EPI in the news

• Report Shows How Lawmakers in GOP-Dominated South Harm Workers

  “For at least the last 40 years, pay and job quality for workers across the South has been inferior compared to other regions—thanks to the racist and anti-worker Southern economic development model.”

  That’s according to a Thursday report by Chandra Childers, a senior policy and economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). The new publication is part of her “Rooted in Racism and Economic Exploitation” series.

  Common Dreams | July 19, 2024
• Labor leaders decry Gov. Reynolds’ lax child labor laws

  Jennifer Sherer, director of the State Worker Power Initiative with the Economic Policy Institute, addresses attendees at the July 16 roundtable. [Paywall].

  Corridor Business Journal | July 19, 2024
• Discretionary Income and How to Calculate It

  However, for everyone else, it has been detrimental, as wage growth has not kept up with productivity growth. Figures provided by the Economic Policy Institute reveal that productivity rose 74% between 1973 and 2013, but the average hourly wage earned by workers gained only 9%. 

  Business Insider | July 19, 2024
• Boulder school bus driver shortage may force route cuts

  Nationally, school districts are struggling to hire bus drivers since the beginning of the pandemic. Research by the Economic Policy Institute showed last year that the number of bus drivers working in K-12 schools was down 15.1% since 2019, according to a report by the National Education Association.

  Denver Gazette | July 19, 2024
• The Gun Lobby Ensured That Guns Are Allowed at the RNC

  A recent report by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank, found that Southern and Midwestern states are more likely to misuse preemptions to interfere with labor standards. They write that state preemption laws are “intertwined with a history of segregation and other policy choices that have reinforced anti-Black racism and white supremacy.”

  Jacobin | July 19, 2024
• Eastern Iowa laborers slam state amid battle over relaxed child labor regulations

  Jennifer Sherer of the Economic Policy Institute shared statistics and a brief history of federal child labor restrictions on Tuesday, July 16, to the room of more than 30 union laborers and elected officials. She directs the Worker Power Project for the institute and is the former head of the University of Iowa Labor Center.

  The data indicated that the workforce is continuing to grow, while the number of U.S. Department of Labor agents available to investigate claims − from child labor to unpaid wages − is falling behind.

  “We are experiencing and living through a moment in U.S. history where we really can’t characterize this as anything other than a crisis,” Sherer said.

  Iowa City Press Citizen | July 19, 2024
• J.D. Vance sweet-talks rural Pennsylvania voters at the RNC

  However Black unemployment in our state is actually at one of its lowest right now. According to the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, the Black unemployment rate in Pennsylvania is about 5.7% compared to when Biden took office, when it was around 16.5%.

  WHYY | July 19, 2024

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