And as calls for better pay amplify among teacher union strikes and educator surveys, a recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute found teachers’ weekly wages and total compensation worsened over time compared to college-educated professionals who didn’t teach. Public school teachers’ average weekly wages increased by only $29 from 1996 to 2021 when adjusted only for inflation, while the weekly wages of other college graduates rose by $445 in that same period.
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September 30, 2022
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“The lowest-income households, say bottom 20%, tend to not carry a ton of debt having incomes too low often to even qualify for significant loans,” L. Josh Bivens, research director with the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI), said in an email.
USA Today September 30, 2022 -
“Teachers face myriad issues, including wage degradation,” Seton Hall Professor Christopher Tienken said of the findings. “For example, according to an economic policy institute (EPI) report from August 26, 2022, average weekly teacher wages grew by just $29 when adjusted for inflation, between 1996-2021, compared to $445 for other college graduates over the same period. Dubbed the ‘Teacher pay penalty,’ teachers can make as little as 35 percent less than college-educated people in other professions.”
New Rochelle Patch September 27, 2022 -
The Economic Policy Institute shows that more than 60% of Tennessee corporations pay nothing in franchise and excise tax, the state’s corporate income tax.
The Tennessean September 27, 2022 -
Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, called work-at-home “vastly unequal.” Most workers, she told theGrio, continued going into the workplace during the height of the pandemic.
But two other numbers from the report support Gould’s point. The survey found that 35% of workers could work from home five days a week, which means most workers can’t. Moreover, 41% of workers could not work from home because their jobs aren’t conducive to remote work.
Gould and Asfaw each noted that discrimination, both historical and modern-day, plays a role.
“I often have people say, well, women are choosing to work in certain professions or choosing to be in certain jobs,” said Gould, who also studies the gender wage gap. “You can say the same thing about occupational segregation by race. There’s historical discrimination in access to education, promotions, and access to all those jobs” that directly impact the disparities we see today.
“It’s whether or not you have a computer or a broadband Internet subscription,” Gould said. “And certainly there is a very tangible digital divide between black and white households. So certainly whether you have those resources in your community or if you have your resources at home (are) factors that would lead to occupational segregation.”
The Grio September 27, 2022 -
K-12 Dive September 27, 2022
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With the recession’s rise, a climate has developed in which Black professionals have frequently been faced with more lay-offs, hiring freezes, reduced sponsorship possibilities, and smaller raises while also experiencing greater unemployment rates and unemployment periods than their white counterparts. For example, while economists maintain that the U.S. labor market has recovered since the pandemic, with overall unemployment decreasing to 3.5%, a 6% boost impacted Black workers (Economic Policy Institute 2021). An outcome which is not surprising given that Black professionals are often the last hired and first fired during times of economic instability.
Black Enterprise September 27, 2022 -
The following is from the Economic Policy Institute. NOTE: In Washington state, voters have required the state minimum wage be adjusted annually for inflation. The state will soon announce the minimum wage for 2023.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 26, 2022) — There are two main debates about what to do about inflation. One is mostly good-faith (if highly contested): it concerns the actions of the Federal Reserve. Another is mostly bad-faith: it uses the existence of elevated inflation as a cudgel against any progressive policy change and as a justification for long-standing ideological priorities. This is most visible in fiscal policy debates, with some people claiming simultaneously that spending must be restrained (a contractionary move in fiscal policy), but taxes must be cut (an expansionary move).
FULL TEXT OF JOSH’S BLOG
The Stand September 27, 2022 -
That reaction to a child’s interest in sharing ice cream echoes current economic reality. The US Economic Policy Institute (EPI) published a report in 2018 that compiled income trends from 1917-2015.
A 2015 study by the US Economic Policy Institute reported the top 1% of Tennesseans earned 17.8% of the state’s income. To be in the top 1% in 2015, a Tennessean needed to earn at least $332,913. The average income that year was $44,219.According to the EPI study, the average 1% “top dog” had 26.3 times the average yearly income of all the other pack members who may have worked like dogs but who earned much less.
