Low-wage US workers have made gains in the last few years, with a 9% increase in real wages between 2019 and 2022, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Still, the federal minimum wage has remained fixed at $7.25 an hour since 2009, while the value of wages has dropped by more than 20%, according to estimates. The immobility of the federal minimum wage means that low-salary workers remain vulnerable to the pressures of a recession or depression, according to the think tank.
Bloomberg
July 21, 2023
The U.S. Department of Labor is supposed to enforce worker protections and keep H-2A workers from displacing local farmworkers. The protections are not always enforced, according to a 2022 Economic Policy Institute report on the H2 visa program’s impact on workers.
While the Washington state attorney general was able to charge Ostrom with discrimination against women within the state, it is not illegal for H-2A recruiters to hire only men.
Daniel Costa, who is the author of the report and the director of Immigration Law and Policy Research at EPI, noted that “an employer may select an entire workforce composed of a single nationality, gender, or age group” under the program.
The American Prospect
July 21, 2023
Still, hourly rates can ebb and flow, given the flexible nature of these jobs. In a 2022 Shift Project survey, nearly one in seven workers said they earned less than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 on an hourly basis. According to the Economic Policy Institute’s analysis of the study, that hourly wage included tips.
Business Insider
July 21, 2023
Notwithstanding those ups and downs, executive pay in Hollywood has followed the pattern of the rest of corporate America. As tracked by the labor-affiliated Economic Policy Institute, the estimated ratio between CEO pay and the wages of average workers in their companies soared from about 20-to-1 in 1965 to about 388-to-1 in 2021, the most recent year EPI analyzed.
LA Times
July 21, 2023
Since 2021, lawmakers in 14 states have introduced bills to weaken rules governing what kinds of workplace tasks minors are allowed to perform and for what wages. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has argued that this deregulatory attack is driven by corporations’ desire to ramp up exploitation.
“The trend reflects a coordinated multi-industry push to expand employer access to low-wage labor and weaken state child labor laws in ways that contradict federal protections,” EPI researchers Jennifer Sherer and Nina Mast wrote earlier this year. “And the recent uptick in state legislative activity is linked to longer-term industry-backed goals to rewrite federal child labor laws and other worker protections for the whole country.”
Common Dreams
July 21, 2023
“It’s good news that women are finding jobs in this economy at a greater rate than they were previously,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute. She noted that brisk hiring in health care and government has helped more women find jobs.
States Newsroom
July 21, 2023
Given that people of color and immigrants will make up a majority of the working class by 2032, according to the Economic Policy Institute, one might ask if they are not strategic in their own right. The organizing efforts of immigrant farmworkers, janitors, construction workers, and others are responsible for most of the actual growth of unions in states like California over the past three decades.
The Nation
July 21, 2023
Despite recent fluctuations in the job market, a gloomy economic situation, and the rising cost of living, 2023 is a great time to be in the graduating business school class.
That’s according to the Economic Policy Institute, which recently published a report suggesting this year’s graduating class is in better shape than the class of 2022, with a stronger labor market for younger workers, and lower unemployment and underemployment rates.
BusinessBecause
July 21, 2023
The math on teacher pay may not add up for college students. Teachers are generally paid less than their college-educated peers, a trend that has worsened over the last several decades, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Public school teachers now earn about 24% less than other college-educated professionals, the biggest gap since 1979, the a left-leaning think tank noted.
CBS Moneywatch
July 21, 2023
Employers struggled to attract and retain warehouse workers early in the pandemic, which caused a shift in spending from services to goods, said Monique Morrissey, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
Non-college-educated workers had found new leverage by quitting and moving to better-paying or easier jobs, forcing Amazon and its competitors to respond with sign-on bonuses and wage increases. White saw ads from Walmart and Target last year advertising warehouse jobs that started in the $20 to $24 range.
“No doubt Amazon had to prominently advertise an increase in pay in response to negative reports about the company’s poor working conditions and low wages,” said Morrissey.
Labor Notes
July 21, 2023