Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank, said last year that stagnant wages and rising income inequality have made unions more appealing.
NBC News
June 24, 2022
“Low income families have weathered the storm of the pandemic, with some help of the federal government. But now many of those pandemic programs have come to an end, just as families are being pummeled with high inflation and a shortage of childcare. The Economic Policy Institute recently found that the average cost of infant care in Wisconsin is 48% more expensive than the average cost of a public college,” Rhodes-Conway says.
WORT-FM
June 24, 2022
Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, argued that the Fed’s best move is to wait to see if the shocks dissipate and not to tighten too fast.
The Hill
June 24, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute paints a grim picture. Since 2000, wage growth for white and Hispanic workers has been about four times that of Black workers. Wage gaps between Black people and their white counterparts grew between 2000 and 2018, the year the institute released the study.
The Grio
June 24, 2022
This practice has been so widely adopted that more than 60 million workers across the U.S. are subject to mandatory arbitration as of 2017, according to a study published by the Economic Policy Institute.
Fast Company
June 24, 2022
According to the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute, the recovery funds being “prematurely” phased out coupled with continued gaps in state and local revenues, “left a total shortfall of nearly $1,000 per student in 2012-2013, a point when the economic recovery was purportedly in full swing.”
Richmond Times-Dispatch
June 24, 2022
Most of the continuing trade relationship is driven by the soaring dollar, which is only going to make it more difficult to decouple, said Robert Scott, a longtime expert in U.S.-China trade at the progressive Economic Policy Institute. Thanks to tightening by the U.S. Federal Reserve and large-scale buying of U.S. financial assets as a safe haven, it has become far more expensive in recent months to sell U.S. goods abroad—and cheaper once again to buy Chinese.
Foreign Policy
June 24, 2022
Overall, wages are growing at 5.2% a year. But wages for some of the lowest-paid workers — those in bars and restaurants, truck-driving and warehousing — are up well over 11%. There’s simply been too much demand for service workers and not enough supply. But this dynamic is fragile, according to Heidi Shierholz at the Economic Policy Institute.
Marketplace
June 24, 2022
In the last year, however, “nominal wage growth…has lagged far behind inflation,” Josh Bivens, research director at the labor-supported Economic Policy Institute, wrote last month. That means “labor costs are dampening — not amplifying — price pressures.”
Los Angeles Times
June 24, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank, found that only 15.8 million Americans were represented by unions in 2021, a decline of 581,000 from 2019.
The Progressive
June 24, 2022
“It doesn’t seem like a high probability,” said Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
June 24, 2022
A 2021 analysis of government data by Reuters found that at the end of 2019, the average unionized retail worker earned roughly $730 per week, compared to $670 for their nonunion counterparts. Another report, from the Economic Policy Institute, found that unionized workers earn 11.2% more on average than nonunion workers in the same industry. This, in part, is one of the reasons that the Biden administration has sought to beef up union membership, even stating that “it is our administration’s belief that unions benefit all of us” in a recent report.
Fast Company
June 24, 2022
The link between workers’ bargaining power and inflation is apparent to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who in March noted the need to “get wages down.” But as economist Josh Bivens at the Economic Policy Institute argues, we don’t need a recession to inhibit worker bargaining power. Worker bargaining power is already inhibited. Workers’ real wages have declined over 3%—average hourly earnings growth of 5.2% has been exceeded by inflation of 8.6%.
Forbes
June 17, 2022
As of 2020, about two-thirds of workers covered by a union contract were women and people of color, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Bloomberg Law
June 17, 2022
The last time workers were able to quit, sit out for a little, and still support themselves was in the 1960’s, Cappelli said. The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute finds that the minimum wage in 1968 would be worth $10.59 in 2021 dollars — far more than today’s $7.25 minimum wage.
Business Insider
June 17, 2022
“My goodness, it lies at the heart of the issue,” said Marokey Sawo, a state economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. “What we see manifested here is part of a larger picture of systemic oppression, and it is tied to three things: who does the care work, what type of work it is, and who receives it.”
Capital and Main
June 17, 2022
Pushback against noncompetes comes as some organizations, including the Economic Policy Institute — which the White House cited in its original directive to the FTC — estimate that the agreements cover millions of U.S. workers, including low-income workers and those earning state or federal minimum wages.
HR Dive
June 17, 2022
The average annual cost of child care for an infant in Wisconsin is $12,567 according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute. This makes infant care in Wisconsin 48.3% more expensive than the average in-state tuition for a four-year public college. The average annual cost of college in 2020 was $8,475 and $9,994 for housing.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
June 17, 2022
Organizations like the Economic Policy Initiative and Groundwork Collaborative have pointed to the need to rein in excessive corporate profits while people struggle. A recent post from the Economic Policy Institute debunked the top five myths being pushed about inflation, including that larger corporate profit margins have nothing to do with inflation. The post also highlighted how investing in families could restrain inflation, not worsen it.
NewsOne
June 17, 2022
But the reduction in supply was met with increased demand as Americans started purchasing durable goods to replace the services they used prior to the pandemic, said Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute.
CNET
June 17, 2022
Robert E. Scott is senior economist and director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Research at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that …(paywall).
Industry Week
June 17, 2022
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
June 17, 2022
Kuttner has been fighting for the New Deal, and against its ferocious enemies, for his entire life. He started as one of journalist I.F. Stone’s assistants, served as a congressional investigator, was general manager of Pacifica’s WBAI Radio in New York City, and has been a regular newspaper columnist. Perhaps most significantly, he’s co-founded two enduring institutions: the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, and The American Prospect, one of the zestiest liberal publications in the U.S.
The Intercept
June 17, 2022
An analysis conducted by the Economic Policy Institute found local government workers receive, on average, 14.1% less weekly pay compared with similar private sector workers, and local government workers in states with no collective bargaining rights averaging 22.9% lower pay. Those local government workers with weak collective bargaining rights average a 16.6% pay gap, compared with just 10.5% gap for workers in states with strong collective bargaining rights.
Guardian
June 17, 2022
Austin is increasingly inaccessible for individuals and families including the invaluable employees who keep the city running. The Economic Policy Institute Family Budget Calculator shows that a family of four in Austin needs $7,170 dollars to cover their monthly costs or approximately $42 per hour between two working adults. A single adult in Austin must earn $3,497 per month or $21 per hour to cover basic household expenses.
Austin American-Statesman
June 17, 2022
In an industry where employers typically provide nothing more than an hourly wage, Starbucks, once viewed as a progressive company, was widely praised for offering a comprehensive benefit to part-time employees since 1988 (via Starbucks). In comparison, the Economic Policy Institute writes that only 14.4% of restaurant workers receive health insurance.
Tasting Table
June 17, 2022
Outside allies were more blunt. The liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington wrote on Twitter that the report was “pretty ugly — and shows the pain workers and their families are experiencing.”
New York Times
June 17, 2022
That’s according to a new report published Monday by the Economic Policy Institute, the Harvard Labor and Worklife Program and Local Progress
Minnesota Reformer
June 17, 2022