EPI in the news

• 12 Million People to Lose Unemployment Benefits This Month When Federal Programs Expire

  Recent analysis from the Economic Policy Institute indicates that fewer than half of the 1.5 million workers who have already exhausted PEUC benefits are receiving Extended Benefits.

  Route Fifty | December 3, 2020
• ‘Better late than never’ applies to retirement investing, too

  Have a mortgage, older kids but little to no retirement savings? Alas, that’s not unusual: In 2016, the average American ages 50 to 55 had retirement savings of only $11,000, according to The State of American Retirement Savings, a report from the Economic Policy Institute.

  Nerd Wallet | December 3, 2020
• Biden economic nominees highlight experience and diversity

  Pay wall.

  Quartz | December 3, 2020
• Biden names liberal econ team as pandemic threatens workers

  Those choices “signal the desire of the Biden administration to take the CEA in a direction that really centers on working people and raising wages,” said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and former Labor Department chief economist during the Obama administration.

  AP News | December 3, 2020
• How to Save the Middle Class

  It’s also a familiar one for the middle class. After all, its lack of resilience was first highlighted when the conditions that drove its expansion in North America started to fall apart in the mid-1970s. Among the most significant setbacks occurred when Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries punished the US and any Western allies that supported Israel in the 1973 Arab–Israeli War by refusing to sell them oil. By the following year, the price of crude jumped about 400 percent, and the surge helped kick off a bout of stagflation—a lethal mix of economic stagnation, runaway inflation, and high unemployment—that undermined the generous incomes and benefits that had fed middle-class prosperity. The results of that are stark: after growing at a rate of 2.6 percent per year between 1947 and 1973, according to the Economic Policy Institute, hourly wages have struggled to keep up with inflation ever since.

  The Walrus | December 3, 2020
• Joe Biden’s win boosts US unions at a pivotal time

  Thea Lee, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think-tank close to unions, said that previous Democratic presidents saw labour groups as the “crazy uncle” that one would invite to a wedding and “pray to God he’s not going to give a toast”.

  Financial Times | December 3, 2020
• New Data Show Income of Top 0.1% Soared 345% While That of Bottom 90% Stagnated Over Past 40 Years

  The Economic Policy Institute reports that between 1979 and 2019, the top 1% of people in the U.S.—whose mean income was nearly $738,000 in 2018— have enjoyed 160% income growth, while wages for the bottom 90% have stagnated, rising just 26% over the same 40-year period.

  Common Dreams | December 3, 2020

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