The Economic Policy Institute reported that the minimum wage, if adjusted for inflation, should have exceeded $15 by 2020.
“Yet since the late 1960s, lawmakers have let the value of the minimum wage erode, allowing inflation to gradually reduce the buying power of a minimum wage income,” according to a 2019 report.
The Independent
February 26, 2021
The Post and Courier
February 26, 2021
FEATURING MONIQUE MORRISSEY – US Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, known for his allegiance to Donald Trump, faced a House Oversight committee hearing this week where he said he intended to remain his position until kicked out. He told lawmakers, “get used to me.”
Rising Up with Sonali
February 26, 2021
Citing his own research and studies from the Economic Policy Institute, Reich testified to Congress in 2019 that the $15 an hour wage would positively affect 32 million American workers. Also, he notes that while opponents claim that restaurants will have to raise prices and thus lose business, research shows that sales don’t drop. “This finding is based on a study of 27 metropolitan areas by two researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston and an MIT economist,” he says.
Truthout
February 26, 2021
The letter was spearheaded by the American Economic Liberties Project, a non-profit focused on anti-monopoly policies, and People’s Action, a network of community groups. Other progressive groups that signed on include the Working Families Party, Public Citizen, the Economic Policy Institute and the National Employment Law Project.
Huffington Post
February 26, 2021
A national minimum wage of $15 would mean around one in five Americans earns more, the Economic Policy Institute found. It could also help reduce income equality, its research found, with women, minorities, and frontline workers benefiting the most.
Business Insider
February 26, 2021
Romney and Cotton’s plan would only raise wages for around 3 percent of American workers, compared to 21.2 percent of workers under the Democratic proposal, according to an analysis published Wednesday by the Economic Policy Institute.
Newsweek
February 26, 2021
“We’ve lost 10 million jobs in the COVID-19 recession,” Robert E. Scott, senior economist at Economic Policy Institute, said. “We need to make those jobs up.”
Newsy
February 26, 2021
The letter was spearheaded by the American Economic Liberties Project, an anti-monopoly nonprofit, and People’s Action, a network of community organizations. The coalition included several advocacy groups, such as Public Citizen; think tanks, such as the Economic Policy Institute; as well as organized labor stalwarts like Unite Here, a union of 300,000 service workers; the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents 50,000 airline workers; and additional progressive groups.
Common Dreams
February 26, 2021
According to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute think tank, the Romney-Cotton plan would leave 27 million fewer American workers with a pay increase in comparison to Democrats’ proposal—with 11 million fewer Black and Hispanic workers and 16 million fewer women benefiting from the GOP plan. What’s more, it would continue the trend that has seen the federal minimum wage steadily decline in recent decades when adjusted for inflation, according to the think tank.
“Romney-Cotton’s $10 target by 2025 is the equivalent of $9.19 per hour in today’s dollars, about 13% less than what the minimum wage was at its high-water mark in 1968,” the EPI’s Ben Zipperer and Daniel Costa wrote in a blog post Wednesday. “It is unconscionable that we should pay the lowest-wage workers today less than what they earned five decades ago, while the economy’s productivity has more than doubled over the last 50 years.”
Fortune
February 26, 2021
The better measurement, however, is the median wage. It indicates what the typical worker makes. The median marks the halfway point in wages with half of workers making more, half less. The median wage grew 6.9%, a new report by the Economic Policy Institute shows.
DC Report
February 25, 2021
The disparities widen when broken down by race, even for those with the same level of education. A report from the Economic Policy Institute showed that at every level of education, the Black unemployment rate is much higher than the white unemployment rate.
National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators
February 25, 2021
The median net worth of Black families is $142,330 — or just one-seventh of the $980,550 in wealth accumulated by white Americans, according to a new study from LendingTree that draws on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 2020 Economic Policy Institute report, and various Federal Reserve reports. The difference can have long-lasting impacts.
Yahoo
February 25, 2021
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a $15 federal minimum wage could substantially reduce racial and gender pay gaps. Nearly 60% of the workers who would see a pay hike are women, and about one-third of African American workers and one-quarter of Latino workers would get a raise.
