The presence of unions may also signal support for, and provides organizing around, other state policies that benefit workers, said David Kemper, the senior state policy coordinator at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank that supports unions. In general, right-to-work states scored lower on a number of issues, from wages to workplace safety conditions to political participation, according to a report by Illinois Economic Policy Institute. and the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
FiveThirtyEight
March 31, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute found that a year of infant care can cost Wisconsinites more than tuition at a public college. Families have started to plan pregnancies around the availability of care, as they encounter years-long wait lists at child care centers.
Wisconsin Watch
March 31, 2023
That second assertion, sadly, is on the money. As a recent survey by the Economic Policy Institute demonstrated, teacher pay has been falling relative to the pay of other college graduates since 1979.
American Prospect
March 31, 2023
And yet, the rich continue to grow richer. According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, CEOs now make 400 times more than the average worker. The Gini coefficient, a measurement of inequality, has risen from 0.353 in 1974 to 0.494 in 2021. The top one percent of the United States held 27% of the nation’s wealth in 2021, a higher share than the middle 60% of households by income.
People's Dispatch
March 31, 2023
In just the last year, the number of children employed in violation of child labor laws increased 37%, according to the Economic Policy Institute. (paywall).
The Guardian
March 31, 2023
Though a majority of Americans support unions, just a small fraction of workers—about 12%—are actually in one. Labor experts say one reason for that discrepancy has to do with the efforts companies have made to fight or derail union organizing. And all those efforts have come at a hefty cost: Employers spend more than $400 million a year on “union-avoidance consultants,” according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Fast Company
March 31, 2023
(paywall) … the American Rescue Plan Act—that led to a rapidly growing economy and very strong demand for workers, said a report from the Economic Policy Institute.
MarketWatch
March 31, 2023
According to the Economic Policy Institute, New York is the most unequal state in the country, where the richest 1% take home 31% of all income. (Nationwide, the richest 1% take home 21% of all income.) Rather than directly addressing the need for stable housing, incomes, and health care, we’ve seen these basic services replaced by ever more intensive and invasive policing: stop-and-frisk, quotas, abusive anti-crime units, homeless sweeps and the broad criminalization of young people of color.
City and State New York
March 31, 2023
As a recent analysis from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reveals, the much-publicized Youth Hiring Act of 2023 is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the weakening of child labor standards. Over the past two years, some ten states have either introduced or passed legislation in this vein, with eight of such bills appearing in the past few months alone.
Jacobin
March 31, 2023
The data come from Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute who runs the tracker “How many low-wage workers are in the U.S.?” Before the pandemic, fast-food workers, home health aides, janitors and other low-wage workers saw modest pay increases largely due to 30 states raising their state minimum wages above the $7.25-an-hour federal requirement, Zipperer says.
Washington Post
March 31, 2023