Teacher pay is falling farther behind the wages of other college-educated professionals, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
WUSF
October 13, 2023
Despite being among the most educated professions—some states even require master’s degrees—teachers earn just three-quarters as much as comparable college graduates, according to research published by the Economic Policy Institute in 2022.
Stacker
October 13, 2023
Jennifer Sherer, director of the state worker power initiative for the Economic Policy Institute, said by looking at trends, workers across the country are increasingly looking to their right to organize and collectively bargain as a vehicle to address what she called “really deep inequalities in our economy.”
“The initiative and the discussion underway in a number of states about making sure every worker has full access to those rights is the origin of the initiative you are seeing in Arizona,” Sherer explained.
Public News Service
October 13, 2023
Data from the Economic Policy Institute shows that the families of childcare workers are twice as likely to live in poverty (11.8%) compared to others.
Business Insider
October 13, 2023
According to the Economic Policy Institute, autoworker wages have fallen 19.3% since 2008 alone — due in large part to past concessions made by the UAW.
Detroit Free Press
October 13, 2023
In 2022, Dollar General became the first major retailer deemed a “severe violator” of federal workplace safety law, and has failed hundreds of government inspections. In addition to limited access to sick leave, most Dollar General employees make less than $12 an hour, and close to 1 in 4 make less than $10, according to an Economic Policy Institute study from 2021.
Bloomberg
October 13, 2023
Ahead of the Friday announcement, Fain told a gathering at the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN) conference in Detroit that many UAW members were struggling to make ends meet.
“We’ve been dealing with trickle-down economics since the [President Ronald] Reagan days in the ‘80s and it still is the battle cry of the right. Inequality has been on the rise for decades. It’s now at its greatest level since the Great Depression,” Fain said.
Michigan Advance
October 13, 2023
With a more robust social services net, greater numbers of high-quality jobs across the economy and a comprehensive plan for transitioning automated-out workers to new job, automation can be a good thing for the economy in the long run, said Josh Bivens, research director at the Economic Policy Institute.
“Automation is mostly opportunity,” he said. “It’s opportunity we need to manage better than we have, but I think blaming it for problems in inequality … really takes the blame off where it should be,” which is on concrete policy decisions that were the actual drivers, he said.
LA Times
October 13, 2023
A report from the Economic Policy Institute shows Arizona teachers are paid 33% less than other workers with bachelor’s degrees in the state.
The report, which was released late last month, shows that the pay gap is the second worst, only behind Colorado.
ABC 15
October 13, 2023
Elise Gould, a senior economist at The Economic Policy Institute, called the data surrounding Hispanic workers a “mild sign” of an improving labor market, but cautioned reading too much into the month-to-month metrics poised for volatility.
The jobless rate among Hispanic workers still lags that of white and Asian workers at 3.4% and 2.8%, respectively. However, it does mark a stark difference from the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic when the group experienced the highest unemployment rate, according to Gould.
“It speaks to the resilience of the labor market,” she said. “Even in the face of rising interest rates, to be able to stay strong, and have it stay strong for so long that you’re really pulling in many historically marginalized groups back into the labor market.”
CNBC
October 13, 2023