Media clips

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• Europe gets more vacations than the U.S. Here are some reasons why.

  GONZALEZ: Adewale is a labor economics researcher at the Economic Policy Institute. But actually seeing the European attitude toward work in person felt different. And it made Adewale think of this report he worked on a few years back.

  MAYE: The name of the report is No-Vacation Nation.

  GONZALEZ: No-Vacation Nation.

  MAYE: Very on the nose.

  GONZALEZ: In this report, Adewale looked at the 21 richest countries in the world, and he listed how many paid vacation days they all get not because of the kindness of their employers, but how many paid vacation days every single person in these countries have to – have to, have to, have to – get by law. And he found that Japan, for example, gets 10 paid vacation days for everyone on top of 15 paid holidays; Australia, 20 paid vacation days, plus eight paid holidays; Spain 25 vacation days, paid, plus 14 paid holidays. We are talking 39 days off, paid, for everyone – hairdressers, mechanics, doctors, bakers, daycare workers, train operators. Every worker in these countries is guaranteed paid vacation. Actually, every worker in all of the richest countries in the world has to get paid vacation except for workers in one rich country, the U.S.

  NPR Planet Money August 25, 2023
• Union fights grow US workers’ slice of profit pie

  Yet by one measure, employees aren’t doing as well as they did before the pandemic. Workers’ share of corporate earnings reached 75% in the first quarter, compared to 76% in the last three months of 2019, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Closing that one-point difference today requires $120 billion in higher wages.

  Reuters August 25, 2023
• Rising home prices threaten Indy’s affordability for teachers
  • According to the Economic Policy Institute, teachers have for decades experienced a “wage penalty” — meaning they consistently make less than their non-teacher college-educated counterparts.
  Axios August 25, 2023
• Daybreak Aug. 24: Praise for FDA’s new deputy commissioner choic

  …violations on farms, according to a new report by the Economic Policy Institute that found the number of such probes reached a record low…[Paywall].

  Agri-Pulse August 25, 2023
• It’s nearly impossible for WA farmworkers to unionize. Here’s why that matters

  Features quote from Daniel Costa. [Paywall]. 

  Seattle Times August 25, 2023
• 60 years later, ‘manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination’ remain

  As a group, Black workers are paid less than white workers, earning 76 cents to every $1 earned by white Americans, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. In Maine, Black workers earn only 63 percent of what white workers make.

  The gap is larger now than it was 40 years ago, and it can’t be explained by differences in education and skills, the Economic Policy Institute concluded in a recent analysis.

  Black Americans are twice as likely to be unemployed than white Americans. The disparity is a little smaller in Maine.

  Bangor Daily News August 25, 2023
• Jackson Hole: Fed policy collides with reality in the most unequal county in America

  But as they talk about inflation and the economy in the abstract, residents of the popular vacation destination are very much feeling the realities of their policies. That’s because Jackson Hole is the most economically unequal place in the United States, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  CNN Business August 25, 2023
• Fight for economic equity under ‘assault’ 60 years after March on Washington, advocates warn

  Other economic disparities have also persisted into the present day. Among Americans who are employed, research from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) showed the typical Black worker made more than 24 percent less than their white counterparts per hour in 2019 — a figure the group noted was about 8 percentage points higher than it was four decades earlier.

  The Hill August 25, 2023
• WHAT THEY ARE SAYING: One Year Anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act

  Economic Policy Institute: “The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed into law a year ago this week. It is widely seen as the crown jewel of the “industrial policy” agenda of the Biden administration. While no piece of legislation is perfect, the full potential of the IRA to deliver a radically better future is often underrated. In this post, we highlight many of the IRA’s huge steps forward and also talk about the unfinished agenda for securing faster, fairer, and greener growth in the U.S. economy.” [Blogpost, 8/14/23]

  Economic Policy Institute: “Put simply, the IRA puts the U.S. on a path where meeting its global climate change commitments is within reach—commitments which would provide a genuine chance at securing a livable planet for future generations if they are kept. At the beginning of August 2022, there was no such path to secure this livable future, but there is now—and that is a mammoth victory.” [Blogpost, 8/14/23]

  The White House August 21, 2023
• We must address critical shortages of educators

  An inability to retain qualified and experienced professionals can have serious implications for the wider staffing of schools. A 2022 Economic Policy Institute report indicated that 23% of all U.S. public schools had at least 5% of their positions vacant during the 2021-22 school year. More than half of schools reported that those vacancies were due to resignations and 21% stated they were due to retirements.

  Lancaster Online August 21, 2023