retirement. According to the Economic Policy Institute, roughly one-third of workers aged 55 to 64 don’t have access to a retirement savings plan. Those who rely solely on Social Security benefits may find they don’t cover all of their living expenses. Major unplanned expenses like medical bills can also keep people in the workforce.
Chippewa
March 24, 2023
The bill has been endorsed by several workers’ groups, including the AFL-CIO and the Economic Policy Institute. Takano’s act, he notes, …(paywall)
Fortune
March 24, 2023
Research from the Economic Policy Institute has found that teachers who quit the profession report that they lacked influence over education …(paywall)
NJ.com
March 24, 2023
Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, also called for a pause, arguing Monday that the case for halting rate hikes was clear even before SVB failed earlier this month, given recent signs that inflation and wages are cooling substantially.
Common Dreams
March 24, 2023
Prop 22 was developed by gig corporations in response to the California’s legislature’s passage of Assembly Bill 5 in 2019, which gig companies were intensely opposed to. AB5 reclassified millions of workers in the state as employees under the “ABC” test. The Economic Policy Institute found that AB5 would protect workers from being misclassified as independent contractors and would specifically safeguard gig economy workers.
Truthout
March 24, 2023