Media clips

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• Billionaires Cash In On Abusive Farm Worker Scam

  Workers participating in the H-2A visa program are paid 55 percent of the average wage received by other nonsupervisory workers in the United States, according to an analysis published by the Economic Policy Institute. 

  Lever News September 15, 2023
• Special Report: Understanding out-of-control CEO pay—and why it’s a problem

  The Economic Policy Institute also advocates for tax penalties against companies with extreme ratios, and policies that increase shareholders’ abilities to control excess CEO pay.

  Fast Company September 15, 2023
• Texas student suspended over his loc hairstyle days after state’s Crown Act takes effect

  Two dozen states have enacted versions of a CROWN Act, according to the Economic Policy Institute. California was the first to pass the measure in 2019. Legislation for a national CROWN Act has been unsuccessful.

  CNN September 15, 2023
• Only one in three public school teachers think their base salary is adequate

  A study from the Economic Policy Institute found that public school teachers earn about 24% less than others with the same levels of experience and education. 

  Marketplace September 15, 2023
• Unions Put More Money in the Pockets of Black Folks

  “The legacy of not having access to wealth-building opportunities that Black families have faced over decades, those things are labor market independent,” says Kyle K. Moore, economist for the Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity, and the economy. 

  “But there is a component of the racial wealth gap that comes from the labor market, and being in a union allows [people] to mitigate that.”

  Word in Black September 15, 2023
• 3 Minnesota construction companies accused of dangerous labor practices

  They also cite a 2021 study from the Economic Policy Institute that showed nearly a quarter of Minnesota construction workers are misclassified as independent contractors and are paid off the books, making 36% less in wages and benefits than regularly employed workers.

  WCCO News Minnesota September 15, 2023
• (Podcast) On strike! Hope and challenges for the labor movement

  All of the strike activity we’re seeing right now is a hopeful sign for those who want to see an economy that works for everyone. In this episode, we speak with Margaret Poydock and Jennifer Sherer of the Economic Policy Institute, co-authors of the recent report What to know about this summer’s strike activity. We discuss what’s driving the recent wave of strikes, the challenges workers encounter when seeking to strike, and the policy changes that would strengthen workers’ ability to act collectively.

  Oregon Center for Public Policy September 15, 2023
• Big Real Estate Says Regulations Caused Housing Crisis, But They Wrote the Rules

  As economists Lawrence Mishel and Josh Bivens wrote for the Economic Policy Institute, “Between 1979 and 2017, the compensation of median workers trailed economywide (net) productivity growth by roughly 43%, leading to rising inequality.” Workers were producing far more, but the benefit was instead being concentrated in a tiny segment of the population, what Mishel and Bivens identified as “workers at the top (mostly highly credentialed professionals and corporate managers) and owners of capital.” The rich were getting richer, and the cost of being poor was growing.

  Truthout September 15, 2023
• How should Airbnbs in Richmond be run? There’s lots of room for debate

  Additionally, the Economic Policy Institute reported in 2019 that the economic costs associated with Airbnb likely outweigh the benefits as housing and rental prices increase causing price gauging and communities have to relocate because they can no longer afford to live in their respective neighborhoods.

  Richmond Times-Dispatch September 15, 2023
• As trust erodes, labor actions gain momentum

  A Statista Research Department report estimated that in 2021, CEOs received nearly 400 times the average annual salary of their production and nonsupervisory workers. The Economic Policy Institute offered a different take: Between 1978 and 2019, CEO compensation grew 940 percent, while typical worker compensation rose just 12 percent.

  San Diego Union Tribune September 15, 2023
• Opinion: What CEOs are missing by trying to get workers back to the office

  In the midst of this rising thrum of worker activism, what are many of America’s business leaders doing? In high-profile corporations like Amazon and Goldman Sachs, they’re demanding that workers get back to their desks. Leaders of multiple massive corporations, many in tech and finance, are emphasizing that they’re getting tough about return-to-office this time: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told workers that if they didn’t get on board, they should consider working elsewhere, and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon in July said he understood why people didn’t want to commute an hour and a half each day, but it ”doesn’t mean they have to have a job here either.”

