Corporate profits and CEO pay surged to an all time high this year, while more people than ever are taking second jobs to make ends meet. Corporate profits account for over half of the higher prices people are paying, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
KALW
November 4, 2022
About 60 million workers are subject to forced arbitration, according to a 2018 report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. PAYWALL
Fortune
November 4, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, argued that studies of state and local projects that used project labor agreements found that they did not decrease the number of bids for work or increase costs
Route Fifty
November 4, 2022
There’s a third major, often unappreciated factor fueling inflation: many US corporations have exploited the inflationary environment by aggressively increasing their prices and profit margins. Exxon’s second-quarter profits soared to $17.9bn, more than triple what it earned in last year’s second quarter, while Chevron’s earnings also more than tripled, to $11.6bn. The Economic Policy Institute, a progressive thinktank, found that roughly 40% of the recent inflation in the US can be attributed to fatter corporate profit margins. Maybe Republican TV ads should be attacking corporate greed rather than Joe Biden.
Guardian
November 4, 2022
Since 2020, corporate profits after tax have leaped to record highs, according to Federal Reserve statistics. The nonprofit Economic Policy Institute (EPI) calculates that corporate profits grew by nearly 54% from the second quarter of 2020 through the end of last year. That compares with an average of 11.4% a year over the previous four decades.
Forbes
November 4, 2022
This isn’t just a result of bad politics – the failure to adjust the country’s minimum wage is an economic and moral travesty. Americans who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s are now watching their children and grandchildren grow into a standard of living far below their own generation’s standards. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the value of the federal minimum wage today is at its lowest in 66 years. Workers earning the federal $7.25 minimum wage are making 27% less than a worker earning the same in July 2009, adjusted for inflation, and 40% less than a minimum wage worker in 1968.
The American Independent
November 4, 2022
As Director of Research at the Economic Policy Institute Josh Bivens points out, this distributional outcome is the result of highly unbalanced bargaining power between corporations and workers. Even if the current labor shortage gave workers some negotiating leverage, corporations still have enough power to resist upward wage pressures and protect their margins. The external shocks rippling through the economy over the past two years have simply not been enough to reverse decades of policies that have systematically eroded the power of labor.
Brown Political Review
November 4, 2022
A study by the Economic Policy Institute found increased construction costs as a result of prevailing wages are also offset by better workplace safety, the social benefits of higher wages and increased government revenue from projects, Albear said.
The Diamondback
November 4, 2022
Nationwide, families spend an estimated $1 trillion in Social Security benefits each year, according to figures from the National Committee to Support and Preserve Medicare, while economists with the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute have argued expanding social security benefits by raising taxes on the rich could have an even more pronounced economic impact.
Newsweek
November 4, 2022