“The legacy of not having access to wealth-building opportunities that Black families have faced over decades, those things are labor market independent,” says Kyle K. Moore, economist for the Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity, and the economy.
“But there is a component of the racial wealth gap that comes from the labor market, and being in a union allows [people] to mitigate that.”
Word in Black
September 15, 2023
They also cite a 2021 study from the Economic Policy Institute that showed nearly a quarter of Minnesota construction workers are misclassified as independent contractors and are paid off the books, making 36% less in wages and benefits than regularly employed workers.
WCCO News Minnesota
September 15, 2023
All of the strike activity we’re seeing right now is a hopeful sign for those who want to see an economy that works for everyone. In this episode, we speak with Margaret Poydock and Jennifer Sherer of the Economic Policy Institute, co-authors of the recent report What to know about this summer’s strike activity. We discuss what’s driving the recent wave of strikes, the challenges workers encounter when seeking to strike, and the policy changes that would strengthen workers’ ability to act collectively.
Oregon Center for Public Policy
September 15, 2023
As economists Lawrence Mishel and Josh Bivens wrote for the Economic Policy Institute, “Between 1979 and 2017, the compensation of median workers trailed economywide (net) productivity growth by roughly 43%, leading to rising inequality.” Workers were producing far more, but the benefit was instead being concentrated in a tiny segment of the population, what Mishel and Bivens identified as “workers at the top (mostly highly credentialed professionals and corporate managers) and owners of capital.” The rich were getting richer, and the cost of being poor was growing.
Truthout
September 15, 2023
Additionally, the Economic Policy Institute reported in 2019 that the economic costs associated with Airbnb likely outweigh the benefits as housing and rental prices increase causing price gauging and communities have to relocate because they can no longer afford to live in their respective neighborhoods.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
September 15, 2023
A Statista Research Department report estimated that in 2021, CEOs received nearly 400 times the average annual salary of their production and nonsupervisory workers. The Economic Policy Institute offered a different take: Between 1978 and 2019, CEO compensation grew 940 percent, while typical worker compensation rose just 12 percent.
San Diego Union Tribune
September 15, 2023
In the midst of this rising thrum of worker activism, what are many of America’s business leaders doing? In high-profile corporations like Amazon and Goldman Sachs, they’re demanding that workers get back to their desks. Leaders of multiple massive corporations, many in tech and finance, are emphasizing that they’re getting tough about return-to-office this time: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told workers that if they didn’t get on board, they should consider working elsewhere, and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon in July said he understood why people didn’t want to commute an hour and a half each day, but it ”doesn’t mean they have to have a job here either.”
CNN Business
September 15, 2023
Quality child care is expensive. “Right now, child care costs are unaffordable for many families,” says Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. “And yet what they want is high quality child care, and you have to pay for that.”
Workers are “undervalued and underpaid in that sector,” Gould adds in an interview. “It just doesn’t add up.”
Wisconsin Examiner
September 15, 2023
Economic Policy Institute, which sources employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Local Area Unemployment Statistics and Current Population Survey, shows that in the second quarter of 2023 Florida’s Black unemployment rate was 3.6 per cent.
Pink News
September 15, 2023
Less than 1% of all U.S. farms are audited for labor law compliance each fiscal year, according to a 2023 Economic Policy Institute report co-authored by Daniel Costa, the director of immigration law and policy research. Even though this figure accounts for all U.S. farms — not just those who hire H-2A workers — more than half of investigations uncover H-2A violations.
“(The wage and hour division of the Department of Labor) is underfunded and understaffed,” Costa said. “Employers can pretty much do whatever they want, and there’s a very low likelihood they’ll ever be investigated.”
Investigate Midwest
September 15, 2023