Economic Policy Institute

And right now is the time to change it.

Because the EPI came out with a report over the Labor Day weekend about how popular unions are.

New Gallup polling finds that a record high 71 percent of people in the country approve of unions.

And this coincides with the greatest number of workers represented by a union in 16 years.

She's president... of the Economic Policy Institute, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, and I'll tell you, her credentials, my gosh, chief economist, U.S. Department of Labor during the Obama administration.

She's also a member of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, one of the many proud sponsors of America's workforce.

I remember talking to Matt Biggs about the fact that the EPI is one of their members.

EPI.org does incredible research.

And that'll be it for another edition of America's Workforce.

Tomorrow, the Economic Policy Institute and what tripling union membership can do for the American economy.

Until then, all of you have a safe and wonderful day.

That concludes another episode of the America's Workforce radio podcast.

obvious.

Associate Professor Chloe East at CU Boulder is talking about the findings from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

It shows here in Colorado, on average, taxpayers are spending $2,397 each to fund direct costs for immigration enforcement like hiring ICE officers or even opening detention facilities.

And this report is really focused on that direct cost of hiring more ICE agents, of opening more detention centers, and what does that mean for the average taxpayer.

They're, they, they can't take off on their private jets without a worker fueling that plane and without a worker flying that plane and without a worker staffing that plane and making the food and prepping that.

There's, there's, um, so much that if we coordinate as a labor movement, um, we can actually build the kind of power that we need to reverse that chart, that since 1980, if you look at this from the, uh, Economic Policy Institute, wages have remained flat and productivity has gone through the roof.

Um, so much so that there's only one worker for every three in 1981.

All of that productivity, and think about that, you know, everybody talks about the eight-hour day, the 40-hour workweek.

... to build power.

Increased union density, there was just a study, I'll, I'll, I'll just end with this.

There was just a study, again, by the Economic Policy Institute, that if we triple union density, $1.2 trillion would be returned to the working class.

Wow.

Black workers have the highest union membership rate among the nation's major racial groups, 11.4%.

Economic Policy Institute research finds black workers covered by unions earn nearly 13% more than comparable non-union workers.

For AURN News, I'm Ebony McMorris.

Did you know one of the co-founders of FUBU is a U.S. Navy veteran? Well, that's why you got to check out the Brave Blocks podcast hosted by me, Greg Bernard.

For a lot of employers, that means the required wage goes down.

How far down? The Economic Policy Institute estimates farm workers stand to lose between $4.4 and $5.4 billion a year.

A group of senators is now pushing to freeze the rate entirely.

At the same time, the 2024 Worker Protection Rule, the one that added things like anti-retaliation and union access to worker housing, hasn't just been paused.

Employers now need to identify the state, the relevant job category, and whether the job is entry-level or experience.

That makes the analysis a little more granular than simply asking, what is the regional adverse effect wage rate?

So one of the, I think, interesting aspects of this is something that I would love our listeners to sit with is the Economic Policy Institute estimates farm workers stand to lose somewhere between $4.4 and $5.4 billion a year under the new formula we just walked through.

I know you represent the employers who've been asking for wage relief for years.

So we've seen some recent estimates.

came from the Economic Policy Institute that found that Colorado taxpayers are contributing about 5.4 billion to support the Trump administration's deportation push and that includes deportation and detainment at the GEO facility and potentially more of them, and that kind of equates to $2,400 per taxpayer.

Now, that's money that critics say could be flowing to other things like housing, Medicaid, or food assistance.

Separately, this week, we saw a survey come out from the Associated General Contractors Group.