“Sexual harassment of teens in the workplace is a huge and widespread problem that is rarely talked about,” says Jennifer Sherer, director of the State Worker Power Initiative at the Economic Policy Institute, which has cataloged recent child-labor bills. The debate over the Iowa bill, she says, “did serve as a wake-up call and a reminder that the safeguards we have in place, as it is, aren’t preventive, and that many teens and many adults who look back on their teen work have experienced harassment.”
Barron’s
August 4, 2023
A March report by the Economic Policy Institute said that 14 states have either introduced or passed bills that roll back child labour laws.
The Independent
August 2, 2023
In a similar vein, the plan calls for reinstating a Trump-era rule that made it easier to classify people as independent contractors who lack many of the protections enjoyed by employees. Berry labels this plan, which the Economic Policy Institute estimated would cost workers more than $3 billion per year, a part of “Making Family-Sustaining Work Accessible.”
Mother Jones
August 2, 2023
In a 2019 study, the Economic Policy Institute concluded that those concerns were real, and the tourist dollars that the services bring in are outweighed by the shrinking of the long-term rental market and the drop in tax hotel revenues.
Bloomberg
August 2, 2023
Mattel shut down its last U.S. factory — in Murray, Ky. — in 2001. Barbie, Hot Wheels and other Mattel toys are now made in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico and Thailand. It’s a familiar narrative. The U.S. has lost more than 5 million manufacturing jobs to offshoring since 1998, according to the Economic Policy Institute, and the impact has been particularly hard on workers of color.
San Francisco Chronicle
August 2, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute, the nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank created to support the interests of low- and moderate-income workers, recently raised a warning flag over the growing trend among state legislatures to weaken child labor laws.
“In states across the country, lawmakers are engaged in a coordinated, corporate-backed campaign to weaken child labor protections,” the institute reported. “One type of protection — minimum ages to serve alcohol in bars and restaurants — has been eroded in seven states since 2021. While lowering the age to serve alcohol may sound benign, it is not. It puts young people at risk of sexual harassment, underage drinking, and other harms.”
Capitol Times
August 2, 2023
“Child labor laws are under attack in states across the country, just as violations of these standards are rising,” Jennifer Sherer, the senior state policy coordinator for the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning labor think tank, said in a recent statement. “The trend reflects a coordinated multi-industry push to expand employer access to low-wage labor, with the end goal of rewriting federal child labor laws and other worker protections for the whole country.”
The American Independent
July 31, 2023
A report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) last year showed the average weekly wages of teachers went up only $29 from 1996 to 2021.
The Hill
July 31, 2023
Twenty-four states have increased their minimum wages by legislation or ballot measure since 2016, according to the Economic Policy Institute. These include red states like Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas. The most recent statewide increases are going into effect this summer in Connecticut, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington D.C.
24/7 Wall St.
July 31, 2023
Daniel Costa, who is the author of the report and the director of Immigration Law and Policy Research at the EPI, noted that “an employer may select an entire workforce composed of a single nationality, gender, or age group” under the program.
Further, “employers and recruiters can also weed out workers who might dare to speak out against unlawful employment practices, assert their legal rights, or organize for better working conditions by joining or forming a union … by firing them and effectively forcing them to leave the country, or by threatening to blacklist them … ,” Costa said.
LA Progressive
July 31, 2023