According to the Economic Policy Institute, almost half — or 49.4% to be exact — of all businesses ask employees upon hiring to sign a noncompete contract that effectively prohibits where a person can work in the future or for whom. And while it may be more standard for chief executives or corporate higher-ups with access to sensitive trade secrets, noncompete clauses have increasingly become de rigeuer in the lower ranks of the workforce as well.
Courthouse News Service
July 16, 2021
Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), said Thursday that “noncompetes are ubiquitous, harmful to wages and to competition, and part of a growing trend of employers requiring workers to sign away their rights.”
Truthout
July 16, 2021
The justification for the 2017 tax cuts was that lower taxes on companies would create more jobs and enable growth. But according to a study from the Economic Policy Institute, companies paying minimal corporate taxes were actually more likely to cut their workforce. The report also showed no data to support the idea that lower tax rates encourage investments or broader economic growth.
The Hill
July 16, 2021
Heidi Shierholz / sr. economist and director of policy, economic policy institute) we know that non compete agreements suppress workers wages and so banning them will remove that wage suppressing effect and actually increase workers wages.
CBS News
July 16, 2021
The Federal Arbitration Act is a 100-year-old law that was initially designed to be a cost effective way for business entities to resolve disputes. A series of Supreme Court decisions beginning in the 1990s expanded its scope. In 1992, just 2 percent of U.S. workers were subject to mandatory arbitration clauses. By 2018, more than 56 percent were, or roughly 60 million workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The 19th
July 16, 2021
This executive order comes as noncompetes are on the rise across the country, with anywhere between 27% and 46% of all private-sector workers subject to the agreements, according to a 2019 survey by the Economic Policy Institute. Though broadly intended to discourage employees from taking trade secrets along with them when they switch jobs, noncompete clauses are increasingly worked into jobs across the economic scale.
LA Times
July 16, 2021
Black workers are especially underrepresented in industries and occupations with the fastest growth in pay. Valerie Rawlston Wilson…[Paywall]
USA Today
July 16, 2021
According to a 2019 report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), 31.8% of private-sector businesses that responded to EPI’s survey (a total of 634 respondents were surveyed) reported that all of their employees had to sign a non-compete agreement, regardless of their job duties or compensation. And of the respondents that had an average wage of less than $13.00, 29% of them required all their workers to enter into non-compete agreements.
Forbes
July 16, 2021
For more than three decades, our friends at the Economic Policy Institute have been waging a lonely struggle against the conventional wisdom about the causes of widening inequality. They did not have powerful allies on their side. All they had was reality.
Now, EPI’s research has been vindicated, and is increasingly accepted by mainstream economists. Wage inequality is the result of deliberate suppression of wages, which in turn is the result of a deepening power inequality.
Even better than having reality on their side, EPI economists now have a Democratic administration on their side. Several senior Biden people, including Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey on the Council of Economic Advisers, are former EPI staffers, and EPI’s insights are at last influencing national policy.
EPI pulled together all of this research in a document called “Unequal Power.”
I recently had a Zoom conversation with former EPI president Larry Mishel, the leader of this research project, along with professors Anna Stansbury of MIT and Suresh Naidu of Columbia University, to discuss the findings. You can watch the interview below:
The American Prospect
July 16, 2021
This executive order comes as noncompetes are on the rise across the country, with anywhere between 27% and 46% of all private-sector workers subject to the agreements, according to a 2019 survey by the Economic Policy Institute. Though broadly intended to discourage employees from taking trade secrets along with them when they switch jobs, noncompete clauses are increasingly worked into jobs across the economic scale.
LA Times
July 16, 2021
Black workers are especially underrepresented in industries and occupations with the fastest growth in pay. Valerie Rawlston Wilson…[Paywall]
USA Today
July 16, 2021
According to a 2019 report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), 31.8% of private-sector businesses that responded to EPI’s survey (a total of 634 respondents were surveyed) reported that all of their employees had to sign a non-compete agreement, regardless of their job duties or compensation. And of the respondents that had an average wage of less than $13.00, 29% of them required all their workers to enter into non-compete agreements.
Forbes
July 16, 2021
For more than three decades, our friends at the Economic Policy Institute have been waging a lonely struggle against the conventional wisdom about the causes of widening inequality. They did not have powerful allies on their side. All they had was reality.
Now, EPI’s research has been vindicated, and is increasingly accepted by mainstream economists. Wage inequality is the result of deliberate suppression of wages, which in turn is the result of a deepening power inequality.
Even better than having reality on their side, EPI economists now have a Democratic administration on their side. Several senior Biden people, including Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey on the Council of Economic Advisers, are former EPI staffers, and EPI’s insights are at last influencing national policy.
EPI pulled together all of this research in a document called “Unequal Power.”
I recently had a Zoom conversation with former EPI president Larry Mishel, the leader of this research project, along with professors Anna Stansbury of MIT and Suresh Naidu of Columbia University, to discuss the findings. You can watch the interview below:
The American Prospect
July 16, 2021
The White House estimates that noncompete agreements are used by roughly half of private-sector businesses for at least some of their employees, affecting anywhere between 36 million and 60 million workers. The numbers come from a 2019 report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which surveyed 634 employers.
KUOW
July 16, 2021
Union membership has neared all-time lows across the US, while income inequality has widened, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank.
A report from the organisation earlier this year found that the annual median income for a full-time worker is $3,250 less than similar work in 1979 amid declining union enrollment.
