“I get by because my sixteen-year-old son and I live with my parents, retired nurses who own their home,” Baker says. “Although I supplement my earnings in the insurance industry by working as a tutor of Latin and a translator of French, it is impossible for me to take vacations or to save for my son’s college education or a master’s degree that would enable me to land a job in a better-paying industry.”
Baker’s experience is common, says Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a think tank that studies the impact of economic trends on workers.
“Unfortunately, low wages are widespread throughout the labor market,” he tells The Progressive. “It is not just a problem of a teenager working after school to earn spending money, but an enormous burden for adults working two or three jobs for substandard wages that barely keep food on the table.”
The Progressive Magazine
May 5, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute reports since 2009 the minimum wage has lost 27% of its purchasing power due to cost of living increases. The Institute adds, 23 states and Washington D.C. raised state minimum wage in 2023, including Sanders’ own Vermont. Starting January 1, 2023, Vermont raised its state minimum wage to $13.18 per hour. That is an increase of $0.63 from the previous minimum wage of $12.55.
Gray TV
May 5, 2023
Josh Bivens, the chief economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, told me that there is hope. According to his research, while corporate profits’ contribution to inflation is still outsized, accounting for a third of inflation at the end of 2022, it’s finally normalizing — albeit at an excruciatingly slow pace.
“All this has definitely taken longer than I thought it would,” he wrote to me.
Business Insider
May 5, 2023
The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that, as of January 2023, 21 million workers still make less than $15 an hour. Workers in states that still adhere to the federal minimum wage are 46% more likely to make under $15 an hour, according to EPI, showcasing the power that the federal standard still holds.
Business Insider
May 5, 2023
Additionally, a report by the Economic Policy Institute found that in 33 states and the District of Columbia, the cost of center-based care for an infant exceeds the cost of in-state tuition at a public four-year college.
WFLA-TV (Florida)
May 5, 2023
The CBPP and other policy groups are warning that — unless the Fed stops raising interest rates—the already shaky economy is likely to plunge into recession, putting millions of people out of work. Further rate hikes “pose a dire threat to what could be an excellent 2023 for the economic prospects of America’s working families,” Josh Bivens, of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said in a blog post.
Unbossed with Nina Turner
May 5, 2023
A few weeks after Sanders’ hearing, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released a study that found: “Corporate profits have contributed disproportionately to inflation.”
EPI’s chief economist Josh Bivens wrote that more than half of companies’ price increases since the start of the pandemic “can be attributed to fatter profit margins, with labor costs contributing less than 8 percent of this increase,” adding: “This is not normal.”
The EPI analysis should have been definitive — but the corporate pundit class chose to ignore it.
The Lever
May 5, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute found that in states with a strong union presence, incomes are higher and more people have health insurance. Critically, these states also have fewer voter restrictions, greater civic engagement, less racial resentment, and increased support among white workers for policies that benefit Black people.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy
May 5, 2023
Heidi Shierholz, former chief economist at the Department of Labor and current head of the think tank Economic Policy Institute, said the labor market isn’t too hot.
“Wage growth is generally trending down,” Shierholz tweeted Friday.5 “We can absolutely sustain the kind of labor market tightness we are seeing today, if the Fed doesn’t stand in the way (or hasn’t already).”
Investopedia
May 5, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute reported on one lawsuit in 2021:
Thousands of skilled migrants with H-1B visas working as subcontractors at well-known corporations like Disney, FedEx, Google, and others appear to have been underpaid by at least $95 million. Victims include not only the H-1B workers but also the U.S. workers who are either displaced or whose wages and working conditions degrade when employers are allowed to underpay skilled migrant workers with impunity.
Breitbart
May 5, 2023