Media clips

• October 7, 2022
  October 7, 2022
• Will Elon Musk’s Tesla Bot replace human workers?
  … automation can be a good thing for the economy in the long run, said Josh Bivens, research director at the Economic Policy Institute. (paywall)
  LA Times September 30, 2022
• Did the pandemic finally give working Americans power over their employers? Not really

  The inadequacy of wage growth is shown by two other factors. One is the disconnect between productivity growth and wage growth. The two factors marched along together from 1948 until 1979, as the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute has shown. Since then, the gap between them has grown: From 1979 through 2020, U.S. productivity advanced by 61.8%, but average wages grew by only 17.5%.

  LA Times September 30, 2022
• Many Americans find themselves in a Catch-22 as inflation keeps prices, interest rates high

  “The lowest-income households, say bottom 20%, tend to not carry a ton of debt having incomes too low often to even qualify for significant loans,” L. Josh Bivens, research director with the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI), said in an email.

  USA Today September 30, 2022
• Robert Scott on BBC

  Rob joins BBC to discuss the impact of Fed Policy on currency values. WeTransfer link included.

  BBC September 30, 2022
• Column: Did the pandemic finally give working Americans power over their employers? Not really

  The inadequacy of wage growth is shown by two other factors. One is the disconnect between productivity growth and wage growth. The two factors marched along together from 1948 until 1979, as the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute has shown. Since then, the gap between them has grown: From 1979 through 2020, U.S. productivity advanced by 61.8%, but average wages grew by only 17.5%.

  LA Times September 30, 2022
• Maximizing the Minimum: Why America’s federal minimum wage needs a change

  Although, an increase to $15 an hour would absolutely suffice. According to the Economic Policy Institute, raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025 will increase the incomes of around 32 million workers by an average of $3,300 annually.   

  This comes from the idea that if these 32 million workers were able to make more money, they would have more disposable income to spend at small businesses, therefore generating more income for the business overall. With this disposable income, the Economic Policy Institute estimated that for every $1 paid to a low-income worker, $1.21 is added back into the gross domestic product (GDP). 

  The Economic Policy Institute projected that in 2025, a single adult with no children would need to work full time and make $18.50 per hour to stay above the poverty line in rural areas of Alabama and Mississippi.

  The Daily Cardinal September 30, 2022
• Will Elon Musk’s Tesla Bot replace human workers? It’s not that simple

  With a more robust social services net, greater numbers of high-quality jobs across the economy and a comprehensive plan for transitioning automated-out workers to new job, automation can be a good thing for the economy in the long run, said Josh Bivens, research director at the Economic Policy Institute.

  “Automation is mostly opportunity,” he said. “It’s opportunity we need to manage better than we have, but I think blaming it for problems in inequality … really takes the blame off where it should be,” which is on concrete policy decisions that were the actual drivers, he said.

  LA Times September 30, 2022
• Analysis: Some workers still don’t have paid sick time post-pandemic

  A study by the Economic Policy Institute showed disparities are still prevalent in paid leave, specifically sick time, in America.

  The EPI report used data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to identify trends in employer benefits throughout the country, and found more than 60% of “low-wage workers” still live without the ability to paid for sick time.

  “The highest-wage workers (top 10%) are two-and-a-half times as likely to have access to paid sick leave as the lowest-paid workers (bottom 10%),” the report stated.

  The data emphasizes the need for not only sick leave, but paid leave of all kinds, something Will Petrik, budget researcher from Policy Matters Ohio, said should be common sense for Ohio.

  Ohio Capital Journal September 30, 2022
• Gig Drivers Strive for a Safer Workplace

  An estimated 54% of gig workers do not receive employer-provided benefits, according to Employee Rights Advocacy Institute For Law & Policy, a labor advocacy organization. Most gig workers are classified as independent contractors and are not entitled to benefits enjoyed by full-time employees. Those missing benefits can include paid sick days, health and safety protections, or unemployment insurance, according to a survey analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. 

  YES! Magazine September 30, 2022
• Workers at Philadelphia Home Depot file for union

  According to the Economic Policy Institute, 42% of Home Depot workers earn less than $15 an hour. Most — 68% — make between $12 to $18. The living wage in Philadelphia for a single worker with no children is $17.87.

  Mundo Obrero Workers World September 30, 2022
• The fight for a living wage in Kansas City no longer stops at $15 an hour

  Over the decades, real wages  —  meaning wages accounting for inflation  —  have not increased significantly in comparison to the cost of living. The current value of the federally mandated minimum wage, $7.25 an hour, is at its lowest real-dollar level since the 1950s, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  Missouri Independent September 30, 2022
• Column: Young people need to fight for Social Security — now more than ever

  Other than retirement plans, most families have “little or no retirement savings” and “nearly half of families have no retirement account savings at all, Monique Morrissey of the labor-supported Economic Policy Institute documented in a 2019 paper.