  CNN Business September 15, 2023
• ‘It just doesn’t add up’: Why the fees parents pay won’t cover the full cost of child care

  Quality child care is expensive. “Right now, child care costs are unaffordable for many families,” says Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. “And yet what they want is high quality child care, and you have to pay for that.”

  Workers are “undervalued and underpaid in that sector,” Gould adds in an interview. “It just doesn’t add up.”

  Wisconsin Examiner September 15, 2023
• Ron DeSantis says warning of ‘hostile’ Florida for Black and LGBTQ+ visitors is political ‘stunt’

  Economic Policy Institute, which sources employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Local Area Unemployment Statistics and Current Population Survey, shows that in the second quarter of 2023 Florida’s Black unemployment rate was 3.6 per cent. 

  Pink News September 15, 2023
• Employers banned from hiring H-2A workers can ‘reinvent’ themselves to hire again

  Less than 1% of all U.S. farms are audited for labor law compliance each fiscal year, according to a 2023 Economic Policy Institute report co-authored by Daniel Costa, the director of immigration law and policy research. Even though this figure accounts for all U.S. farms — not just those who hire H-2A workers — more than half of investigations uncover H-2A violations. 

  “(The wage and hour division of the Department of Labor) is underfunded and understaffed,” Costa said. “Employers can pretty much do whatever they want, and there’s a very low likelihood they’ll ever be investigated.”

  Investigate Midwest September 15, 2023
• Romney reintroduces bill to raise federal minimum wage to $11, mandate E-Verify

  Twenty states, including Utah, set their current minimum wage at or below the federal level, or have no state minimum wage.

  The minimum wage is at its lowest value since 1956, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis from last summer.

  KSL.com September 15, 2023
• The UAW strike is underway. Here’s what it looks like so far.

  Adam Hersh, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said the Big Three can afford to pay workers more. In a blog post Tuesday, Hersh noted that the Big Three saw combined profits of $250 billion between 2013 to 2022 and expect to bring in more than $32 billion in additional profits for 2023. Hersh said in the post that the Big Three is arguing that paying workers more would jeopardize their efforts in producing more electric vehicles.

  “Despite all the company tricks, there is more than enough money for them to make EV investments, to pay their workers a fair share, and to maintain healthy profits,” Hersh wrote in the post. 

  CBS Moneywatch September 15, 2023
• S.F.’s new ‘overpaid executive tax’ brought in more money than expected. Can the city count on it?

  Nationally, CEO pay has risen significantly in the last four decades. A 2022 report from the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, projected that a CEO at one of the top 350 companies in the U.S. was paid paid 399 times as much as a typical worker in 2021 — a new record high from the last peak — a  372-to-1 ratio — in 2000. 

  According to the report, CEOs are getting paid more because so much of their pay is stock-related, widening the income gap between very high earners and the bottom 90%.

  San Francisco Chronicle September 15, 2023
• Liberal Groups Urge Congress To Reject Spending Cuts In Fight With House GOP

  The signers of the letter include high-profile liberal groups like the Center for American Progress, the Service Employees International Union, the Communication Workers of America, the Economic Policy Institute and the Quaker group Friends Committee on National Legislation, as well as newer groups like the Working Families Party, Groundwork Collaborative and the Economic Security Project.

  Huffpost September 15, 2023
• September 15, 2023
  September 14, 2023
• College coaches’ million-dollar buyouts: Revealing the unparalleled power shift in sports’ lucrative realm

  Roughly half of all U.S. employers utilize non-competes in their contracts, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute in 2019.

