EPI in the news

• Despite strong job growth, Franklin County’s declining poverty rate remains high

   

  In earlier years, wages would have started moving higher sooner in a bullish economic cycle than they did this time, said Valerie Wilson, director of the race, ethnicity and economy program for the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Even with the gains over the past five years, median household incomes in Franklin County and other areas are just now returning to the inflation-adjusted levels they were at a decade ago. “It started happening much later, not at the rate or pace that would suggest the labor market is tight,” Wilson said. And she said there are no policies or agendas at the federal level geared toward reducing income inequality between high- and low-income workers. Wilson’s group released a report this month titled “America’s Slow-Motion Wage Crisis,” which said that from 1980 to 2017, earnings of the highest-wage workers grew by 47 percent nationally when adjusted for inflation. Among the lowest-paid workers, the gain was 9 percent.

  The Columbus Dispatch | September 24, 2018
• #YesOn77

   

  So with Initiative 77 back in the spotlight, Rebecca sits down with Dave Cooper, a senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, and one of the policy experts who testified at the hearing.

  Off-Kilter | September 24, 2018
• Chicago hotel strike takes step toward resolution with Marriott contract, union says

  The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning nonprofit think tank, announced Thursday that it planned to move its annual Economic Analysis and Research Network conference from the Kimpton Hotel Allegro to “stand in solidarity” with the striking hotel workers. The conference, scheduled for Oct. 3-5, involved nearly 300 hotel nights, the nonprofit said.

  Chicago Tribune | September 24, 2018
• Chief executive pay continues to skyrocket

  In the United States, the pay-rise gap was wider still. The average chief executive of the 350 largest firms received an eye-watering $18.9 million, a 17.6 per cent increase on 2016, while the typical workers’ salary barely shifted, increasing just 0.3 per cent, according to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) think tank.

  Raconteur | September 24, 2018
• How is Florida doing after 20 years under GOP rule?

   

  The other Florida: Forty-four percent of households can’t afford basic needs such as food, housing, childcare, health care, and transportation, according to a United Way study. Florida is second only to New York in economic inequality; The average income of the top 1 percent earner in Florida is 40 times higher than the average income of the remaining 99 percent, the liberal Economic Policy Institute found.

  Tampa Bay Times | September 24, 2018
• The growth of income inequality in N.C. and how not to make it worse

   

  But there is more data from the Economic Policy Institute for a shorter time period (2010 to 2015) due to data availability at the county level that shows that income growth for the top 1 percent maps to geographic inequities in North Carolina.  In the state’s urban counties, the top 1 percent have incomes that are 23 times that of the bottom 99 percent, whereas in the state’s rural counties that ratio is 14 times. (Whole story)

  The Progressive Pulse | September 24, 2018
• Married men earn far more than any other American group

   

  Americans without a four-year college degree now earn less than they did in 1979, according to research from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. College-educated workers, meanwhile, enjoyed wage gains of about 16 percent over that time. Americans with graduate degrees saw their income rise 30 percent.

  CBS Moneywatch | September 20, 2018

More EPI in the news →