And in a forthcoming report from the Economic Policy Institute, real wage growth, which is adjusted for inflation, increased during the pandemic. “Between 2019 and 2022, hourly wage growth was strongest at the bottom of the wage distribution. The 10th percentile real hourly wage (adjusted for inflation) grew 9.0% over the three-year period. Wage growth was about one-third as fast for middle-wage workers,” it read.
Bucks County Courier Times
March 17, 2023
This problem is not new. According to a 2008 report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), banks gave 52.9% of subprime mortgages to Black customers while only 26.1% went to white customers. (And studies have shown that creditworthiness can’t account for these disparities, per the EPI.) In 2020, the New York Times reported instances of racial profiling when Black customers perform mundane bank transactions.
Morning Brew
March 17, 2023
Valerie Wilson, director at the Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy, urged against putting too much stock into one month’s report, noting that the rising labor force participation rate shows more confidence in the labor market.
CNBC
March 17, 2023
It’s no secret that chief execs, especially those that helm major companies, make a lot of money, with the average CEO — who might rake in a solid $16-or-so million a year — earning nearly 400 times what the average employee makes, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Futurism
March 17, 2023
Another concerning gap in teacher wages is the overall disparity between educators and similarly educated individuals in different professions. This finding has been described by the Economic Policy Institute as the “teacher pay penalty,” where teachers on average earned 76.5 cents on the dollar in 2021 from what similar college-educated professionals were paid.
K-12 Dive
March 17, 2023
Low salaries and high stress are two of the main contributors to a nationwide teacher shortage that has developed and worsened since around the time of the Great Recession, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Now, some members of Congress are hoping to address the pay problem.
CNBC
March 17, 2023
While wealth may have risen for many Americans, the same can’t be said of their wages. Economists at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank, analyzed data from the Social Security Administration and found that on average workers in the bottom 90% of wage earners (those who made less than $112,000 per year) saw no increase in their wages from 2019 to 2021 once historic levels of inflation were taken into account. These workers actually saw a decline in their real earnings of 0.2%.
PBS
March 17, 2023
The following is from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI):
WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 16, 2023) — The Michigan state legislature is poised to make history this week by repealing an anti-union “right-to-work” (RTW) statute enacted in 2012. This repeal is an important step toward empowering workers to address historic levels of income inequality and unequal power in our economy, and would mark the first time a state has repealed a RTW law in nearly 60 years.
The Stand
March 17, 2023
New analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank, shows the devastating effect Michigan’s 2012 “right to work” law has had on unionization, wages, and the middle class. “An overwhelming body of research shows that states with anti-union laws restricting workers’ collective bargaining rights end up with lower wages, worse benefits, and higher workplace fatality rates,” said Jennifer SHERER, Senior State Policy Coordinator at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), who testified in support of the Restoring Workers’ Rights package before the Senate Labor Committee this morning. “Michigan legislators are right to prioritize restoring workers’ rights as an essential first step toward addressing the decades of wage stagnation and growing income inequality plaguing our economy. Other states should follow Michigan’s lead.”
Michigan AFL-CIO
March 17, 2023
It is exceedingly rare for states to overturn right-to-work laws. The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said if Whitmer signs the bill into law, Michigan will be the first state to repeal a right-to-work law in nearly six decades. (Missouri voters overwhelmingly shot down their own legislature’s right-to-work laws in a 2018 ballot referendum.)
The Washington Post
March 17, 2023