This same EPI study reported that the top 1% of Tennesseans took home 17.8% of all our state’s income in 2015. The average income of the Tennessee one percenters was $947,021 and the average income for all the rest was $44,219, a ratio of 21.4 in favor of the top very few. To be in the top 1% in 2015, a Tennessee resident needed to make at least $332,913.
Tennessee Lookout September 27, 2022 -
“Inflation is coming from continued supply chain bottlenecks, the energy prices, dealing with the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Elise Gould, an economist for the Economic Policy Institute, told Insider. “There’s still some mismatch. I think that some of that’s going to come down on its own, so I think the Federal Reserve doesn’t have to act so aggressively.”
Business Insider September 23, 2022 -
In fact, corporate profits at nonfinancial companies account for more than half of recent price growth, according to the progressive Economic Policy Institute.
In These Times September 23, 2022 -
The book tells the story of how this change came about, through the work of people like Joseph Stiglitz and groups like the Economic Policy Institute. It’s a really important change because it rejects the assumption of classical economics that left alone, the market will find equilibrium. No—the state has to play an evening-out role.
September 23, 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. “The pandemic put distortions on both the demand and supply side of the US economy,” Bivens said.
CNET September 23, 2022 -
Dynamism can be defined as change, advancement and a restless entrepreneurial spirit, said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute.
Ever since the Great Recession and the mass layoffs of 2008, workers grew security-oriented, hanging onto jobs and staying put, Shierholz said.
NPR September 23, 2022 -
Here are five critical actions to take today:
- End the teacher pay penalty:Raise base teacher pay by 24.5%. That is the difference when you compare teacher salaries to non-teacher college graduates, calculated by the Economic Policy Institute. We should address this immediately to support current and future teachers. For a beginning teacher, this would increase pay from $37,000 to $46,065. It would move the state from being in the bottom 10 to the top 20 states in terms of beginning teacher pay. It would make us No. 1 in the South and help to reduce the flow of teachers to other states, and ideally attract teachers to North Carolina.
EdNC September 23, 2022 -
Despite the fact that higher interest rates are supposed to limit intra-bank loans and thus create new money, the Economic Policy Institute found in an April study that corporate profits accounted in the last two years for 54% of inflation in the US. This means that the problem is price speculation, not overeager lenders.
Al Mayadeen English September 23, 2022 -
While stimulus checks did increase consumer spending in 2020 and 2021, other experts have noted that inflation is a global issue, and is occurring in countries that didn’t send out stimulus checks.
Josh Bivens, director of research for the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, told NPR that corporate profits have contributed to increasing prices at least as much as stimulus checks.
There’s been an acceleration of core inflation across every advanced economy, even the ones that did very, very little fiscal relief,” he said.
“And so I think the evidence linking specific Biden-era policies to the surge in inflation is just really, really weak.”
The Sun September 23, 2022 -
According to the Economic Policy Institute, an independent, nonprofit think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on U.S. workers, employers are charged with violating federal law in 41.5% of all union election campaigns. While Sections 7 & 8(a) of the National Labor Relations Act clearly enumerate the rights of workers to unionize and identifies employer illegal interference, NLRB law on what constitutes an unfair labor practice is extensive and evolving.
The Journal Record September 23, 2022 -
By contrast, per the Economic Policy Institute, 42 percent of Home Depot workers make less than $15 an hour, or $31,000 a year for a full-time worker. Most of its workers — 68 percent — make between $12 and $18 an hour, close to or below the city’s $17.87 living wage for a single worker with no kids, as calculated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s living wage calculator.
Truthout September 23, 2022 -
Top of mind for many contemplating the career amid a recession is compensation. Teachers’ weekly wages have remained relatively flat for 25 years; and educators earn about 24% less than peer grads, according to an August Economic Policy Institute report that looks at wages through 2021.
