The Economic Policy Institute, a progressive research group, predicts that if the minimum rises to $15, nearly one-third (31%) of African Americans and one-quarter (26%) of Latinos will receive a pay increase.
The Guardian
March 1, 2021
“There have been tons of workers in this pandemic who’ve been denied benefits because they’ve been offered a job that’s actually not safe,” Heidi Shierholz, the director of policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, told Insider.
She added: “One of the key things this does is just makes it very clear that if you get offered a job that is not safe because of COVID risks, you can still get PUA. And I just think that that’s super meaningful.”
Business Insider
March 1, 2021
Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist to Barack Obama‘s secretary of labor, is a strong advocate for stimulus payments and believes their benefits are crucial for struggling Americans as well as the nation’s economic recovery—even if their full contributions to the economy take time to materialize. Shierholz was one of 120 economists who signed an open letter urging Congress to adopt Biden’s plan to deliver $1,400 checks last November.
“One thing that’s tricky is the stimulus payments have happened…in combination with increases in unemployment insurance and so it’s hard to untangle [the individual effects of each policy],” Shierholz told Newsweek. “It’s hard to separate the two, but those direct payments to people have had a big impact on the economy.” She referenced research conducted by organizations like the Urban Institute, which showed that last year’s stimulus payments and expanded unemployment insurance benefits prevented millions of people from entering poverty.
Newsweek
March 1, 2021
Most people who would get the help are those who need it most. A new Economic Policy Institute study of employment last year put into numbers what everybody can see with their own eyes: When the bottom dropped out of the economy a year ago, the bottom dropped out most for people on the bottom.
More than one-quarter (27.1%) of the lowest-wage workers, those in the bottom quarter of income standings—some 7.885 million—lost their jobs to the pandemic and its economic impact, EPI reported. Before that, they made $14 an hour, or less. One-sixth, or 3.27 million people, in the second-lowest income group lost their jobs, too. But the story was different for the top half of the income scale. The middle-income group—the third-lowest—added 586,658 workers. The richest fourth added almost a million workers (980,955).
People’s World
March 1, 2021
A 2019 analysis by the Economic Policy Institute finds the federal minimum wage in 2019 had 17% less purchasing power than it did 10 years ago, and 31% less than the minimum wage in 1968.
Forbes
March 1, 2021
The federal minimum wage has not been increased by Congress since 2009. According to the pro-wage increase Economic Policy Institute, a national $15 wage would help a single, adult American earner without kids achieve a “modest, but adequate standard of living” in “all areas across the United States.”
Jamestown Sun
March 1, 2021
There’s also the matter of basic fairness. Since 2009, the minimum wage has increased by 0.0%. In that same time, CEO salaries have risen a whopping 105%. According to the Economic Policy Institute the average compensation for a top CEO in 2019 was $21.3 million. A year’s salary at the current minimum wage is $15,600. In other words, top wage earners make 1,400 times what they pay folks at the bottom.
Raising the minimum wage is affordable and the correct thing to do. Let’s hope Congress gets to it soon.
PennLive
March 1, 2021
Last month, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a nonprofit think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people in the U.S., released a fact sheet detailing the transformative potential of the Raise the Wage Act. According to EPI data, the wage increase would benefit nearly 32 million working people — or 21% of the entire U.S. workforce — resulting in an extra $3,300 in annual income on average per affected individual. Notably, 23% of those workers are either a Black or Latinx woman, and more than one in four (28%) have children.
Teen Vogue
March 1, 2021
While the demand for a $15 minimum wage has become a central plank in the progressive agenda over the last decade, it’s worth being clear about the scale of change it would actually bring about. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that raising the wage would benefit 32 million workers. Hundreds of thousands would be lifted out of poverty.
New Republic
March 1, 2021