Media clips
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Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote on Twitter that the industry is still below pre-pandemic employment by about 2.5 million. She added she’s “optimistic that we will continue to see solid growth in coming months as vaccine distribution continues and businesses find it safe to reopen.”
Business Insider June 11, 2021 -
Low-wage sectors have seen swifter job growth than higher-wage sectors in recent months. This is exactly the opposite of what you would expect to find if unemployment benefits were keeping people from working. This is because pandemic programs, like the extra $300 weekly benefit, are worth much more to low-wage workers than to higher-wage workers. Unemployment insurance, then, is not hampering job growth.
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Finally, the 25 states cutting pandemic programs are weakening their own recoveries. The recipients of benefits in these states are expected to lose $22 billion in aid, and as a consequence these states will be forgoing an enormous amount of economic activity.
For lawmakers creating policy that will shape the future of a recovery, affecting both the larger economy and the lives of those hardest hit by the recession: Look at the facts.
The New York Times June 11, 2021 -
A new paper from the Economic Policy Institute analyzes where America’s wages would be if worker pay actually tracked with worker productivity. They found that the median American worker earns $9.95 less per hour than their counterparts from 40 years ago.
Let me say that again: If you’re a typical American worker, you should be earning about $10 more per hour than you actually do. You’re working harder than your parents and grandparents, and you’re making, on average, $400 less per week than they did.
The EPI paper doesn’t stop there: It also disproves 40 years of trickle-down lies that mysterious “market forces” are the cause of sluggish wage growth. Policy choices, not the invisible hand, have taken this money out of your paycheck and leveraged it over to wealthy Americans, and EPI actually put a price tag on every single trickle-down policy and what it’s cost you out of your paycheck.
In this week’s episode of “Pitchfork Economics,” economist Larry Mishel and EPI director of research Josh Bivens discuss their findings and characterize the three biggest trickle-down policy decisions that have resulted in American workers making much less over the last 40 years.
Business Insider June 11, 2021 -
With the economy down 7 million jobs from February 2020 and low labor force participation rates, the numbers don’t add up to a labor shortage, according to economists and union leaders.
Elise Gould, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, explained that employers are fundamentally having trouble finding the workers they want at the wages they want to pay them. “We’re not seeing the acceleration in wages that suggests they [employers] are trying that hard. And I think if they were, you’d see it in wage growth,” she said.
Sinclair Broadcast Group June 11, 2021 -
The decision by Republican governors in 25 states — including Maryland last week — to pull out of federal unemployment insurance (UI) support in their states is dangerously shortsighted. The most recent data show that the economy is improving but still far from healthy. Cutting back aid for jobless workers now, while suitable jobs are still not available for many of them, is not just cruel — it is damaging to these states’ long-term economic health.
A robust unemployment insurance system serves three main purposes. The first is straightforward — providing a financial cushion to workers who lose their job through no fault of their own, so that they can still pay the bills and keep food on the table while they search for new employment. Aside from being the humane thing to do, providing this safety net is also economically prudent. No state economy benefits from workers and families falling behind on mortgages or auto loans, being evicted, having cars and homes repossessed, cutting back on food, or delaying or opting out of needed health care. Yet, these outcomes will become more likely in the states cutting aid for the jobless.
The Hill June 11, 2021 -
June 11, 2021
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Josh Bivens/Economic Policy Institute: “They should definitely stand pat.” Fed officials view the price spike as a temporary consequence of the economy’s rapid reopening….and say supply will eventually rise to meet demand. “We’re measuring prices relative to a year ago and prices had just collapsed. and so if you take out what economists call that base effect, you get numbers more like just over 2% for core inflation over the past 12 months. That’s not much to worry about at all.”
Hearst TV June 11, 2021 -
All in all, the labor report is a good sign for the economic recovery. “High quits mean workers feel comfortable leaving their jobs in search of better matches,” Elise Gould of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute wrote. “Low layoffs are an obvious good. The economic recovery is gaining momentum.”
The Fiscal Times June 11, 2021 -
On Wednesday, a day ahead of the jobless data release, Heidi Shierholz, the director of policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute and an Obama Labor Department veteran, broadly agreed with Deese.
“Things are getting back to normal,” Shierholz told Insider. “I think the key is we don’t want to make drastic policy changes at this point.” When it comes to relief and recovery measures for this recession, “we are doing it so right,” she said. But she warned that could still change.
Shierholz said she expects to see a quick bounceback and strong recovery, but changing course could threaten that. “If we start pulling back with those measures now, we’re going to just cut that off at the knees,” she said.
Business Insider June 11, 2021 -
Josh Bivens of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute has floated an interesting hypothesis that wages might not be accelerating as quickly as we think. May’s wage growth was driven by the leisure and hospitality sector, which consists mostly of workers at restaurants that customers are only just starting to patronize again. What if that wage surge, Bivens posits, is really a tip surge? This sector reported a huge decline in wages in March and April 2020 as restaurants were shutting down, even as other sectors were experiencing that freakish momentary wage spike at the start of the pandemic.
What’s different about restaurants? Well, Bivens observes, restaurant workers get tips, and when customers disappear, tips disappear. Now customers are coming back, along with tips.
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Why have wages stagnated during the past four decades? The EPI’s Bivens and Lawrence Mishel argued last month that the blame rests with high interest rates, proliferating trade deals, ever-more-brazen wage theft (i.e., employers’ failure to pay minimum wage or overtime), an eroding legal minimum wage, diminishing legal overtime eligibility, judicial decisions restricting the ability of workers to sue their employers, deregulation, privatization, economic concentration, a fissuring workforce (meaning a trend toward outsourcing labor within the U.S. to smaller, less scrupulous companies), and declining union power. These were policies consciously pursued by government at all levels at the behest of the business lobby.
New Republic June 11, 2021