While the unemployment rate has been at or below 4 percent for 28 months, “we are not in an economy where everybody who wants a job gets a job,” said Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute. “There will always be the case that there are unemployed workers.” Which means that even if chances are low, we may all get a turn being unemployed during our working years. And that can be unsettling if you don’t expect it.
Boston Globe
May 3, 2024
St. Louis Post Dispatch
May 3, 2024
But data suggest that to some extent, the visa has been used to hire cheaper foreign labor. A 2020 report by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute concluded that 60% of H-1B jobs certified by the U.S. Department of Labor were assigned wage levels well below local median pay for the occupation.
The Mercury News
May 3, 2024
Starting in July, workers earning just under $44,000 a year will be entitled to time-and-a-half pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week, our Nick Niedzwiadek reports. That number will increase to $58,656 at the beginning of 2025.
The Labor Department periodically raises the threshold. The last time was in 2019, when it went up to $35,568 under former President Donald Trump.
The Economic Policy Institute, a think tank with ties to labor unions, projects workers in health care and social services will benefit in large numbers.
Politico Future Pulse newsletter
May 3, 2024
Teacher salaries have remained stagnant across the country since 1996, and a report from the Economic Policy Institute shows California teachers were paid 17% less than comparable college-educated workers last year.
The Hill
May 3, 2024
A 2023 study by the Economic Policy Institute revealed that one in two workers over age 50 work in unhealthy or hazardous conditions, or have jobs that are physically draining. If this is the case, you may no longer be willing or able to work, and instead of remaining on the job, may choose to draw Social Security early.
Kiplinger
May 3, 2024
There is a coordinated, nationwide effort to roll back child labor laws, part of a broader campaign to concentrate even more power into the hands of employers.
“Since 2021,” the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute notes, “28 states have introduced bills to weaken child labor laws, and 12 states have enacted them.” In 2024 alone, eight states have either introduced or taken new action on bills that would, for example, allow employers to schedule 16- and 17-year-olds for unlimited hours, allow nonprofits to hire 12- and 13-year-olds and eliminate work permits for young people altogether.
New York Times
May 3, 2024
These are not isolated incidents, either. Google has been accused of illegally firing workers for unionizing, interfering with protected activities, and generally engaging in illegal behavior to suppress its workers from exercising their rights to organize for better working conditions, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Daily Mail
May 3, 2024
To be sure, for many minimum wage workers, the pay raises are needed. Of the nearly 10 million workers in the country who are now set to receive raises, women make up over half; nearly a quarter of them, or roughly 2.5 million, are working parents with families; and over 50% of workers getting raises currently earn incomes below the poverty line, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute.
Fortune
May 3, 2024
The economy is absorbing foreign-born workers while also generating jobs for those who were born in the U.S., an analysis from the left-leaning, pro-union Economic Policy Institute found, bucking claims that immigrants may be filling jobs that Americans would otherwise be working.
Kansas City Beacon
May 3, 2024
The foreign-owned firms’ payrolls also reflect Alabama’s long history of racial discrimination, with Black and Latino workers earning substantially less than their white counterparts. By contrast, the Economic Policy Institute has found that union workers make 10.1 percent more on average than non-union workers.
Inequality.org
May 3, 2024
According to a 2019 report by the Economic Policy Institute, a national survey of private-sector businesses showed that 49.4 percent had at least some employees who were subject to non-compete clauses and 31.8 percent said all employees were required to enter into the agreement.
KRWG
May 3, 2024
In Ohio, as of the third quarter of 2023, Ohio’s Black unemployment stood at 6.1%, according to the Economic Policy Institute and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Ohio Capital Journal
May 3, 2024
Noncompetes are bad for workers, bad for consumers, and bad for the broader economy. By banning them, the FTC’s rule will help raise wages for workers and take an important step toward creating an economy that is not only strong but also works for working people.
Inequality.org
May 3, 2024
Black Americans typically suffer rates of unemployment twice those of white Americans. In Georgia, that gap has widened: Black unemployment reached 5.7 percent at the end of last year, while white unemployment was at 2.2 percent, according to an analysis of federal data by the Economic Policy Institute.
