To act as though people aren’t working hard enough is also disingenuous. According to the Economic Policy Institute, in the U.S., workers’ productivity increased 3.5 times as much as pay between 1979 and 2020. Why would you work three times harder if you’re not getting three times the salary?
Yahoo! Life
September 2, 2022
There has been strong payroll employment growth nationally, said Elise Gould, a senior economist for the Economic Policy Institute (paywall).
Lansing State Journal
September 2, 2022
“In union elections, everyone is looking around to see who else is in; to judge whether they believe that their co-workers are capable of coming together to force management to pay more than it wants,” a 2020 report from the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, explains. “A large collective action—such as everyone wearing union buttons or t-shirts—gives employees confidence that they have the collective power to stand up to management.”
Quartz
September 2, 2022
Joining together to make things better, from a bake sale to a barn-raising, is a longstanding and heartwarming American tradition. But when workers get together, watch out: Employers routinely violate federal law, reports the Economic Policy Institute, by harassing or firing workers involved in union organizing campaigns.
The Progressive
September 2, 2022
A new report from the Economic Policy Institute found the so-called teacher pay penalty is at an all-time high nationwide, but is particularly high in Colorado.
The report’s author, and Economic Policy Institute research associate, Sylvia Allegretto, describes the teacher wage penalty as how much teachers earn relative to their non-teaching professional peers.
Aspen Public Radio
September 2, 2022
The reason why the U.S. doesn’t have a federal paid leave policy is related to why we don’t have a better child care policy, more sick days or other safety net provisions, said Elise Gould, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute.
Grid News
September 2, 2022
When it comes to the health of American democracy, unions also get the goods as the Economic Policy Institute report explains that there are fewer restrictive voting laws in states with the highest union density while over 70 percent of low-union-density states have passed voter suppression laws between 2011 and 2019.
San Diego Union Tribune
September 2, 2022
Arkansas teachers make 20.5% less than college-educated workers in other fields, according to a recent report from the Economic Policy Institute.
Axios
September 2, 2022
Quotes David Cooper on minimum wage increases and inflation (paywall).
Pew Charitable Trust
September 2, 2022
A study published by the Economic Policy Institute examined staffing shortages in public K-12 schools and it pointed to COVID concerns as a factor in nonteacher staff shortages.
“But the reality is that staff shortages in K-12 schools are a problem that policymakers in much of the country have had for decades,” the organization said.
In addition to being exposed to COVID-19, the Economic Policy Institute reported that public education support workers are paid low wages and work limited hours.
“The combination of low pay and limited hours makes these front-line jobs less attractive to return to—or apply to,” the organization said.
Newsweek
September 2, 2022
In California, many teachers grapple with housing affordability because — like many educators throughout the United States — they are underpaid. The state’s instructors earned 15.5% less than their college-educated non-teaching peers from the years 2014 through 2019, according to data collected from the Economic Policy Institute.
Business Insider
September 2, 2022
“It’s a symptom of something that we’ve had going on before the pandemic — a crisis of respect,” Cardona said, citing a recent report from the Economic Policy Institute that found teachers’ weekly pay increased just $29 on average from 1996 to 2001 after being adjusted for inflation.”
Spectrum News NY 1
September 2, 2022
“I certainly think that the pandemic has led many people to reevaluate their work and their priorities and what they want to do,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute said in a statement to Business Insider.
World Economic Forum
September 2, 2022
“They’re all based on some kind of a sample, some kind of an estimation technique, and I think you have to take each one of them and get the information that you can from it,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
Marketplace
September 2, 2022
What they’re saying: “U.S. workers see unions as critical to fixing our nation’s broken workplace — where most workers have little power or agency at work,” wrote the Economic Policy Institute Tuesday in response to the Gallup poll findings.
Axios
September 2, 2022
It’s consistent with a separate report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) which found from 1996 to 2021, average weekly wages increased just $29 for public school teachers —consistently earning less than their non-teacher, college-educated counterparts.
The Hill
September 2, 2022
Participation in a teacher union can reduce educators’ stress levels, according to a paper released Monday by the Economic Policy Institute. Researchers measured the stress levels of teachers in districts with collective bargaining against those with no union agreement and found a 14% difference in stress levels.
EPI said reduced stress levels for union-affiliated teachers may be due to support for teacher compensation, improved working conditions and advocacy for “teacher voice.”
K-12 Dive
September 2, 2022
Cardona’s office told PolitiFact that he was referring to statistics from the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank.
In a report released Aug. 16, the group found that inflation-adjusted average weekly wages of teachers had increased by just $29 between 1996 and 2021, specifically from $1,319 to $1,348 in inflation-adjusted dollars.
