“Studies of voucher programs in several U.S. cities, the states of Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, and in Chile and India, find limited improvements at best in student achievement and school district performance from even large-scale programs,” said a 2017 Economic Policy Institute report. The institute bills itself as an independent, nonprofit think tank.
Virginia Mercury
January 13, 2023
“As wages have grown, fewer people are working at exactly the federal minimum wage, even if many are still paid $8, $9, or $10 an hour,” Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told Quartz. “As far as whether the minimum wage leads to better lives or fewer jobs I think the research is clear,” he added. “Minimum wage increases have not led to large job losses and instead have raised the earnings of the lowest paid workers.”
Quartz
January 13, 2023
The minimum wage hikes that took effect Jan. 1 in 23 states and Washington, D.C., will bring pay increases to an estimated 8.4 million workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Almost 55% of the affected workers are age 25 or older, and 45% work full time.
Benefits Pro
January 13, 2023
“A huge determinant of how well you’re going to do is how well your parents did,” says Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “There is not a whole lot of economic mobility in this country, however you look at it.”
Fast Company
January 13, 2023
The federal minimum wage, which was last raised in 2009, stands at $7.25 an hour. When adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum wage last summer reached its lowest level since 1956, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found.
ABC News
January 13, 2023
Legislators of states that rely more heavily on this workforce—led by Texas, Florida, Alaska, Louisiana, and Colorado—constantly demand increases to the number of H-2B visas, including Democrats, said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research of the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. For example, the program’s expansion has become a pet issue for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
Prism Reports
January 13, 2023
Piece by Josh in the American Prospect on inflation.
American Prospect
January 13, 2023
Nearly a third of private sector businesses that responded to a survey from the Economic Policy Institute require all of their employees to sign noncompetes, including a quarter of respondents that mostly employ high school graduates. “So it just is this surprisingly prevalent thing even among workers who are making very low wages,” said Heidi Shierholz with the EPI.
Marketplace
January 13, 2023
“As wages have grown, fewer people are working at exactly the federal minimum wage, even if many are still paid $8, $9, or $10 an hour,” Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told Quartz. “As far as whether the minimum wage leads to better lives or fewer jobs I think the research is clear,” he added. “Minimum wage increases have not led to large job losses and instead have raised the earnings of the lowest paid workers.”
Quartz
January 13, 2023
Agreements are sometimes foisted upon low-wage workers, preventing them from jumping ship to a different restaurant or retail store offering higher pay. Among workplaces paying an average of less than $13 an hour, 29% have noncompetes for all workers, according to a report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Business Insider
January 6, 2023
Heidi Shierholz, the president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, praised the FTC’s proposed ban on noncompetes on Twitter, where she wrote, “The only source of power nonunionized workers have vis-à-vis their employers is their ability to quit and take a job elsewhere.” Shierholz added that noncompetes aren’t necessary for the protection of companies’ intellectual property and that they “reduce wages, keep workers from finding better opportunities, and reduce the formation of new firms.”
Fox Business
January 6, 2023
Inequality in the U.S. deepened in 2021, with the country’s top 0.1% experiencing a 18.5% jump in earnings from the previous year, according to a report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
MarketWatch
January 6, 2023
In 2019, one estimate from researchers at Cornell University and the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, said between one-quarter and nearly half of all private-sector workers had signed a noncompete agreement.
MarketWatch
January 6, 2023
“The labor market clearly remains strong,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “We are now seeing that the household survey and the payroll survey are showing similar signs of strength, and wage growth is looks to be coming down.”
CNBC
January 6, 2023
According to a 2019 study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, somewhere between a quarter to about a half of all workers are subject to noncompete clauses.
NBC News
January 6, 2023
Federal aid provided during the pandemic helped lift many Black and Hispanic people out of poverty by 2021, though it remains to be seen how inflation and the end of benefits such as the child tax credit will affect them, according to a 2022 study by the Economic Policy Institute.
“Safety net programs mitigated the worst effects of the pandemic recession, particularly for Black and Hispanic households,” the study concluded. “We have the capacity to significantly lower poverty rates through progressive policy and should not wait for another global pandemic to do so.”
Pew Charitable Trust
January 6, 2023
The bottom half of Americans hold just 2% of the country’s wealth, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, while the top 1% hold about a third. And middle-class and low-wage Americans saw a pay cut in 2021, while the top 1% saw their average wages grow, according to an analysis from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Business Insider
January 6, 2023
The Economic Policy Institute estimates that roughly 8.4 million workers in 23 states and Washington, D.C. saw minimum wage hikes ranging from $0.23 to $1.50 an hour on Jan. 1. Another 27 cities and counties also raised their minimum wages on New Year’s Day.
Next City
January 6, 2023
Noncompete agreements have become increasingly common in the workplace. One estimate by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that a third of companies require all their workers to sign noncompetes — including many hourly workers in low-paid jobs like cleaning, food service and security.
CBS News
January 6, 2023
The proposed rule was cheered by the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
“Why do we need this rule? The only source of power nonunionized workers have vis-à-vis their employers is their ability to quit and take a job elsewhere. So, SURPRISE, employers are using noncompete agreements to cut that source of worker power off at [the] knees,” the organization said in a statement.
CNN
January 6, 2023
About half of all employers use non-competes, according to a 2019 survey from the Economic Policy Institute, while about a fifth of all American workers are subject to the agreements. The clauses, which are typically justified as a means to protect employees from sharing confidential information or trade secrets, largely result in lower wages as they limit bargaining ability, according to various studies.
Forbes
January 6, 2023
The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute estimates that between 36 million and 60 million private-sector workers are subject to noncompetes.
DC News Now
January 6, 2023
As a report by the Economic Policy Institute demonstrates, rising CEO pay does not reflect a change in the value of skills — it represents a shift in power. Over decades, American politics has undermined the bargaining power of workers by discouraging and obstructing self-organizing efforts, such as unionization.
The Conversation
January 6, 2023
The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since July 2009. Since then, the nation’s baseline pay has lost more than one-fourth its purchasing power. When factoring in inflation, today’s minimum wage hasn’t been worth this little since the 1950s, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
CBS News
January 6, 2023
Yeah, that’s right. So as opposed to many of the other measures, this one is designed to help people who already have more money set aside. And it’s part of what’s been a big push in recent years to delay those required distributions because of taxes. Monique Morrissey, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, she put it this way.
NPR
January 6, 2023
An economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that … the most vulnerable people who are employed in the economy — low-wage (paywall).
Law 360
January 6, 2023
The weekly email blast often includes a segment labeled “That’s Not a Living Wage,” in which she lists positions at regional theaters from across the U.S. that do not live up to the standards outlined by the Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator, which “measures the income a family needs to attain a modest yet adequate standard of living.” Studio is just one of several local theaters that have made an appearance on Halvorsen’s list.
Washington City Paper
January 6, 2023
Teresa Ghilarducci is the Schwartz Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research. She’s the co-author of “Rescuing Retirement” and a member of the board of directors of the Economic Policy Institute.
Bloomberg
January 6, 2023