WSBT
February 25, 2021
Outdated unemployment insurance systems in some states collapsed from the influx of applicants who lost their job during the pandemic. As a result, only 71% of applicants received benefits by April 11, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Independent
February 25, 2021
Meanwhile, the $10 increase proposed by Romney and Cotton would only boost wages for 4.9 million workers, or 3.2% of the workforce, according to a report released Thursday from the Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
February 25, 2021
That hypothetical worker, however, likely couldn’t sue in court to begin with given that “more than half—53.9 percent—of nonunion private-sector employers have mandatory arbitration procedures,” according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Stranger
February 25, 2021
While both proposals would of course raise wages for millions of workers, the Democrats‘ Raise the Wage Act would go much further to benefit working Americans. Just 3.2 percent of workers would see additional money in their paychecks by 2025 under Romney’s and Cotton’s plan, compared to 21.2 percent of workers under the Democratic bill, according to an analysis published Wednesday by the Economic Policy Institute. In different terms, the Democratic plan would give a raise to 32.2 million workers and the Republican proposal would provide a wage hike to just 4.9 million workers.
Newsweek
February 25, 2021
David Cooper, “Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would lift pay for nearly 40 million workers,” Economic Policy Institute, February 5, 2019, available at https://www.epi.org/publication/raising-the-federal-minimum-wage-to-15-by-2024-would-lift-pay-for-nearly-40-million-workers/.
Center for American Progress
February 25, 2021
Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, countered that multiple academic studies of state and local minimum wage mandates show few job losses. Without pay raises, Shierholz added, low-income Americans continue to fall further and further behind as income inequality grows.
Star Tribune
February 25, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute estimates that passing the increase would benefit around 40 million Americans, over 38 million adults, nearly 24 million full-time workers, 23 million women, over 11 million parents, 5.4 million single parents and the parents of 14.4 million children. In 2019, the EPI estimated that this would benefit 255,000 workers in West Virginia.
Charleston Gazette-Mail
February 25, 2021
Romney and Cotton’s plan would only raise wages for around 3 percent of American workers, compared to 21.2 percent of workers under the Democratic proposal, according to an analysis published Wednesday by the Economic Policy Institute.
Newsweek
February 25, 2021
According to projections based on the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) “Family Budget Calculator,” in larger metro areas of the South and Southwest a single adult without children will require more than $15 an hour by 2025. The EPI calculator projects that, in order to get by, a single adult without children would need an hourly wage of $20.03 in Fort Worth, Texas, $21.12 in Phoenix, Arizona, and $20.95 in Miami, Florida.
World Socialist Web Site
February 25, 2021
The organizing drive still underway by workers at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Bessemer, Ala., reveals some of the many ways our current labor law gives employers too much power to stand in the way of workers trying to gain a collective voice.
The Nation
February 25, 2021
Elise Gould, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, agrees.
“States that rely more heavily on the harder-hit industries, like tourism, could be seeing a more acute difficulty from this time,” Gould told Insider.
Business Insider
February 25, 2021
12 million workers had likely lost employer-sponsored health insurance during the pandemic as of August 26, 2020. [Economic Policy Institute]
Inequality.org
February 25, 2021
Education is an important key in continuing to address issues such as why incarceration and sentences are higher for Blacks, and finding solutions to the rising wage gaps between Blacks and whites, which were higher in 2019 than 2000, according to the Economic Policy Institute’s 2019 wage report.
The Collegian
February 25, 2021
No. Under the current proposal, it would be raised in increments, hitting $15 in 2025. In 2021, it would rise to $9.50, then a year later to $11, next to $12.50 in 2023, the following year to $14, and finally to $15 in 2025, as outlined in Raise the Wage Act of 2021. An estimated 32 million people would benefit from the hike, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Fast Company
February 25, 2021
A new Economic Policy Institute report challenges the notion that record breaking wage growth in 2020 is “a cause for celebration.”
Yahoo Finance
February 25, 2021