To calculate these figures, the group used two detailed data sets from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We decided to see if the data from Cardona’s own department tracked with the Economic Policy Institute’s. So we examined National Center for Education Statistics’ data to find the estimated average annual salary of teachers in public elementary and secondary schools.
Those numbers are just a little different. Between the 1995-96 school year and the 2020-21 school year, average annual K-12 teacher salaries in public schools rose from $64,113 to $65,090. That’s an increase of $977 after accounting for inflation. (The Economic Policy Institute and Education Department tracked salaries of teachers via only average income, not the median. Allegretto said that either measure would be acceptable for studying teacher pay; unlike some fields where extreme outliers can skew averages compared to medians, the range of salaries in K-12 teaching is fairly compact.)
WRAL.com
September 2, 2022
According to the Economic Policy Institute, economists’ opinions vary on which is worse for an economy, a recession or rising inflation. One common argument is that inflation is worse than a recession because it impacts everyone. By contrast, a recession—and the associated job losses that come with it—may impact a smaller number of people.
Forbes
September 2, 2022
The majority are earning less than they would with a traditional job, and per an Economic Policy Institute analysis of a 2020 Shift Project survey, 14% of gig workers surveyed earned less than the federal minimum wage on an hourly basis. In addition to the lack of predictable income and benefits, some freelance work — like food delivery or Uber driving — can be grueling. And as more freelancers join the fold, this could mean more people competing for a limited number of opportunities.
September 2, 2022
The PBS NewsHour’s Digital Anchor, Nicole Ellis, spoke to two economists – Diana Furchtgott-Roth, George Washington University adjunct economics professor and former chief economist at the Department of Labor, and Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute – about how they interpret the current state of America’s economy and what they’re watching.
PBS Newshour
September 2, 2022
A report by the Economic Policy Institute released this month found the teacher pay penalty – the wage gap between teachers and other professionals with similar education experience – hit a new high, reaching 23.5% in 2021.
The Guardian
September 2, 2022
That feeling of disrespect has material roots. There has long been a “pay penalty” associated with teaching, compared to professions that require similar levels of education. Adjusted for inflation, teachers’ average weekly pay has increased by just $29 since 1996, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute; by comparison, other college graduates have seen an average increase of $445 per week over the same period. Low wages and high stress have led to a resurgence of labor organizing and militancy among teachers, including upcoming strikes planned in large districts like Columbus, Ohio, and Philadelphia.
Inside Higher Ed
September 2, 2022
The socioeconomic potential these jobs would bring is significant. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the decline of manufacturing in the U.S. has had its most adverse effects on workers of all races without a college degree. From 1998 to 2020, for example, the number of Black workers in manufacturing dropped by 30.4 percent—a loss of 646,500 jobs. In total, five million manufacturing jobs were lost in that same period.
The loss of such jobs has compounding effects. Black, Hispanic, and Asian American Pacific Islanders in manufacturing earn around 14 to 18 percent more than their non-manufacturing counterparts. For white manufacturing workers, the disparity is larger: They earn 29 percent more than non-manufacturing white workers.
The American Prospect
September 2, 2022
EPI Senior Economist Elise Gould joins Yahoo Finance Live anchors Akiko Fujita and Brian Cheung to discuss inflation, the labor market, and the Fed’s dual mandate.
Yahoo Finance
August 26, 2022
“Teachers are one of the most consequential professions that there are right? Because after all, they have the future of the workforce in front of them every day,” Economic Policy Institute Research Associate Sylvia Allegretto said.
NBC 29
August 26, 2022
Cardona’s office told PolitiFact that he was referring to statistics from the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank.
In a report released Aug. 16, the group found that inflation-adjusted average weekly wages of teachers had increased by just $29 between 1996 and 2021, specifically from $1,319 to $1,348 in inflation-adjusted dollars.
Politifact
August 26, 2022
The average weekly inflation-adjusted wage of public school teachers increased just $29 from 1996 to 2021, per a report by the Economic Policy Institute.
Axios
August 26, 2022
I’m far from the first person to notice Goldwein’s hypocrisy. Economist Heidi Shierholz, the president of the Economic Policy Institute, tweeted back in May, citing a CRFB paper, “If student debt cancellation is not good stimulus, that means it is also not very inflationary.” She also pointed out that the current debt payment moratorium, which has been going on for two and a half years—in other words, the entire inflationary cycle—meant that “even if somebody’s debt is entirely cancelled under a new policy, their monthly costs won’t decrease relative to what they currently are. This will dramatically limit any impact on new spending and hence provide no upward inflation pressure relative to the status quo.”
American Prospect
August 26, 2022