   
  LA Times September 30, 2022
• How one elementary principal is dealing with hiring staff and kids’ learning loss

  Schools in the U.S. are back to in-person classes, but many districts continue to struggle with hiring. The Economic Policy Institute tracked trends in teacher wages and compensation and found that “teachers are paid less (in weekly wages and total compensation) than their nonteacher college-educated counterparts.” 

  Marketplace September 30, 2022
• Why Is the Dollar Crushing Global Currencies if Inflation Is so Bad?

  Data from the Economic Policy institute shows that inflation has been similar worldwide over the past year-plus, with little correlation to either pandemic spending or post-pandemic recovery as measured by unemployment levels.

  Based on that data, EPI argues that supply chain disruptions, rising commodity costs and shifting consumption patterns are more to blame for inflation than the money printer. That is, the problem isn’t too much money but too few goods, in the wrong place.

  Nasdaq September 30, 2022
• Income inequality in Ohio

  Zoom in: According to the Economic Policy Institute, Cleveland-Elyria is the most unequal metropolitan area in the state.

  • Average yearly income of the top 1% is over $1 million. The bottom 99% is just over $48,000.
  Axios September 30, 2022
• Two states, two visions for the future of labor

  The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI), by contrast, has found that right-to-work laws did not boost job growth and are associated with lower wages and benefits for all workers. “By restricting the capacity of unions to bargain for workers and thus lowering wages and benefits, RTW laws lower tax revenues and reduce aggregate demand,” EPI said in a report published in 2018.

  VOX September 30, 2022
• Inflation vs. Recession

  According to the Economic Policy Institute, economists’ opinions vary on which is worse for an economy: a recession or rising inflation. One common argument is that inflation is worse than a recession because it impacts everyone. By contrast, a recession—and the associated job losses that come with it—may impact a smaller number of people.

  Forbes September 30, 2022
• Buckle up, America: The Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment

  When rates rise, “Any consumer item that people take on debt to buy — whether that’s automobiles or washing machines — gets more expensive,” said Josh Bivens, research director at the Economic Policy Institute. 

  “Inflation will come down quite a bit faster if we actually hit a recession. But the cost of that is going to be much bigger,” said Bivens said. 

  The danger, Bivens said, is that the Fed has set off a runaway train. Once unemployment starts rising sharply, it’s hard to make it stop. Rather than neatly halting at the 4.4% rate projected by Fed officials, the jobless numbers could easily keep rising.

  “This idea that there’s an inflation dial that the Fed can just haul on really hard and leave everything else untouched, that’s a fallacy,” Bivens said. 

  Instead of the soft landing for the economy the Fed says it’s aiming for, Bivens added, “we are now pointing the plane at the ground pretty hard and hitting the accelerator.

  CBS September 30, 2022
• Altercation: How the Democrats’ Economics Changed

  2. Economics has finally recognized the existence of politics. For decades, or centuries even, economics gave no thought to politics. Wages, for example, were determined by a set of market forces, and politics had nothing to do with it. That’s how academics thought, but it’s not how the world works. In the world, workers make what they have the political power to make. That seems obvious to you and me, but economists were (and many still are) deeply resistant to acknowledging this. The book tells the story of how this change came about, through the work of people like Joseph Stiglitz and groups like the Economic Policy Institute. It’s a really important change because it rejects the assumption of classical economics that left alone, the market will find equilibrium. No—the state has to play an evening-out role.

  American Prospect September 30, 2022
• Burned out and priced out: L.A. teachers are struggling

  Over the past five years, the average LAUSD teacher earned between $74,000 and $79,000 annually, compared to a salary range of $94,000 to $101,000 for the average bachelor’s degree-holder in Los Angeles, the UTLA study found. Teacher salaries don’t reflect the rate of inflation, the report contends, a conclusion that a recent study from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) also makes. The EPI analysis found that teachers nationwide earn 23.5 percent less than comparable college graduates, while the UTLA study found that its members earned 22 percent less than similarly educated Angelenos during the 2019-20 school year. To make up for this deficit, 28 percent of UTLA educators work another job to supplement their income, with 24.4 percent of teachers who’ve worked for the district for more than 20 years doing so. 

  The 19th September 30, 2022
• New Child Care Tax Credit From Pennsylvania: Families To Get Up To $630

  Rising child care costs is a burden for working families, and if it gets unaffordable, it can keep parents away from the workforce. Also, it could keep children out of early learning programs. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that the average cost of infant care in Pennsylvania is around $12,000.

  24/7 Wall Street September 30, 2022
• Richest 1% of Ohioans make almost as much as entire bottom half, analysis says

  When it comes to income inequality, Ohio is a little better than average. It ranked 29th in 2018, with the top 1% of earners getting an average of $859,000 a year and everybody else earning an average of $46,000, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

  ABC News 5 September 30, 2022
• Anti-Poverty Programs Work, and the Pandemic Is Proof

  A new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute shows what the Left has always argued: that our best tool in the fight against poverty is redistributive social spending.

  In this respect, a new analysis recently published by Asha Banerjee and Ben Zipperer of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is just the latest addition to a vast body of data demonstrating that poverty is, straightforwardly, a policy choice. Drawing on the latest census data, Banerjee and Zipperer analyze the implications of various income support and pandemic-era programs in  2021 — finding that they protected tens of millions from falling into poverty, contributing to a rate that was lower than before the pandemic.