New York Times
May 3, 2024
The tech companies, meanwhile, are geared up for a fight. Collectively, they’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars around the country — including nearly $50 million over two election cycles in Massachusetts, according to a new report coauthored by the worker advocacy nonprofit National Employment Law Project — and worked to successfully pass laws in 34 states between 2015 and 2022 with language defining gig workers as non-employees, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Boston Globe
May 3, 2024
The DOL will automatically update the threshold every three years using current wage data. The next adjustment would occur on July 1, 2027. The new rule would impact 4.3 million U.S. workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute, or 3% of workers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Retail Dive
May 3, 2024
A recent study published by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank, finds that the U.S. economy does better when a Democrat is in the White House than when a Republican is in charge (bit.ly/EPIstudy2024).
The study looked at gross domestic product growth, job growth, inflation-adjusted wage growth, the unemployment rate and more. It found that the Democrats have had an economic advantage since at least 1949.
The study also found that economic gains are “distributed substantially more equally” when a Democrat is in the White House.
Lancaster Online
May 3, 2024
But without the rule, tipped-wage earners—especially women and people of color—will lose out on an important safety net, The Economic Policy Institute, National Women’s Law Center and Restaurant Opportunities Center United, said in an amicus brief to the Fifth Circuit defending the policy.
Bloomberg Law
May 3, 2024
The labor department’s wage and hour division found violations in 88% of the H-2A investigations it opened in the last five years. But most farm employers are never inspected by the agency because it lacks funding and staffing, according to a recent study from the Economic Policy Institute.
…
Costa expects legal challenges to the new rule, but he said the Department of Labor has the authority to make these “modest and reasonable” changes to the H-2A program’s standards.
“The law requires that the U.S. government protect labor standards in the H-2A program, so they have a lot of authority to set that program up,” said Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at Economic Policy Institute. “And I think it’s good to use that authority to have updated protections that reflect the reality for H-2A workers.”
KQED
May 3, 2024
Nonetheless, noncompetes are widespread in such occupations as hairdressing, hash slinging, and car parking—not to stop the spread of trade secrets, of course, but simply to limit competition and suppress wages. A 2019 study by the Economic Policy Institute found that roughly 30 percent of workplaces where the average yearly pay was less than $22,500 subjected all their employees to noncompetes.
American Prospect
May 3, 2024
Elise Gould, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told Business Insider that a stagnant minimum wage and falling unionization rates have contributed to lower pay for some workers. The lower the pay, the less motivated some people might be to take a job.
Additionally, rising incarceration rates in recent decades could be making it difficult for some men to find work once they return to society, Gould said. Incarcerated men aren’t counted in government labor force statistics, but when they are released, their struggles to find work would weigh on the male employment rate.
Business Insider
May 3, 2024
Workers will earn an additional $1.5 billion extra per year under the new rules, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. It’s also likely to reduce the amount of unpaid overtime that salaried workers undertake, economists at the EPI said in a blog post.
Investopedia
May 3, 2024
The nonprofit Economic Policy Institute reported in 2019 that United States employers get charged with violating labor law in 41.5 percent of all union election campaigns.
New Republic
May 3, 2024
“There’s still millions of people out there who should have some kind of overtime pay protections who don’t, and this will hopefully go a long way toward making up some of that gap,” said Samantha Sanders, director of government affairs and advocacy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “But I’m sure [officials] are assuming there will be a fight over it.”
MarketWatch
May 3, 2024
EVs are expected to make up 50% of auto sales by 2030, potentially creating over 150,000 new jobs related to the production and maintenance of electric cars, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Manufacturing News
May 3, 2024
“Our research finds that more than one out of every four private-sector workers, including low-wage workers, are required to enter noncompete agreements as a condition of employment,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute.
Washington Examiner
May 3, 2024
And a lot of people maybe think of these as something at the C-suite or executive level.
However, a 2019 study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that about 30 percent of the workers that were covered under these agreements actually made $13 or less per hour.
PBS Newshour
May 3, 2024
…Families Party wrote in support of the legislation, citing an Economic Policy Institutestudy that found employers held “captive audience”…[paywall].
Boston Globe
May 3, 2024