EPI in the news

• H-1B: Silicon Valley’s favorite foreign-worker visa under attack

  Paywall. 

  San Jose Mercury News | January 10, 2025
• Iowa child labor protections rolled back further with new rules

  Iowa isn’t the only state that has rolled back child labor regulations, but it has made the most extreme changes, according to Jennifer Sherer at the Economic Policy Institute. Other states, meanwhile, are responding to the reports of children being exploited, killed, and injured working in dangerous jobs like meatpacking.

  “We have states all over the country that are beginning to take action and respond to the child labor crisis that they’re seeing in their states and their industries,” she said. “States as diverse in geography and politics as Alabama, Colorado and Virginia all increased their penalty amounts for child labor violations just this past year in their legislatures.”

  Iowa Starting Line | January 10, 2025
• Middle-class Americans aren’t keeping up with the cost of living — and some experts say US government policy is to blame. Is that fair?

  Between 1979 and 2024, productivity in the U.S. rose 80.9%, while hourly pay grew by only 29.4%, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  MoneyWise | January 10, 2025
• Trouble in Trumpworld over H-1B visas makes for strange bedfellows

  But critics say it disadvantages Americans because firms are able to recruit workers from overseas – and pay them less. In a 2020 report, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI) argued that the program enabled employers to undercut local wage levels.

  Companies “have an incentive to use this program, because they can control the wages, and have a lot of control over the worker”, Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the EPI, told the Guardian. The labor standards around H-1B were too “lax”, he argued, and the broader rules “inadequate”.

  The Guardian | January 10, 2025
• Iowa may lower fines for businesses violating child labor laws limiting hours kids work

  But Jennifer Sherer, director of the State Worker Power Initiative for the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute, said time and hour standards are important guardrails for children entering the workforce who may not be aware their rights or in a position to speak up if the hours and times their manager sets are “out of bounds.”

  “I guess the question is are we trying to decrease and deter additional violations or are we interested in sending a signal that we’re not actually concerned about people following the law?” Sherer said.

  Des Moines Register | January 10, 2025
• Minimum wages are increasing in nearly half the states this year

  A total of 30 states and the District of Columbia have set their own minimum wage higher than the federal rate. And 67 localities — including Denver; Flagstaff, Arizona; and Los Angeles — have raised their minimum wage above the state minimum, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.

  …

  While a tight labor market forces many employers to pay above minimum wage to compete, von Glahn noted many workers still earn at or near the lowest legal rate. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that more than half a million Missouri workers will see raises as the state’s minimum wage increases.

  States Newsroom | January 10, 2025
• Are H-1B visa holders hired as dog trainers, massage therapists? Here’s what Bernie Sanders misses

  “Technically, the rule for H-1B is that the job requires the training that comes with at least a bachelor’s level education or its equivalent,” said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute. “So if it is a specialized masseuse job that requires that level of education, theoretically it could qualify. The burden would be on the employer to make the case to USCIS.”

  Politifact | January 10, 2025

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