EPI in the news

• What Does Health Insurance Cost? A New Report Says Costs Are Rising

   

  The U.S. health care system has gotten itself into a bit of a vicious cycle, says the Economic Policy Institute, in which all these health care costs are keeping us from putting money back into the rest of the economy. The Economic Policy Institute recommends policymakers stop trying to restrict health care use through implementing a single-payer system and focus on controlling health care prices, which the EPI says is really what’s getting out of control.

  Bustle | October 18, 2018
• What Lessons Can Be Learned from NAFTA?

  What are America’s shifting politics around trade going to mean for the upcoming midterm elections? What lessons from the passage of NAFTA – and approximately 25 years of living with it – can advocates for American manufacturing and workers apply to its proposed replacement, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement? Those were the among the topics of discussion today at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC, where an expert panel unpacked the politics and policy influencing our dynamic nationwide trade debate. (whole story)

  Alliance for American Manufacturing | October 18, 2018
• Here’s What Health Care Costs In 2018. It’s Not Pretty.

   

  Employers cover the majority of this expense, but people end up paying for the benefit in different ways as rates continue to rise: The expense is passed along through higher cost sharing for visits and hospitalizations, and more of their compensation is coming in the form of health insurance instead of wages. “Rapid growth in the cost of US health care has put sustained downward pressure on wages and incomes,” a new report by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal nonprofit, found.

  Buzzfeed | October 16, 2018
• Here’s How Much Soaring Health Care Prices Have Cost American Workers

   

  It’s not news that health care costs have been rising for years, but a new report from Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute puts some eye-opening numbers on just how much the rising price of health care has cost American workers.

  Fiscal Times | October 16, 2018
• Teachers care for others’ kids but struggle to look after their own

   

  In the United States, teachers are hit particularly hard by this lack because roughly 76% of public school teachers are women, and they’re underpaid. In 2015, their weekly wages were roughly 17% lower than those of comparable workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  CNN | October 16, 2018
• Rising health-care costs are eating away at your wages and you may not even realize it

   

  Employer-sponsored insurance premiums have jumped dramatically in the last 20 years, from almost $6,000 in 1999 to more than $18,000 in 2016, according to a report released Wednesday by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive Washington-based economic think tank. Those health-care expenses accounted for 51.7% of the average annual earnings for the bottom 90% of the workforce in 2016, compared to 25.6% in 1999.

  Martketwatch | October 16, 2018
• With Health Care Eating Into Americans’ Paychecks, Work Doesn’t Mean Financial Security

  But a new report, released by the Economic Policy Institute the same day Trump’s op-ed went live, undercuts many of the president’s arguments. Healthcare costs are rising, which drives up premiums for employer-sponsored, private insurance plans. That, in turn, helps keep incomes and wages low. Josh Bivens, EPI’s director of research, concluded that the total cost of a family insurance plan provided by a member’s employer more than tripled between 1999 and 2016, jumping from an average of $5,791 to $18,142. For families whose earning fell in the bottom 90 percent, total premium costs as a share of their earnings doubled over the same period, from 25.6 to 51.7 percent.

  New York Magazine | October 16, 2018

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