The TPP is a back door for dumped and subsidized imports from China; it would enhance, not limit, China’s influence in the region
President Obama has built his closing case for the Trans-Pacific Partnership on a political argument, saying “…we can’t let countries like China write the rules of the global economy. We should write those rules.” But it is both arrogant and wrong to think that the United States has the power to shape the rules governing China’s relationship to TPP signatories. As of today, China has already established deeper trade ties than the United States with the TPP nations. Further, congressional approval of the TPP would actually lock in those advantages for China. China has a large trade surplus with the TPP countries, and crucial terms of the agreement (specifically weak rules of origin (ROO) requirements, which we’ll talk about in detail below) would provide a back-door guarantee for China and other non-TPP members to duty-free access to U.S. and other TPP markets. This would be especially significant for autos and auto parts, as well as other key products. TPP exporters are not going to turn away from their suppliers in China just because they signed a trade deal with the United States.
The United States has a massive trade deficit with China that has taken on added significance in the light of the proposed TPP agreement between the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries. While China is not party to the TPP, it is a major force behind a larger East Asian co-production system that uses unfair trade (dumping, subsidies, excess capacity, export restrictions, and more), coupled with currency manipulation and misalignment, to make U.S. goods more costly and thus less competitive in China, the TPP and in other markets.
The United States also had a large trade deficit with the TPP countries in 2015 that cost 2 million U.S. jobs. Flawed trade and investment deals, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), plus the currency manipulation and unfair trade by some TPP members account for many of those lost jobs (note that Mexico and Canada are TPP countries). In addition, analysis developed here demonstrates that a substantial share of these TPP job losses can be directly linked to trade between China and the other members of the TPP. Specifically, most of the TPP countries run large trade deficits with China while running large, offsetting trade surpluses with the United States. Thus, it appears that at least some TPP producers are buying parts and components from China and re-exporting them in the form of finished goods to the United States.
Setting a higher bar for the economy—and policymakers
There was some good news in this morning’s Employment Situation Report. The economy added 161,000 new jobs in October—enough to bring in players off the bench. Perhaps most significantly, nominal wage growth increased 2.8 percent over the year, another step-up over the pace of growth in recent years and a sign of a tightening labor market, where workers may be starting to gain some leverage. All in all, last month was a solid step closer to full employment, but we still have not reached it yet. It’s important to remember that these positive highlights don’t mean we are at full employment. That’s why the Federal Reserve made the right decision to leave rates alone earlier this week. The economy continues to move in the right direction, but considerable slack remains and the recovery has yet to be fully realized in all parts of the economy or for all workers.
This month and this year, the economy has hit some milestones, but I’d argue that those are relatively low bars for success. For example, for the first time this recovery, the prime-age employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) exceeded its low point of the last two business cycles. As seen in the figure below, prime-age EPOP hit 78.2 percent in October, just surpassing its level in February 1993 of 78.1 percent. Is it good that the prime-age EPOP is rising? Yes, but, prime-age EPOPS remain below the low point of the last recession, let alone levels that could constitute a full employment economy. That’s what I mean by a “low bar.” But, the uptick last month is a good sign and I look forward to continued progress on this key measure.
What to Watch on Jobs Day: A steadily improving, but still-weak labor market for the next president
Amidst lots of questions about the economy heading into the presidential election next week, I thought it would be appropriate to provide a brief analysis of where the economy is today. Since the Great Recession and aftermath, the labor market has improved at a remarkably consistent and steady rate. But as steady and long-lived as the recovery has been, it has not yet been fully cemented into a healthy, full employment economy. The improvement is easy to document. It can be obviously seen in the underlying growth in total payroll employment and precipitous drop in the unemployment rate. The still-unhealed damage is illustrated by remaining slack that has led to still slower than targeted nominal wage growth and underperforming prime-age employment-to-population ratio.
For its part, aside from a tap last December, the Federal Reserve has been keeping their foot off the brakes, letting the labor market soak up the slack. They should continue to do so until it’s all gone. In the last year, the labor force participation rate has risen, while the unemployment rate held steady. So, yes, the economy is on the right track. And, if payroll employment stays on course, the unemployment rate will start coming down again even as missing workers continue to enter or re-enter the labor force. And, as this happens, workers and would-be workers will be in shorter supply, finally giving them the leverage to bid up their wages.
What the UK decision implies for Uber drivers in the U.S.
This blog was first posted at OnLabor.
As Jon reported this morning, an employment tribunal in London has concluded that Uber drivers are not self-employed independent contractors, but rather Uber workers. The tribunal’s decision is available here, and I recommend it: it’s full of details regarding the relationship between Uber and its drivers. And although legal tests differ across jurisdictions, what the U.K. tribunal found has clear relevance for the question of whether Uber drivers in the U.S. meet the definition of “employee” under U.S. labor and employment laws. To put it bluntly, what the tribunal finds clearly confirms the conclusion that Uber drivers are employees under U.S. standards. The opinion is 40 single spaced pages, but here are some (and just some) of the relevant findings that led the tribunal to conclude that drivers are workers under UK law:
Fed should hold steady—the economy had “room to run” over past year and may well have more in the next year
The Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will debate again this week whether or not they should raise interest rates to slow the economic recovery in an effort to forestall potential inflation.
