The Economic Policy Institute

EPI in the news

• Boehner Threatens To Take The Debt Limit Hostage Again

  According to the Economic Policy Institute, the cuts demanded by the GOP in exchange for raising the debt limit will cost the economy 1.8 million jobs this year. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner already pushed back on Boehner’s remarks, saying, “this commitment to meet the obligations of the nation, this commitment to protect the creditworthiness of the country, is a fundamental commitment that you can never call into question or violate.”

  Think Progress | May 16, 2012
• Long-term unemployed losing benefits as job picture improves

  “We’re adding jobs, but just enough to keep up with growth in the normal working-age population, not enough to start really putting the backlog of unemployed workers back to work,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, which focuses its research on low- and middle-income workers.

  MSNBC | May 15, 2012
• Lawsuit: Interns provided free labor, worked menial tasks

  About half of the nation’s internships are unpaid, said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president for the Economic Policy Institute, aWashington, D.C., think tank. Internships should provide training similar to what students are offered at a school, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

  The Labor Department has received few complaints about this, a spokeswoman said.

  But Eisenbrey said that’s because most interns are afraid to complain when they’re just starting out. The institute discussed these questionable internships at a recent forum with a Labor Department regulator, who said the agency is too understaffed to adequately monitor this.

  Baltimore Sun | May 15, 2012
• Geek Squad Employees Allegedly Forced To Work Off The Clock, Without Rest Periods

  Indeed, between 1979 and 2009 worker wages increased by just 10.1 percent compared to an 80 percent increase in worker productivity, according to a 2011 report by the Economic Policy Institute.

  The Huffington Post | May 14, 2012
• More Than 200,000 Americans Will Lose Their Unemployment Benefits This Weekend

  There are still more than three job seekers for every available opening, according to the Economic Policy Institute, and more than 30 percent of the unemployed have been out of work for a year or more. Considering those numbers, it makes no sense to cut people off from unemployment benefits, which have ensured that millions of Americans don’t slip below the poverty line. According to the Government Accountability Office, 20 percent of those cut off from unemployment benefits by early 2010 fell into poverty.

  Think Progress | May 14, 2012
• Tax Rates Have Fallen The Most For The Richest Americans

  It pays to be rich. Literally.

  Since Bill Clinton’s first term, taxes have fallen the most for the wealthiest Americans. Federal tax rates plunged 9.4 percent between 1995 and 2007 for the top 0.01 percent of households, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  The Huffington Post | May 14, 2012
• Romney’s 500,000 Monthly Jobs in U.S. Anything But Normal

  “I don’t think that kind of job creation is likely to happen anytime soon, but I’m all for setting ambitious benchmarks to get the unemployment rate down,” said Josh Bivens, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington group that says it focuses on the economic condition of low- and middle-class Americans.

  “To me, the bigger issue is who has policies that are more likely to do that, and I don’t think Romney has identified any,” Bivens said. “Nobody is putting policies on the table right now that would lead us to a rapid recovery.”

  Bloomberg | May 11, 2012

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