He was also a thoroughly lovely man. Bill was one of the first economists I met when I began my career at the Economic Policy Institute in the early 1990s. I was too naïve to know how unusual he was and thought “wow, professional economists are much cooler than I thought they’d be.”
The White House
June 9, 2023
For example, the Economic Policy Institute recently studied the role of public sector unions in reducing racial and gender inequality between workers in the public and private sector. They noted how “[i]n states where employers are required to bargain, Black and Hispanic workers earn more in local government than in the private sector, where they face large racial pay gaps.”
The Advocate
June 9, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a nonprofit organization that frequently addresses racial disparities in the economy and counts Spriggs as a former employee, mourned his death by remembering him as “a fierce proponent of racial and economic justice whose influence as a public intellectual and economist reached across academia, labor, think tanks, positions in the Clinton and Obama administrations, and the civil rights community.” Springss broadened “discussions about race and economics within these critical institutions” and “worked tirelessly behind the scenes to expand representation of people of color within the economics profession and mentor the next generation of economists,” EPI said.
NewsOne
June 9, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute notes that Black Americans are just over half as likely as white Americans to have a college degree. Yet college degrees are key drivers of social mobility, helping those who need it find a path out of poverty.
LA Times
June 6, 2023
Black and Hispanic workers, for example, are less likely to work from home regardless of educational attainment, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Wisconsin Public Radio
June 6, 2023
Education plays a key part in the fight against forced arbitration and NDAs. Fifty-six percent of all nonunion private sector employees are covered by mandatory arbitration agreements, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. The practice may be widespread, but most workers have no idea they’ve signed their rights away, Carlson said.
HR Dive
June 6, 2023
The United States is an outlier among industrialized nations when it comes to subsidizing child care, spending just 0.2% of its gross domestic product on child care for children 2 and under, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Today Show
June 6, 2023
Williams started at $8 an hour, and a 2021 report from the Economic Policy Institute found that 92 percent of the company’s employees made less than $15 an hour; 22 percent made less than $10 an hour. The company is currently the United States’ fastest-growing retailer, opening around one thousand stores a year and employing more than 170,000 people.
Jacobin
June 6, 2023
In March, the unemployment rate for people aged 16 to 24, who are already benefiting from pre-pandemic labor market conditions, marked a 70-year low at 7.5%, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In April, it dipped further for that age group, to 6.5%.
June 6, 2023
In the past two years, according to a recent report from the Economic Policy Institute, at least fourteen states have enacted or proposed laws rolling back child-labor protections. Typically, the new laws extend work hours for minors, lift restrictions on hazardous work, lower the age at which kids can bus tables where alcohol is served, or introduce new sub-minimum wages. In Iowa, a new law allows children as young as fourteen to work in industrial laundries, and, with approval from a state agency, allows sixteen-year-olds to work in roofing, excavation, demolition, the operation of power-driven machinery, and other dangerous occupations. Jennifer Sherer, a co-author of the E.P.I. report, said, “Iowa’s new law contains multiple provisions that conflict with federal prohibitions on ‘oppressive child labor.’ ” It also limits employer liability for the injury, illness, or death of a child on the job. Adolescents are almost twice as likely as adults to be injured at work.
The New Yorker
June 6, 2023