The debate over when the Federal Reserve should begin raising its short-term policy interest really began in earnest in September 2015. In the month before the FOMC met in September 2015, futures markets put the odds of a rate hike at over 50 percent. It is likely that all that kept the hike from happening in September of that year was the surprise financial market declines in China, which spilled over into the American stock exchanges for a spell. In December 2015, after this short-term drama passed, the Fed raised rates for the first time in seven years.
In the debate that accompanied the run-up to the September 2015 meeting, those arguing for further patience from the Fed (like this author) argued that there remained lots of slack remaining in the labor market, and that this slack would contain inflationary pressures. One source of slack identified was a potential firming-up of labor force participation, which had dropped considerably over the recovery.
Strong across-the-board wage growth in 2015 for both bottom 90 percent and top 1.0 percent
Annual inflation-adjusted earnings of the top 1.0 percent of wage earners grew 2.9 percent in 2015, and the top 0.1 percent’s earnings grew 3.4 percent, according to our analysis of the latest Social Security Administration wage data. What is relatively unique about 2015 was that the 3.4 percent wage growth for the bottom 90 percent matched that of the top 0.1 percent. This strong wage growth for the bottom 90 percent reflects both the lull in inflation (up just 0.1 percent) and the failure of wage inequality to continue its growth in 2015. Annual wages of the bottom 90 percent now stand 3.5 percent above what they were pre-recession in 2007, with all of that growth essentially occurring in 2015. The top 1.0 percent’s earnings have surpassed their previous high point, attained in 2007, by a mere 0.2 percent, recovering from the steep 15.6 percent fall during the financial crisis from 2007–09. High earners between the 90th and 99.9th percentile have seen the strongest growth since 2007, with earnings rising 7.7 percent. It’s only the earnings of the top 0.1 percent that remain below 2007 levels (down 5.1 percent).
Wage inequality has grown tremendously over the longer-term period from 1979 through 2015. The annual earnings of the top 1.0 percent rose 156.7 percent from 1979 to 2015 while the very top 0.1 percent enjoyed earnings growth of 338.8 percent. In contrast, the bottom 90 percent of wage earners had annual earnings grow by just 16.7 percent over the 1979–2007 period and an additional 3.5 percent between 2007 and 2015 for a cumulative annual earnings growth of 20.7 percent over the thirty-six years from 1979 to 2015.
Oregon Measure 97 would provide short and long-run boost to Oregon economy
The national recovery since the end of the Great Recession has been needlessly held back by spending cuts at all levels of government. Figure A below compares the growth in per capita spending by federal, state, and local governments in this recovery with previous recoveries.
Fiscal austerity explains why recovery has been so long in coming: Change in per capita government spending over last four business cycles
| 1982Q4 | 1991Q1 | 2001Q4 | 2009Q2 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -6 | 90.83817 | |||
| -5 | 96.46779 | 91.33168 | ||
| -4 | 96.72548 | 97.80345 | ||
| -3 | 96.51523 | 96.35624 | 94.05089 | |
| -2 | 97.21731 | 98.09825 | 98.14218 | 94.4813 |
| -1 | 98.26435 | 98.92533 | 97.98324 | 96.68474 |
| 0 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| 1 | 100.3829 | 100.7468 | 101.5275 | 99.84022 |
| 2 | 100.9558 | 100.4456 | 102.3723 | 99.50632 |
| 3 | 101.005 | 100.9653 | 102.8023 | 100.7222 |
| 4 | 99.79553 | 102.3054 | 103.3013 | 101.0192 |
| 5 | 100.4771 | 102.4831 | 103.1351 | 101.1242 |
| 6 | 101.715 | 102.7714 | 104.3665 | 100.3432 |
| 7 | 102.037 | 102.2554 | 104.5556 | 98.88213 |
| 8 | 103.485 | 101.9195 | 104.6451 | 98.15822 |
| 9 | 104.602 | 101.724 | 105.4192 | 97.23836 |
| 10 | 106.0107 | 102.011 | 105.8382 | 96.86414 |
| 11 | 107.6073 | 101.868 | 105.804 | 95.9267 |
| 12 | 107.6288 | 101.2959 | 105.4445 | 95.78736 |
| 13 | 108.7749 | 101.4328 | 106.1767 | 95.40735 |
| 14 | 110.4932 | 102.1325 | 106.3521 | 94.83589 |
| 15 | 112.3029 | 101.9209 | 106.5289 | 94.21625 |
| 16 | 111.6476 | 102.6275 | 106.0185 | 93.90439 |
| 17 | 112.0741 | 102.8173 | 107.5423 | 93.62299 |
| 18 | 112.6221 | 102.3836 | 107.6773 | 93.04895 |
| 19 | 112.3952 | 101.1486 | 107.8776 | 93.22292 |
| 20 | 113.0807 | 101.9359 | 108.2144 | 93.60604 |
| 21 | 113.3476 | 103.2437 | 109.1187 | 94.245 |
| 22 | 113.3408 | 102.7047 | 109.0787 | 94.14226 |
| 23 | 113.108 | 102.7598 | 109.5846 | 95.09063 |
| 24 | 114.405 | 103.1194 | 109.8789 | 95.43504 |
| 25 | 114.9973 | 103.4402 | 95.722 | |
| 26 | 116.1049 | 103.3562 | 95.86387 | |
| 27 | 116.8758 | 103.2392 | 96.35498 |
Note: For total government spending, government consumption and investment expenditures deflated with the NIPA price deflator. Government transfer payments deflated with the price deflator for personal consumption expenditures. This figure includes state and local government spending.
