But as recent estimates from the Economic Policy Institute, the Brookings Institute, and Groundwork Collaborative find, the economy will continue to struggle in the next two years without a substantial spending package.
Roosevelt Institute
February 3, 2021
The coronavirus pandemic has devastated the hospitality industry, including hotels and those who work in them.
Many who have been impacted are Black and Brown women. Before the pandemic, 14.6% of all Latina workers in the U.S. worked in the hospitality sector, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
WTTW
February 3, 2021
Over the past decades, since the 1980s, the gap between productivity and real earnings has increased. In the 1979–2018 period, productivity has grown about six times more than wages. (Economic Policy Institute, 2019) More people today are less wealthy, less happy, and mostly underemployed or unemployed. Ownership of assets is limited to the wealthy, scantier class. In the United States, homeownership that was once common is on a decline. Other forms of non-ownership, such as rent, are much prevalent.
Medium
February 3, 2021
An Economic Policy Institute paper out today backs up Reich’s research. It creates a range of savings across three categories: government expenditures on major safety net programs, increases to FICA revenue, and reductions in spending on the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit. The range falls between $27 billion and $65 billion; the top end is consistent with Reich.
The American Prospect
February 3, 2021
A new report published by economists at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, found that increasing the federal minimum wage to $15/hour and eliminating the tipped minimum wage by 2025 would free up $13 billion to $30 billion in taxpayer revenue annually.
MarketWatch
February 3, 2021
The Washington, D.C. based Economic Policy Institute has calculated how much employees could earn if the increase in the federal minimum wage is approved by Congress.
“The average affected worker who works year-round receiving an extra $3,300 a year,” according to the policy institute.
Florida Phoenix
February 3, 2021
The government does not keep reliable statistics on the contract workforce, so experts say it is difficult to know exactly how many workers would see a raise if Biden issues the order. But back-of-the-napkin math extrapolated from a Labor Department analysis of a similar proposal suggests around 240,000 workers would be directly impacted, said Heidi Shierholz, the agency’s former chief economist who is now with the Economic Policy Institute. Shierholz said such an estimate would be conservative.
Huffpost
February 3, 2021
Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization, recommended assessments over standardized testing during the pandemic.
“The pandemic has exacerbated the limitations of standardized tests,” EPI researchers explained, “which reward a narrow set of skills and more affluent students who have access to specialized instruction.”
“Such (standardized) tests could overwhelm or label children,” EPI continued, “when what they need now are diagnostic assessments and needs-based assessments that assess where they are across a range of domains and what they need going forward.”
Visalia Times Delta
February 3, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute has data on how a $15 minimum wage would impact South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District.
WPDE
February 3, 2021
And for anyone who pretends to be worried about the deficit, raising the minimum wage is a great deal: According to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, if the Democrats’ $15 proposal passed, “we estimate that annual government expenditures on major public assistance programs would fall by between $13.4 billion and $31.0 billion.” Tax revenue would go up by billions, too, as people earned higher wages.
Washington Post
February 3, 2021
The campaign — which is called “ProsperUS” — is backed by a spectrum of organizations, from labor (Communications Workers of America) to progressive think tanks (Economic Policy Institute, Center for American Progress) to grass-roots organizers (Indivisible).
The Washington Post
February 3, 2021
Even without an economics degree, Bernstein, whose interest in social work focused on poverty and inequality, has had extensive econometric training. Formerly the Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Biden under the Obama administration, Bernstein has also held senior roles at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank focused on low- and middle-income workers; the U.S. Department of Labor; the Congressional Budget Office; and most recently, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
Yale Daily News
February 3, 2021
Since 1979, productivity has risen six times faster than hourly compensation for the typical U.S. worker, according to a 2019 analysis from the pro-union Economic Policy Institute.
Cincinnati Enquirer
February 3, 2021
Black people and other people of color are overrepresented as essential workers at high risk of being infected, according to the Economic Policy Institute. People of color have lost more jobs during the pandemic than whites, according to the Urban Institute, leaving them disproportionately uninsured and facing eviction, which can increase the likelihood of dying from COVID-19.
National Catholic Reporter
February 3, 2021
“It is something that is taught to graduate students in economics. It is part of the toolkit,” says Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute who studied under Dube at UMass and has published papers with him. “I’m trying not to fawn too much, but he is exceedingly smart and very creative, and he tries to answer big questions.”