The Independent
July 16, 2021
As union membership approaches all-time lows in recorded history, income inequality is now worse than it’s been since the Great Depression, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Indeed, workers are feeling the effects — an EPI report earlier this year found that the median full time worker is making $3,250 less per year than in 1979 because of declining unionization.
Truthout
July 16, 2021
And they’re refusing to work in shit conditions. The Economic Policy Institute points out that many of the people screeching about worker shortages are restaurant owners. Lots of the businesses struggling to attract workers in Ohio and South Carolina come from the restaurant and hospitality sectors. These business owners are trying to find workers at the same wages they paid pre-pandemic.
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Workers exist for these jobs. UE reports that when Klavon’s Ice Cream, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, raised their wages to $15 an hour, they were “flooded with applicants.” As the Economic Policy Institute says, in a labor market as complex as America’s, there will always be pockets of worker shortages. But right now, “Employers post their too-low wages, can’t find workers to fill jobs at that pay level, and claim they’re facing a labor shortage… whenever anyone says, ‘I can’t find the workers I need,’ she should really add, ‘at the wages I want to pay.’”
Scary Mommy
July 12, 2021
Over 200,000 workers will see their paychecks grow, according to an estimate by Ben Zipperer of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Of the workers who will benefit, most are women, according to Zipperer; Black and Hispanic workers will see the largest hikes.
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Workers who earn above the minimum wage will likely also benefit from hikes, according to Zipperer. They’ll feel “ripple” effects as their employers adjust pay internally, and could see their own wages increase.
Insider
July 12, 2021
As the U.S. economy (and our favorite eateries) reopen, many restaurants are facing a service worker shortage. Saying goodbye to the tipping model could be just the solution, said David Cooper of the Economic Policy Institute.
“I think [the pandemic] has rightly forced us into this sort of rethinking about job quality and what workers should expect. And that’s created the scenario we’re in now, where employers are struggling to fill these jobs because, generally, they’re just low-quality jobs,” he said.
Cooper added that the stressors of pandemic-era serving, including having to police mask-wearing or social distancing, as well as the risks of working an in-person job, added more to the plates of low-paid service workers.
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But if the service industry wants to recruit and retain employees, Spriggs and Cooper believe it has to re-evaluate the gratuity model that allows customers to determine the total pay of their employees.
Marketplace
July 12, 2021
Low-wage workers in general were struck most severely by the current recession, as less than 75% of low-wage workers were still working in 2020 as opposed to 95 percent of high-wage earners (or those in the top 25 percent of wage distribution), according to data from the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan policy think tank.
Yahoo Finance
July 12, 2021
But, “there really isn’t any evidence of widespread labor shortage,” said Valerie Wilson at the Economic Policy Institute.
If there were, Wilson said, employers would be jacking up wages across the board to entice unemployed workers. Instead, there are some pockets of wage acceleration, “in leisure and hospitality. A big boost in those wages is the fact that they’re getting more tips now because more people are coming to those restaurants in person.”
Marketplace
July 12, 2021
“Returning workers are earning more (as they should) – nominal hourly earnings of production non-supervisory workers are up 3.67% over this time last year,” tweeted Valerie Wilson, an economist at the progressive-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Al Jazeera
July 12, 2021
“Many people who lost jobs at the start of the pandemic have been unemployed ever since. As jobs come back they will get work but there is still a big jobs deficit—labor demand is still the problem,” tweeted Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
The Hill
July 12, 2021
Payroll growth over the last three months in the US has been ‘huge’, says Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute (and former chief economist at the Department of Labor)
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Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 850,000 in June, following increases of 583,000 in May and 269,000, today’s report shows – or around 1.7 million new jobs.
Shierholz also points out that the recovery is much faster than after the financial crisis — but doesn’t see worrying signs in the wage data:
The Guardian
July 12, 2021
We are in the midst of a teacher shortage crisis. The Economic Policy Institute’s final report in their series, “Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market,” noted only 30 percent of teachers report feeling they have the power to select instructional materials, topics, or skills to be taught in their classrooms. The authors suggest public policy “ensure[s] that teachers have a say in the curriculum they teach, the classroom practices they follow, and the materials they use.” Federal protection of academic freedom does that; state bans do the opposite.
Newsweek
July 12, 2021
Facts like this: Between 1979 and 2019, the Economic Policy Institute reported this past December, the bottom 90 percent of American paychecks barely annually increased at all. In effect, EPI observes, wages for the bottom 90 percent have been “continuously redistributed upwards” — “frequently” to the top 1 and 0.1 percent.
Inequality.org
July 12, 2021
Even before the pandemic, child care was known for it exorbitant costs, which vary by state. The average annual cost of child care for a 4-year-old in New York costs $12,358, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. In Kentucky, it costs $6,411 but is still categorized as “out of reach” for low-wage workers. Overhead costs, liability insurance, licensing fees and labor costs contribute to the overall price tag.
Forbes
July 12, 2021
Additionally, the state of Arkansas has the third-lowest average annual childcare costs – less than $6,200, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute.
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Average annual childcare costs range from roughly $5,100 to more than $21,600. Using data from the Economic Policy Institute, we calculated average annual childcare costs, averaging the expected annual cost of infant care and the cost for care for a four-year old in each state.
Yahoo Finance
July 12, 2021
Led by the Progressive Caucus Action Fund, the Economic Policy Institute, the Institute for Policy Studies, and the Poor People’s Campaign, the joint statement characterizes the $6 trillion framework proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) as the “minimum scale necessary to tackle our nation’s most urgent challenges.”
Common Dreams
July 12, 2021