Source: EPI analysis of data from Tables 1.1.4, 3.1, and 3.9.4 from the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) of the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
As tight as federal spending growth has been in recent years, the bulk of the differences between the current recovery and previous ones shown in Figure A actually stems from state and local spending decisions. These state-level spending cutbacks have held down growth substantially.
States, unlike the federal government, are generally constrained in their ability to boost spending by the need to raise revenue. But as a general rule, government spending boosts economic activity in a weak economy more than tax cuts drag on activity. (In economist jargon, spending increases have higher “multipliers” than revenue increases.)
A women’s economic agenda for the 45th U.S. president: Investing in the infrastructure to support a 21st century economy
Progress on closing the gap between men’s and women’s wages in the U.S. economy has been glacially slow in recent decades—and gender wage parity has become a top priority for those committed to ensuring the economic security of American women. This priority is absolutely essential. No matter how you cut it, the gender wage gap is real and it matters. That said, pay parity cannot be the only goal for those looking to improve the economic lot of American women. In recent decades, the hourly pay of typical male workers has essentially stagnated even as the economy has grown. Closing only the gap between typical female and typical male workers threatens to ensure parity in this stagnation, not parity in progress. To achieve parity in progress, gains in reducing gender wage gaps must be paired with gains in closing another gap: the gap between economy-wide productivity and the wages of all typical workers. This is an ambitious goal, but it’s the only one that ensures genuine economic security for American women and the families that rely on them.
Here, I hope to draw out the importance of taking a holistic approach to improving the lot of women, men, and families across society. I can summarize my argument in three major points:
- The gender wage gap exists and progress closing it has been agonizingly slow, particularly in recent years. And, when combined with wage penalties faced by workers of color, it leads to wages for women of color being drastically lower than for white men.
- Rising inequality has kept the vast majority of men’s and women’s wages from rising as fast as gains in economy-wide productivity over the last four decades.
- Solutions need to close both the gender and inequality wage gaps and invest in a policy infrastructure to support all workers’ efforts to balance demands of work and home.
White House issues call to action on non-compete clauses
Labor mobility is fundamental to the ability to earn good wages. The improvement in incomes and living standards over the centuries is tied tightly to the growing ability of workers to quit the job they have and take another. And it is a timeless truth that employers will try to find new ways to hamper their employees’ legal right to leave. Increasingly, they are turning to non-compete clauses that they slip into the fine print of employment contracts. Thirty million U.S. employees, many of them relatively low wage workers, are bound by non-competes.
Peasants in medieval times were generally not permitted to leave the land on which they were born, and throughout Europe and Russia they were essentially owned by the owner of the land, their lord and master. The use of indentured servitude in the cities was a less onerous but still heavy burden on young workers, who were forced to work for years with little or no compensation for a single master, whose abuse or mistreatment usually had no remedy.
Slavery is the most extreme example of a legal limitation on labor mobility and the most destructive. Slavery in the United States not only brutalized and impoverished the enslaved, it dragged down the wages of anyone forced into competition with them. Slavery’s effects on free labor were an additional reason beyond simple morality for Abraham Lincoln and the free soil movement to oppose slavery. How could free construction workers, for example, demand higher wages if their employer’s competitor was using unpaid, enslaved labor?
Buried in the fine print: Forced arbitration
This article first appeared on the American Constitution Society (ASC) Blog.
From First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech in New Hampshire to accusations by Fox News’ Gretchen Carlson against Roger Ailes, sexual harassment and sexual assault have been dominating the headlines for months.
Also in the news has been the topic of forced arbitration agreements that limit victims’ ability to have their day in court. Very much a part of the Wells Fargo scandal has been the bank’s argument that it shouldn’t have to face its clients at trial.
These two stories actually have more in common than is often mentioned. First, of course, Fox tried to shut down Carlson’s suit by saying her contract’s arbitration clause prevented her from using that public forum. Few realize how common it is for women and men who allege harassment at work to be shunted into a secretive process that often prioritizes the interests of the employer.