Soaring violations and widespread abuse of child labor laws in multiple sectors of the economy have brought the issue to the forefront in some state legislatures in 2024, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Cal Matters
April 15, 2024
But while a 65-year-old is more likely to apply for a desk job or remote work than something that requires heavy lifting, said Monique Morrissey, a senior economist specializing in retirement security at the Economic Policy Institute, about 50% of older workers still have physically demanding jobs.
For many people, though, working into their golden years simply comes down to lacking enough money to stop working and keep a roof over their heads.
“It’s a tale of two retirements,” Morrissey said. While plenty of older Americans are working good jobs later into life by choice, others have struggled to find their place in the workforce.
CNN
April 15, 2024
(That said, a new paper from left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute says economic performance tends to be stronger when Democrats are in power.).
Fortune
April 15, 2024
Across the US, there are 33 states where childcare is more expensive than college, the Economic Policy Institute found. In some areas, infant care can set you back tens of thousands of dollars more than a college education.
Yahoo Finance
April 15, 2024
Cites EPI data on unemployment by race.
Crain's Cleveland Business
April 15, 2024
An estimated 36 million to 60 million Americans work under a non-compete, according to 2019 data from the Economic Policy Institute.
The CT Mirror
April 15, 2024
David Brancaccio: That 2-to-1 ratio. That is typically what we’ve seen over the years?
Valerie Wilson: Yes. In fact, the stability of that relationship between Black and white unemployment is actually documented for almost seven decades in national statistics. That disparity holds up across periods of economic expansion and recession. We see it for all age cohorts, for men and women at nearly every level of education. So, it is a pretty persistent racial disparity and unemployment.
Marketplace Morning Report
April 15, 2024
Almost half of families in the US have no retirement account savings whatsoever, while more than 15 million Americans aged 65 or over are considered economically insecure. “The retirement system does not work for most workers,” according to the Economic Policy Institute – especially not for Black, Latino, lower-income and non-college-educated Americans, though it often fails more affluent, white professionals as well.
The Guardian
April 12, 2024
In 2022, the average earning of all farmworkers was $16.62 per hour – that’s about half of the average hourly wages for all workers in the United States, according to nonprofit think tank the Economic Policy Institute
Blue Ridge Public Radio
April 12, 2024
Over the last year, about half of the labor market’s recent growth came from immigrants, according to federal data analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute.
The Berkshire Eagle
April 12, 2024
“Starbucks has not joined a lawsuit against the NLRB questioning its constitutionality or initiated similar litigation against the NLRB,” the company told Fortune, linking to a statement. As of March, the coffee conglomerate has 741 open or settled NLRB cases according to the Economic Policy Institute—although the coffee chain recently reversed itself and pledged to negotiate with its unionized workers.
Fortune
April 12, 2024
More workers filling more jobs and spending more money has helped drive economic growth and create still-more job openings. The availability of immigrant workers eased the pressure on companies to sharply raise wages and to then pass on their higher labor costs to their customers via higher prices that feed inflation. Though U.S. inflation remains elevated, it has plummeted from its levels of two years ago.
“There’s been something of a mystery — how are we continuing to get such extraordinary strong job growth with inflation still continuing to come down?’’ said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute and a former chief economist at the Labor Department. “The immigration numbers being higher than what we had thought — that really does pretty much solve that puzzle.’’
Associated Press
April 12, 2024
The Trump increase was due partly to low-wage workers being laid off disproportionately during the COVID-19 pandemic, the analysis said.
Economist Josh Bivens of the liberal Economic Policy Institute said the 7% figure goes back to Richard Nixon’s first term in 1969. He called the increase under Trump “artificial” because fewer low-income workers were employed, driving up the average.
Wisconsin Watch
April 12, 2024
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) vetoed a GOP-backed measure that would scrap work permit requirements for 14- and 15-year-olds. Wisconsin is one of 28 states where lawmakers have proposed weakening child labor laws since 2021, according to the Economic Policy Institute. (Bloomberg Government)
Bloomberg Government
April 12, 2024
Finally, the Economic Policy Instituteshowed that Illinois’ Black unemployment rate was…[paywall].
Chicago Tribune
April 12, 2024
TAPPER: Research public — published by the Economic Policy Institute last year suggests that women earn less money and stay in poverty longer when they don’t have access to abortion rights.
The Lead with Jake Tapper
April 12, 2024
A report from the Economic Policy Institute estimated that the real amount of wage theft in the country could be as high as $50 billion per year.
