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EPI in the news

• Climate Advocates Call on Senate to Confirm Key Fed Nominees

  The three nominees “having better qualifications than dozens of past nominees and eventual board governors,” the Economic Policy Institute’s Josh Bivens wrote last week, proved no buffer to resistance from the fossil fuel sector and Republicans. He said that “organized opposition… mostly settled into a focus on Cook and Raskin.

  Common Dreams | February 4, 2022
• The 4-Day Week Is Flawed. Workers Still Want It

  Reduced working hours have long been a demand from labor; unions won reductions from six days a week to five in the early 20th century, and the US Fair Labor Standards Act enshrined the 40-hour workweek in law in 1938. But while productivity has shot up roughly threefold since then, pay has risen by only about half that amount, according to the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute. The length of the workweek has stayed largely the same.

  WIRED | February 4, 2022
• Americans have quit at nearly record rates for 9 months, and employers don’t want to fire people — showing just how much worker power has grown

  The Economic Policy Institute’s Elise Gould said on Twitter: “The hires rate remains higher than the quits rate in every major industry. This indicates that when workers quit, they are taking other jobs-likely in the same sector-not dropping out of the labor force altogether.”

  Business Insider | February 4, 2022
• Why David Weil Is the Most Important Biden Nominee You’ve Never Heard Of

  The Obama Labor Department tried to fix all this. It made a practical decision to leave intact the dog’s breakfast that Bush had made of the duties test but doubled the wage ceiling from $23,660 to $47,476. If you earned less than $47,476, it didn’t matter what your boss said your duties were, he owed you overtime whenever you worked more than 40 hours. In future years the ceiling would be “indexed” to inflation, thereby preventing another post-1975 slide. The Obama rule expanded overtime coverage from 7 percent of workers to 23 percent, according to calculations by the Economic Policy Institute.

  The New Republic | February 4, 2022
• Over half of teachers are thinking about leaving the sector early, as schools continue to struggle with employment in the pandemic

  “Public officials should seize this moment of greater fiscal flexibility to begin making the reforms needed to attract, keep safe, and retain high-quality teachers and support staff,” the Economic Policy Institute’s David Cooper and co-author of a new report said per a press release. “That means raising pay, enacting strong COVID protections, investing in teacher development programs, and finding ways to support part-time and part-year staff when school is not in session.”

  Business Insider | February 4, 2022
• The San Francisco school board recall is a test run for mayoral
  A 2013 study by the Economic Policy Institute on three cities that were under mayor control — Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago (paywall).
  San Francisco Chronicle | February 4, 2022
• The astonishing cost of pandemic-era day care

  The Economic Policy Institute says in 33 states, day care for a 1-year-old costs more than in-state college tuition.

  Poynter | February 4, 2022

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