The 74 September 23, 2022 -
But part-time work doesn’t just reduce your earnings in proportion to full-time work. Part-time positions tend to pay nearly 30% less per hour than equivalent full-time roles, according to a report published by the Economic Policy Institute. That has a ripple effect on finances—whether that be emergency funds, retirement contributions, or overall financial security. Part-time work can also potentially stall women’s career trajectories.
Fast Company September 23, 2022 -
Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, and former chief economist at the Department of Labor, noted that even when workers are getting time and a half, their base pay is so low, it can be worth it for their employers to force them into working extra instead of bringing on others to staff up. “Time and a half was really supposed to make it so employers had skin in the game and wouldn’t have absurdly regular very long hours for workers, but the fact that for so many workers pay is so low … if you’re an employer, you can game it out,” she said. If you’re paying someone $8 an hour, $12 an hour for some extra hours a week doesn’t hurt as much as, say, $15 that would suddenly become $22.50.
Still, many workers are stuck in situations they’d rather not be in; if they want to keep their jobs, they don’t have the option of not working extra hours when their boss says they have to. “We have employment law that is so profoundly anti-worker,” Shierholz said.
Shierholz said unions are a good place to start in addressing workplace flexibility, including forced overtime, but she emphasized that even unionized employees have to deal with the issue — as is the case with Hall and so many workers like him. Unions are able to fight for parameters, but there are no guarantees they’ll get them. “It’s not like unionized workers never have to work forced overtime, but they will have some control over those kinds of employment conditions,” she said.
VOX September 23, 2022 -
Many states have loosened the job criteria throughout the years to try to solve the shortage, but critics are alert to the consequences these actions may bring. A research study from the Economic Policy Institute shows that high-poverty schools have less-experienced and less-qualified teachers than wealthier ones, meaning that teacher shortages are more acute in high-poverty schools. Much more than just a teaching crisis, this situation is also a racial and ethnic matter.
Al Dia News September 23, 2022 -
Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute notes that the U.S. economy is already contracting, with housing starts plummeting, which will cause construction jobs to decline. At the same time, the unusually strong dollar — at or around par with the euro for the first time in years — is reducing demand for U.S. exports. Continuing to raise rates could be “really damaging,” he says.
Salon September 23, 2022 -
Last week, the Private Equity Stakeholder Project in conjunction with Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, two nonprofit organizations, released a “private equity scorecard,” a report that listed and graded the top eight private equity buyout firms invested in oil and gas. The Private Equity Stakeholder Project puts out information and data related to private equity’s impact on housing, healthcare, climate and energy, and civil rights. Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund is an activist group focusing on developing a “fair and just” financial system. It is a coalition of over 200 national organizations, including the American Sustainable Business Council, Economic Policy Institute, and the Center for Economic Progress.
Institutional Investor September 23, 2022 -
As Brink said, abortion is not separate from so-called bread-and-butter issues, and the movement for workers’ and reproductive rights should be far closer than they are. Our tendency for silo organizing also leads to a habit of seeing intersections as threats. But as Asha Banerjee, an analyst at the Economic Policy Institute writes, “Women’s economic lives, livelihoods, and mobility are at the heart of the reasoning to overrule Roe.” Research, Banerjee notes, shows the deep interconnection of our economic and reproductive lives: “Some of the economic consequences of being denied an abortion include a higher chance of being in poverty even four years after; a lower likelihood of being employed full time; and an increase in unpaid debts and financial distress lasting years.”
The Progressive September 23, 2022 -
“Congress has failed to act to protect workers who are recruited abroad through temporary work visa programs,” explains Daniel Costa, director of Immigration Law and Policy Research at the Economic Policy Institute. “The abuses of labor recruiters have included requiring the payment of illegal fees to obtain jobs, which can result in debt bondage, as well as cases of wage theft, discrimination, human trafficking and other abuses. But since these U.S. work arrangements are being set up abroad, it is difficult to regulate the behavior of recruiters.”
Nationally, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates the number of temporary work visa holders is 1.6 million, while Costa believes it’s closer to 2 million. The DHS says about 300,000 work in California, a number they admit is not a direct count but an estimate. Costa estimates that AB 364 would cover at least 310,500 workers.