WKOW
April 12, 2024
“Unemployment has been at or below 4% for 27 months running, the longest such strength since the late 1960s,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
U.S. News
April 12, 2024
Across the political aisle, the progressive Economic Policy Institute (EPI) expressed similar skepticism about the USCIS proposals.
Responding to the NPRM’s solicitation for comments, EPI declared: “[T]he H-1B Modernization rule only tinkers at the edges of improving program integrity, but fails terribly to tackle any of the real problems that have been documented by investigative news reports, government audits, and researchers like ourselves – while simultaneously proposing to dramatically expand the size of an H-1B program that remains vulnerable to rampant fraud and abuse.”
The Register
April 12, 2024
Wages rose much faster for America’s lowest-paid workers than for their better-paid colleagues between 2019 and 2023, a new report says, a striking reversal after four decades of widening wage inequality.
Hourly pay rose by 12.1% in those years for low-wage Americans, from $12.06 to $13.52, boosted by policy decisions that aided those workers during the pandemic, according to a report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
In the same span, hourly wages grew by 0.9% for the highest earners, from $57.30 to $57.84.
USA Today
April 12, 2024
The Economic Policy Institute estimated 2021 average CEO pay at the 350 largest American companies was $27.8 million, including stock awards.
San Antonio Business Journal
April 12, 2024
A recent study published by the Economic Policy Institute evaluated economic performance from Harry Truman to our current situation. The Economic Policy Institute included its data and sources in their study, usually a sign of validity. A quick read of the study removes any doubt about which political outcome is better for most Americans. This link will get you there: Economic performance is stronger when Democrats hold the White House. Please look at this data series for the last 70+ years and acquaint yourself with information TV and blogs don’t have time to show us.
The Columbian
April 12, 2024
The recent uptick in the Black unemployment rate is worth watching, said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. But, she points out, “This is still quite low by any historical measure.”
And she said, other measures of Black labor-market performance are really strong, following years of pandemic-era hiring, and wage gains for low-wage workers.
Gould reports that at the end of last year, a higher percentage of Black workers age 25-to-54 had jobs than ever before.
And wages have improved more than any time in the last 40 years — growing nearly 1.5% per year since the pandemic, after accounting for inflation.
Marketplace
April 12, 2024
The gig economy is now composed of nearly 60 million U.S. workers, just under 22% of whom are in transportation and utilities, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
April 12, 2024
Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told CNBC that although the numbers are concerning, she is not yet alarmed. In addition, she told the outlet that unemployment numbers by race and sex can be volatile from month to month. These figures represent a ratio of 1.55 to one, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Black Enterprise
April 12, 2024
A 2014 report from the Economic Policy Institute think tank found at that time 66 percent of tipped workers were women and the poverty rate of tipped workers was almost double that of nontipped workers.
NPR Illinois
April 12, 2024
If research proves true, Americans may find President Joe Biden to be their best bet on helping them secure a richer future, despite the fact that in polling voters often rate Republicans as the party that does a better job at managing the economy, according to the The Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
EPI recently revisited research on this subject, including work done by economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson, summarizing that, “The economy performs much better during Democratic presidential administrations than during Republican ones.”
GO Banking Rates
April 12, 2024
Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, an economic policy think tank based in Washington D.C., said government is a sector economists will be looking to to see more growth in education jobs. She added that public sector workers can fuel private sector employment growth as well.
For the first time, hospitality and leisure has returned to its pre-pandemic level after adding 49,000 jobs. Researchers and economists took this development as a good sign for the economy and for workers. Gould said it was a “great milestone” but also noted that many sectors have already hit that level and more.
States Newsroom
April 12, 2024
The CEO Pledge says they will “invest in their employees. According to the Economic Policy Institute, compensation for CEOs increased by 940% from 1978 to 2018, while pay for the average worker rose by a miserable 12% over the same 40-year period.
Industry Week
April 12, 2024
According to the Economic Policy Institute’s Jan. 23 report on unions, across the board, unions are seeing upward trends in interest during the last few years. The most recent polls, the center reported, showed 67% of Americans approve of unions. According to a 2022 poll that the institute cited, slightly less than 60% of workers in the U.S. support unionization in their workplace.
According to the policy report, 16.2 million workers were represented by a union in 2023 — an increase of 191,000 from the year before.
Wichita Business Journal
April 12, 2024