  Not every program in EPI’s report dates from the pandemic. By far the largest impact (unsurprisingly) came from Social Security, which kept an estimated 26.3 million people from poverty in 2021.

  But direct stimulus payments, unemployment checks, and tax credits also had a pronounced effect:

  For decades, Democratic and Republican politicians alike have hacked away at the universality of various social programs — often, once again, on the absurd grounds that means-testing is more effective. It’s notable, then, that Banerjee and Zipperer find pandemic-era unemployment insurance (UI) benefits kept some 2.3 million out of poverty, one reason being that they did away with many of the restrictive eligibility requirements (the authors, in fact, note that estimates drawing on the existing census data likely understate the extent of UI’s anti-poverty impact, which was quite probably millions more). They conclude:

  Given the overwhelming effectiveness of these programs in keeping people out of poverty, it is unconscionable that policymakers have allowed them to expire and added to the stress of low-income families in the years to come.

  Banerjee and Zipperer are absolutely right. However, the pandemic — and the various discourse which ensued around particular benefits and credits — also underscored the extent to which the “debate” around the effectiveness (or supposed noneffectiveness) of social expenditure is an illusion.

  Jacobin September 30, 2022
• Opinion

  The Economic Policy Institute shows that more than 60% of Tennessee corporations pay nothing in franchise and excise tax, the state’s corporate income tax.

  The Tennessean September 30, 2022
• Empire State Teachers Are Among Highest Paid In US: Study

  “Teachers face myriad issues, including wage degradation,” Seton Hall Professor Christopher Tienken said of the findings. “For example, according to an economic policy institute (EPI) report from August 26, 2022, average weekly teacher wages grew by just $29 when adjusted for inflation, between 1996-2021, compared to $445 for other college graduates over the same period. Dubbed the ‘Teacher pay penalty,’ teachers can make as little as 35 percent less than college-educated people in other professions.”

   
  New Rochelle Patch September 30, 2022
• Work-from-home wave may leave out most Black workers

  Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, called work-at-home “vastly unequal.” Most workers, she told theGrio, continued going into the workplace during the height of the pandemic.

  But two other numbers from the report support Gould’s point. The survey found that 35% of workers could work from home five days a week, which means most workers can’t. Moreover, 41% of workers could not work from home because their jobs aren’t conducive to remote work.  

  Gould and Asfaw each noted that discrimination, both historical and modern-day, plays a role.

  “I often have people say, well, women are choosing to work in certain professions or choosing to be in certain jobs,” said Gould, who also studies the gender wage gap. “You can say the same thing about occupational segregation by race. There’s historical discrimination in access to education, promotions, and access to all those jobs” that directly impact the disparities we see today.

  “It’s whether or not you have a computer or a broadband Internet subscription,” Gould said. “And certainly there is a very tangible digital divide between black and white households. So certainly whether you have those resources in your community or if you have your resources at home (are) factors that would lead to occupational segregation.”

  The Grio September 30, 2022
• BLACK TECH PROFESSIONALS RESOLVED TO OVERCOME RECESSION AND ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN BY STRENGTHENING COMMUNITY NETWORKS

  With the recession’s rise, a climate has developed in which Black professionals have frequently been faced with more lay-offs, hiring freezes, reduced sponsorship possibilities, and smaller raises while also experiencing greater unemployment rates and unemployment periods than their white counterparts. For example, while economists maintain that the U.S. labor market has recovered since the pandemic, with overall unemployment decreasing to 3.5%, a 6% boost impacted Black workers (Economic Policy Institute 2021). An outcome which is not surprising given that Black professionals are often the last hired and first fired during times of economic instability.

  Black Enterprise September 30, 2022
• 4 in 10 California teachers considering leaving the classroom

  And as calls for better pay amplify among teacher union strikes and educator surveys, a recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute found teachers’ weekly wages and total compensation worsened over time compared to college-educated professionals who didn’t teach. Public school teachers’ average weekly wages increased by only $29 from 1996 to 2021 when adjusted only for inflation, while the weekly wages of other college graduates rose by $445 in that same period.

  K-12 Dive September 30, 2022
• EPI: Raise the minimum wage to protect low-wage workers

  The following is from the Economic Policy Institute. NOTE: In Washington state, voters have required the state minimum wage be adjusted annually for inflation. The state will soon announce the minimum wage for 2023.

  WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 26, 2022) — There are two main debates about what to do about inflation. One is mostly good-faith (if highly contested): it concerns the actions of the Federal Reserve. Another is mostly bad-faith: it uses the existence of elevated inflation as a cudgel against any progressive policy change and as a justification for long-standing ideological priorities. This is most visible in fiscal policy debates, with some people claiming simultaneously that spending must be restrained (a contractionary move in fiscal policy), but taxes must be cut (an expansionary move).

  FULL TEXT OF JOSH’S BLOG

  The Stand September 30, 2022