Ultimately, however, given the abuses that can and do happen to people on work visas, both bills simply try to impose a degree of regulation and protect at least some rights. Neither bill addresses the impact of the work visa programs on the surrounding workforce. “The power that visa programs give employers, and the individuals and companies that they contract with to recruit workers, is then used to undercut wages and labor standards,” warns Costa.
Capital & Main September 23, 2022 -
As the country debates the merits of “quiet quitting,” it’s another phenomenon — “quiet fleecing” — that should have workers’ attention.
Coined by the Economic Policy Institute, “quiet fleecing” describes decades of stagnant wage growth in the US despite rising productivity and costs of living. In theory, workers’ wages rise in tandem with their productivity, or the output they provide to a company. And for workers to benefit from those raises, they should outpace inflation. Up until the 1970s, that was roughly the case in the US. But then something changed. The wages of the 1% began to outpace economic growth and inflation, while the pay of the average worker fell behind.
“For much of the last 40, 50 years it’s been close to zero wage growth or compensation growth for typical workers,” EPI economist Elise Gould told Insider. “Those trends in hourly wage growth have profound consequences for American living standards and how well people in this country are able to make ends meet. And I think that the growing economy has not universally translated into broadly shared prosperity.”
“Workers have had to work more hours to get ahead because their hourly wage has grown very slowly over this longer time period,” she said. “I think that there’s been a reevaluation for some workers in the pandemic of what they wanted from their jobs.”
“When it becomes so hard to make ends meet on the wages that they have, some people are seeing, maybe there’s a better way.”
Gould attributes several factors to the rise of “quiet fleecing” over the past decades — including stagnant minimum wages, the decline of unions, and the growing pay gap between CEOs and their employees.
“Smaller and smaller pieces of the pie are coming to the vast majority of workers and their families in this country,” she said.
She also points to the Federal Reserve’s past prioritization of low inflation and its allowance of excess unemployment, both of which have hurt workers’ bargaining power. As the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to combat today’s surge in inflation, she’s concerned that a resulting economic slowdown would ultimately have the same effect.
“One of the threats of allowing the unemployment rate to rise is that not only you could have millions of people lose their jobs, but also workers — even who have their jobs — lose some of that leverage to be able to build up their wages, because they’re less scarce,” she said.
While many low income workers have received pay bumps over the past few years, they could be disproportionately impacted by a weakened labor market. These workers are not only the most likely to see job losses when unemployment ticks up, Gould says, but the most likely to “require a very tight labor market” to see wage growth.
While the Federal Reserve is aware of these risks, it may think some of this “pain” is needed to slow inflation. But Gould thinks directing this pain at the labor market would be counterproductive.
“I think that it’s really important to know where the inflation is coming from. It’s not coming from the labor market,” she said. “Wage growth has not been beating inflation. So if anything, wage growth is actually pulling down on inflation.”
Business Insider September 23, 2022 -
Even as America’s large grocery chains boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic, their essential workers who held the frontlines have continued to earn low wages under poor working conditions. Some of the largest, most profitable grocery stores—including Aldi, Kroger, Safeway and Walmart—pay many of their workers less than $15 an hour, according to a company wage tracker published by the Economic Policy Institute and the Shift Project in April.
Newsweek September 23, 2022 -
“I think there may be some labor hoarding,” says Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “Employers are holding on to workers because they had such a hard time rehiring, so they’re thinking ‘let’s not move too quickly,’ even if they expect weakness coming.”
While the tech industry has made headlines for laying off workers, it’s not the only one that will feel the sting of rising rates. Gould says that the Fed’s aggressive monetary policy will hit different industries harder and sooner because of their sensitivity to rate fluctuations.
“Construction–commercial or housing construction, will take longer to slow down because those lead times are 5 to 6 months away,” Gould says. “We’ll see a faster drop-off on things that people might get a loan for because they’re looking at much higher interest rates which are hitting their pockets now.”
Forbes September 23, 2022