EPI in the news

• Trump and the US economy: What can he take credit for?

  A report by the Economic Policy Institute published last month contradicted his claims, however. It found that far from reenergizing the so-called Rust Belt — former industrial areas of the northeastern US that had seen a sharp economic decline since the 1990s — more manufacturing jobs left the US than were created during Trump’s first two years in office.

  The Washington-based think tank wrote: “President Trump’s erratic, ego-driven and inconsistent trade policies have not achieved any measurable progress, despite the newly combative rhetoric. On top of that, COVID-19  — and the administration’s mismanagement of the crisis — have wiped out much of the last decade’s job gains in US manufacturing.”

  Deutsche Welle | September 18, 2020
• Fewer Americans had health insurance last year before pandemic struck, Census Bureau report shows

  Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, said the undercount of people in poverty was probably over 2 million. And when there are undercount issues, Shierholz said, people at the lowest income brackets and people of color tend to be affected the most. For example, lower-income Americans may have less stable addresses or phone numbers, or it might take more time and investment to build trust with a survey-taker.

  “It’s not trivial,” Shierholz said. “It doesn’t change the broader story in these numbers … and the Census Bureau is being super transparent about this issue. But it’s an issue.”

  Washington Post | September 18, 2020
• Under Trump’s administration, America’s national debt has increased by nearly $7 trillion

  Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, told Newsweek that he did not see the debt as growing “all-that-exceptionally under the Trump administration” prior to the pandemic. However, Bivens criticized the Trump administration’s major economic legislation—the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017—which was the main driver of increasing debt during the president’s first three years in office.

  “I think that was an awful use of fiscal resources—funneling lots of money to already-rich households that didn’t need it,” the economist said. “I think we could’ve done a number of much more valuable things with those fiscal resources, but my real objection is the opportunity cost of the tax cut—what wasn’t done with those fiscal resources—rather than its effect in pushing up debt.”

  Newsweek | September 18, 2020
• Exceeding Texas population: 29M Americans got unemployment last week

  The Economic Policy Institute estimates roughly 6.2 million out-of-work Americans lost employer sponsored health care with their job. About 85% of laid off workers were able to access health insurance through other options, with Medicaid enrolling about 4 million new insures, but millions have fallen through the cracks and remain uninsured.

  Courthouse News Service | September 18, 2020
• Around 860,000 people filed for first-time jobless benefits last week

  “This drop in benefits will make it far harder in coming months to claw back the jobs lost during the pandemic,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in a note.

  NBC News | September 18, 2020
• Teachers earn almost 20% less than comparable college grads: Economic Policy Institute

  Being asked to go above and beyond the call of duty is par for the course when it comes to being a teacher in the United States right now — and for significantly less pay than non-teacher college grads. According to new research by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), public school teachers earn about 20% less in weekly wages than non-teacher college graduates.

  Despite a small contraction recently, the “teacher wage penalty” — which EPI defines as how much less, in percentage terms, public school teachers are paid in weekly wages compared to other college-educated workers (after accounting for age, degree level, marital status, state residence, and other factors that affect earnings) — has grown substantially in the last 20 years.

  In 1996, the wage penalty was 6.0%. In 2019, the penalty was 19.2%, reflecting a 2.8 percentage-point improvement compared with a penalty of 22.0% a year earlier. EPI believes the uptick could be due to several successful strikes around the country in 2018 and 2019.

  Yahoo Finance | September 18, 2020
• State AG enforcement is important for workers’ rights

  As reported in a recent Law360 article on the Economic Policy Institute’s report on recent state attorney general labor and employment activity.

  Law360 | September 18, 2020

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