  Sacramento Bee September 14, 2023
• Sky-high CEO pay is in focus as workers everywhere are demanding higher wages

  This kind of pay disparity was not always a given. In 1965, CEOs typically earned 20 times the typical worker’s pay in their industries, according to a report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

  But executive compensation soared, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, when CEOs were lionized and a large chunk of their pay was linked to their company’s stock performance. CEO pay skyrocketed along with the stock market, with the S&P 500 increasing by more than 1,000% since 1990. In the same period, workers’ wages, adjusted for inflation, have barely budged.

  In 2021, CEOs earned 399 times the typical worker, the EPI report found.

  “Obviously, CEOs should be the highest-paid person in an enterprise,” said EPI Chief Economist Josh Bivens, who co-wrote the report. “But the question is, how much higher than everyone else?”

  NPR September 14, 2023
• Child Labor Laws Are Being Repealed Across The Country. Why Now?

  Nina Mast, an analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, has been following the push to break down child labor protections.

  “This is part of a much larger agenda of privatization and deregulation of our public institutions,” says Mast. “When you have youth potentially foregoing higher education, future earnings, and the ability to earn higher wages in our economy, their wages are depressed over their entire lifetime. That’s bad for the macro economy. It’s bad for adults… When youth are taking these jobs at low wages, it really pushes adults out of the labor market. Why would an employer hire an adult at $15 an hour, if they can pay a young person $10?”

  Nina Mast went long with Fatherly on child labor, the laws that are sweeping the nation, why it’s a myth that paid work is good for kids, and why the child labor crisis isn’t new — it’s just been simmering under the surface.

  Fatherly September 14, 2023
• How leaders can address the CEO-to-worker pay gap

  Paywall.

  Fast Company September 14, 2023
• How the Army’s pay structure inspired this CEO to introduce pay transparency

  As executive compensation has ballooned in recent years, CEOs are being paid nearly 400 times as much as the average worker, according to the Economic Policy Institute. 

  Fast Company September 14, 2023
• What Is Hispanic Heritage Month, and How Is It Celebrated?

  Others also question the authenticity of some companies and organizations who “celebrate” this month for optics, but don’t focus on the issues facing the community—like the fact that Latina women make less than anyone else at 55¢ to the dollar a White man makes, or that Hispanic men made 14.9 percent less in hourly wages than comparable White men, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  Reader's Digest September 14, 2023
• The Enemies of America’s Children

  Record inflation was a major reason but perhaps not the largest. When Congress allowed the expanded Child Tax Credit to expire, that was “particularly damaging to child poverty,” according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  New York Magazine September 14, 2023
• Child poverty in the U.S. more than doubled as pandemic help expired

  Economists from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute released a statement that pointed out the effects of U.S. policy choices: “If policymakers were willing to maintain the pandemic-era CTC expansions, a much smaller share of children would be living in poverty.”

  MarketWatch September 14, 2023
• Black Texas High School Student Suspended For Locs Despite New Law Banning Hair Discrimination

  According to the Economic Policy Institute, 24 states have passed versions of the CROWN Act. California was the first state to enact the legislation in 2019. Legislation for a national CROWN Act has not been successful. 

  Essence September 14, 2023
• 5 million kids fell into poverty last year after Congress cut off Biden’s monthly checks to parents

  “The sharp reductions in child poverty in 2020 and 2021 that were engineered even in the face of a pandemic-damaged economy show the importance of policy decisions,” a statement from Economic Policy Institute’s Elise Gould and Ismael Cid-Martinez said. “If policymakers were willing to maintain the pandemic-era CTC expansions, a much smaller share of children would be living in poverty.”

  Business Insider September 14, 2023
• DOL Issues Proposed Rule to Bolster Farm Worker Protections

  Foreign guest workers who use the H-2A and H-2B temporary visa programs need better labor protections, according to experts who testified before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections on July 20, 2022.

  Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., said that the U.S. government is failing to meet basic labor standards and provide basic rights to workers in the growing H-2A and H-2B visa programs.

  SHRM September 14, 2023