Bloomberg
February 3, 2021
Of course, the survey covers only those fortunate enough to have retirement savings. Every person surveyed had at least $50,000 in retirement savings, with the median $188,800. Data compiled by the Economic Policy Institute in 2019, as cited by Grace Kay of Business Insider, illustrate the relative privilege of those surveyed by Kiplinger. As Kay explains, “Nearly half of Americans between the ages of 32 and 61 do not have any retirement savings and most of those that do have savings under $21,000.”
Nonprofit Quarterly
February 3, 2021
While the opening of an Amazon warehouse increases warehousing employment at the county level by more than 30% after two years, private-sector employment across all industries doesn’t budge, according to a 2018 report by the left-leaning non-profit think tank Economic Policy Institute.
“Our findings of the lack of overall job growth from opening an Amazon fulfillment centers suggest that some sort of employment displacement is taking place, or that the growth in warehousing jobs is too limited to spill over into broad-based employment gains for the overall local economy,” the report said.
MarketWatch
February 3, 2021
Thus, the effect of the inaccurate titles has been to bury a story about massive wage theft. Wage theft is a massive problem in the United States. A 2017 study from the Economic Policy Institute across ten U.S. states found that 2.4 million minimum wage workers were being defrauded out of an average of $64 per week, equating to $8 billion annual losses. For many, their employer is far more likely to steal from them than a masked robber. Yet this is rarely the sort of violation that “tough on crime” politicians have in mind when they deploy that rhetoric. And when the public thinks of crime, wage theft is rarely high on the list, thanks, in no small part, to how the media downplays corporate crime where the rich steal from the poor.Mint
Mint Press News
February 3, 2021
The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, said a $15 minimum wage would lower expenditures on public-assistance programs by between $13.4 billion and $31 billion annually, in the form of fewer tax credits and less nutrition assistance. Those effects are why some Democrats say a minimum-wage increase could advance through a process known as reconciliation, requiring just a simple majority in the Senate.
Fox Business
February 3, 2021
If this change takes place, it’s estimated that nearly 32 million workers will see an increase in their pay, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The majority of these workers, according to EPI data, will be women and people of color. Right now, 59% of workers who would benefit from a $15 minimum wage are women, with nearly one in four of these women being Latina or Black. African Americans make up 31% of the workforce that would benefit from a minimum wage increase and Latinos make up 26%, reports EPI.
CNBC
February 3, 2021
KALW San Francisco
February 3, 2021
Additionally, the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, argues that a $15 federal minimum wage would decrease dependence on federal welfare programs by at least $13 billion annually.
Reason
February 3, 2021
“I am not often optimistic,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “But I am optimistic now.”
The Associated Press
February 3, 2021
Over the past decades, since the 1980s, the gap between productivity and real earnings has increased. In the 1979–2018 period, productivity has grown about six times more than wages. (Economic Policy Institute, 2019) More people today are less wealthy, less happy, and mostly underemployed or unemployed. Ownership of assets is limited to the wealthy, scantier class. In the United States, homeownership that was once common is on a decline. Other forms of non-ownership, such as rent, are much prevalent.
Medium
February 3, 2021
An Economic Policy Institute paper out today backs up Reich’s research. It creates a range of savings across three categories: government expenditures on major safety net programs, increases to FICA revenue, and reductions in spending on the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit. The range falls between $27 billion and $65 billion; the top end is consistent with Reich.
The American Prospect
February 3, 2021
A new report published by economists at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, found that increasing the federal minimum wage to $15/hour and eliminating the tipped minimum wage by 2025 would free up $13 billion to $30 billion in taxpayer revenue annually.
MarketWatch
February 3, 2021
The Washington, D.C. based Economic Policy Institute has calculated how much employees could earn if the increase in the federal minimum wage is approved by Congress.
“The average affected worker who works year-round receiving an extra $3,300 a year,” according to the policy institute.
Florida Phoenix
February 3, 2021
The government does not keep reliable statistics on the contract workforce, so experts say it is difficult to know exactly how many workers would see a raise if Biden issues the order. But back-of-the-napkin math extrapolated from a Labor Department analysis of a similar proposal suggests around 240,000 workers would be directly impacted, said Heidi Shierholz, the agency’s former chief economist who is now with the Economic Policy Institute. Shierholz said such an estimate would be conservative.
Huffpost
February 3, 2021