The Employment Policies Institute is a fiscally conservative,

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

American

think tank A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governme ...

that conducts and publishes research on employment issues, particularly aimed towards reducing the

minimum wage A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. List of countries by minimum wage, Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation b ...

. It was established in 1991 by Richard Berman, and it has been described as "a nonprofit research group that studies issues of entry-level employment." Employment Policies Institute does not have its own employees or office, but rather its staff work for Berman and Company, which is a public affairs firm owned by Richard Berman, who lobbies for the restaurant, hotel, alcoholic beverage and tobacco industries. The charity evaluator

Charity Navigator Charity Navigator is a charity assessment organization that evaluates more than 230,000 charitable organizations based in the United States, operating as a 501(c)(3) organization. It provides insights into a nonprofit's financial stability, adh ...

has issued a donor advisory concerning The Employment Policies Institute.

Issues

The Employment Policies Institute has released a number of studies that look at the economic effects of policies (like the

health care Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...

mandates, and employment tax credits) on low-wage labor markets. It also regularly analyzes job market data in the United States Typically, studies are contracted by university

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

s and published under its name. In 2009, The Employment Policies Institute launched a campaign, Defeat The Debt, focusing on the

national debt A country's gross government debt (also called public debt or sovereign debt) is the financial liabilities of the government sector. Changes in government debt over time reflect primarily borrowing due to past government deficits. A deficit occ ...

Minimum wage

The Employment Policies Institute argues that increases to the minimum wage also increase unemployment among groups of workers like teens and less-educated and unskilled workers. Economists have varied views on the impact of minimum wage laws. It weighed in when

David Card David Edward Card (born 1956) is a Canadian-American labour economist and the Class of 1950 Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has been since 1997. He was awarded half of the 2021 Nobel Memorial Prize in ...

and Alan Krueger concluded that a 1992 minimum wage hike in

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

did not decrease employment in the state. Card and Krueger surveyed fast food employers in New Jersey before and after an April 1992 increase in the state minimum wage (from $4.25 to $5.05 per hour) and found a slight increase in employment. Critics of the analysis, including The Employment Policies Institute, noted that because Card and Krueger's research was based on informal headcounts acquired through telephone surveys, it could not be easily replicated. Subsequent analysis of these restaurants' payroll data records found that employment actually decreased by 4.6 percent after the minimum wage hike, and The Employment Policies Institute's findings were later verified by independent economists. This result would mean that the total amount of wages paid to minimum wage employees in the fast food industry in New Jersey increased 13.4 percent as a result of the increase in the minimum wage (employment declined 4.6 percent, but the minimum wage increased 18.8 percent, for a total change in wages paid of 13.4 percent). In 2000, Card and Krueger redid their study using a data set from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and reproduced their earlier conclusions. They also showed that Neumark and Wascher's results were due to a non-random biased sample of restaurants. In the time since the Card–Krueger study was released, many economists have tried to look at the effects of minimum wage increases on employment prospects. A 2006 review by Neumark and Wascher of over 100 studies on the minimum wage concluded that the general consensus view agreed that wage increases hurt employment opportunities for youths. In 2014, they took out billboards in San Francisco telling workers they will be replaced by iPads if they ask for a living wage.

Staff and management

Michael Saltsman has been identified on a number of occasions as The Employment Policies Institute research director. Samantha Summers is the nonprofits communications director.

Campaigns

National debt

Defeat The Debt is a project of The Employment Policies Institute that is focused on the national debt and was launched towards the end of 2009.

References

External links

Employment Policies Institute

Defeat The Debt

SourceWatch profile
{{Authority control 1991 establishments in Washington, D.C. Political and economic think tanks in the United States