Only 1 percent of Michigan’s 4.4 million workers, about 52,000 total, were making minimum wage when the rate increased this month, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank in Washington D.C. that conducts research.
Lansing City Pulse
January 27, 2023
In recent years, a growing conversation about executive compensation and economic inequality has been hotly debated. Executive pay has grown 1,460% since 1978, according to research by the Economic Policy Institute last year. In 2021, CEOs earned 399 times as much as a typical worker.
Fortune
January 27, 2023
Based on data from the Social Security Administration, the percentage of earned income subject to Social Security’s payroll tax has declined from 90% in 1983 to just 81.4% as of 2021. As noted by a recently published blog from the Economic Policy Institute, that’s the lowest level of earnings being subjected to the payroll tax in 49 years. More importantly, it’s confirmation that wage growth for high-earning workers is outpacing the near-annual increase in the maximum taxable earnings cap for Social Security’s payroll tax.
Motley Fool
January 27, 2023
A report from the Economic Policy Institute backs up her assertion. Depending on where they live, teachers in the United States earn a weekly wage that is 3.4% to 35.9% less than that of their college-educated peers. In 28 states, that figure – known as a wage penalty – exceeds 20%. Benefits somewhat offset that pay reality, but not enough to level the playing field. The report found that teachers’ total compensation penalty grew by 11.5 percentage points from 1993 to 2021.
Christian Science Monitor
January 27, 2023
According to the Economic Policy Institute, Colorado teachers earn on average about $60,000 annually. That’s about 40 percent, or $21,000, less than other college-educated professionals in the state.
Denver 7
January 27, 2023
We turn to the Economic Policy Institute for the dour details of what it means to be an independent contractor in the American labor market now. “The way a worker is classified has serious implications and costs for their labor rights and economic security. When employers misclassify workers who are employees as independent contractors, they lose the legal right to earn at least the applicable minimum wage and to be paid time-and-a-half for overtime hours.
Counter Punch
January 27, 2023
Economic analyst David Cooper, with the Economic Policy Institute, told us last year that it is important not to raise the minimum wage too quickly, as businesses could struggle to afford their existing staff and may have to let people go, which is not ideal. Rather, it’s important to set a rate that gives businesses time to adjust.
Click on Detroit
January 27, 2023
On the latter option, several politicians on the left have proposed finding new tax revenue, by for example removing the payroll tax cap, which currently exempts income over $160,000 from the tax. As the Economic Policy Institute has pointed out, the cap was supposed to allow for 90 percent of payroll income to be taxed by Social Security, but thanks to inequality and soaring incomes at the top, in 2021 that figure plummeted to 81.4 percent. Scrapping the cap would mean that Jamie Dimon (who makes $34.5 million per year) and you would pay the same amount of payroll income as a percentage of salary into the system.
American Prospect
January 27, 2023
Some experts and investors think the Fed has already done enough to keep annual inflation moving down to its target of 2 percent and should be careful about weighing down the economy with even higher rates. “I think there is all the room in the world for the Fed to really reduce its pace of interest rate increases. Honestly, I’d go to zero,” said Josh Bivens, research director at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
The Hill
January 27, 2023
According to one estimate from the nonprofit think tank Economic Policy Institute, reported and unreported wage theft could amount to as much as $50 billion per year owed to workers.
CBS
January 27, 2023