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Schools remain heavily segregated by race and ethnicity, despite the Supreme Court declaring "separate but equal” to be unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education, more than 60 years ago. Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), EPI Economist Emma García finds that black students perform better, on average, on standardized tests, when they have the opportunity to attend schools with lower concentrations of poverty and larger shares of white students. Black children, however, are more likely to attend highly segregated schools and high-poverty schools than white children. Read the report »
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Schools are still segregated, and black children are paying a price
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After decades of declining strike activity, data on major work stoppages from the Bureau of Labor Statistics—including new 2019 data released this week—show that there was a substantial upsurge in 2018 and 2019, with 485,200 workers involved in major work stoppages in 2018 and 425,500 workers involved in major stoppages in 2019—together they make up the largest two-year average in 35 years. In 2017, only 25,300 workers were involved in work stoppages. Work stoppages are primarily composed of striking workers. Read the press release »
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As the state considers restoring bargaining rights to public-sector workers, new EPI research by economist Monique Morrissey finds that Virginia’s public-sector workforce is undercompensated relative to their private-sector counterparts. Although a majority of public-sector workers in Virginia have bachelor’s or advanced degrees, they earn less, on average, than private-sector workers, most of whom do not have college degrees. Taking into account education, experience, hours worked and other factors, public-sector workers earn 18.3%–20.8%.less than their private-sector counterparts. Although factoring in benefits narrows the gap, total compensation is 11.7%–14.4% lower for public-sector workers than for their private-sector counterparts in Virginia. Read the press release »
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Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) Equal Pay Day was February 11. It marked the number of days into 2020 that AAPI women have to work to make the same amount as their white male counterparts were paid in 2019. Put another way, the average AAPI woman needs to work almost an extra month and a half to make up for the shortfall in annual earnings relative to the average non-Hispanic white man. Read the blog post »
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Jeff Madrick’s new book, Invisible Americans: The Tragic Cost of Child Poverty, outlines the scale of child poverty and argues for a “monthly, substantial, and unconditional cash allowance” to the families of parents with children. Attendees at the event included tax, budget, and anti-poverty experts from The Century Foundation, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Children’s Defense Fund, Coalition on Human Needs, Community Change, Congressional Progressive Caucus Center, First Focus on Children, Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Urban Institute, National Partnership for Women and Families, National Women’s Law Center, and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Read about the book »
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EPI and nine other progressive organizations, led by the Groundwork Collaborative, are co-sponsoring EconCon 2020, a two-day conference to take place in Washington, D.C., on March 26 and 27. Keynote speakers include Senator Sherrod Brown, Philadelphia Councilmember Helen Gym, and author, professor, and sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom. The conference will feature a panel organized by EPI that will focus on four economic issues that the conservative narrative consistently gets wrong: robots, race, unions, and the minimum wage. You can see a list of sessions and speakers here. Register for the conference »
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Virginia isn’t for workers. Old Dominion is currently one of only three states to explicitly bar all public-sector employees from bargaining collectively. Read more »
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Way back in 2003 I published an article in the Times magazine titled “The tax-cut con,” in which I described what was already a well-established Republican strategy of bait-and-switch. Read more »
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HONG KONG—Angel was scrolling through the messaging app Telegram late last year when she saw a notice advertising a new union for health-care employees; her interest was piqued. Read more »
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EPI News: Strikes surge despite low unemployment
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