“That loss of more than half a million public sector jobs in the early days of the recovery coming out of the Great Recession, actually delayed the recovery by about four years,” said David Cooper of the Economic Policy Institute. “When you cut public sector staff, you’re not just losing that job, you’re also losing jobs in the private sector that are supported by those jobs.”
CBS News
April 9, 2021
“That loss of more than half a million public sector jobs in the early days of the recovery coming out of the Great Recession, actually delayed the recovery by about four years,” said David Cooper of the Economic Policy Institute. “When you cut public sector staff, you’re not just losing that job, you’re also losing jobs in the private sector that are supported by those jobs.”
CBS News
April 9, 2021
The decades-long assault on organized labor by corporations and their allies in government resulted in a dramatic erosion of union membership that cost the median U.S. worker $3,250 per year between 1979 and 2017, according to a new report released Thursday morning by the Economic Policy Institute.
The report estimates that the percentage of workers covered by collective bargaining agreements fell from 27% in 1979 to just 11.6% in 2019, a drop that had a direct impact on the wages of unionized workers and “spillover” consequences for non-unionized workers, who benefit from strong union density.
EPI distinguished fellow Lawrence Mishel, the lead author of the new report, estimates that “for the ‘typical’ or median worker, declining unionization translates to a loss of $1.56 per hour worked, the equivalent of $3,250 for a full-time, full-year worker.
Common Dreams
April 9, 2021
Some policy experts are not bothered by the prospect of further ballooning the nation’s debt or deficit, given that the economy is still recovering from COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions.
“We’re talking about infrastructure here: it almost pays for itself, raises national productivity, causes fewer accidents and moves goods and services to places easier,” said Rob Scott of the progressive-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Al Jazeera
April 9, 2021
What has changed, most notably, is the consensus among many economists. Whereas a few years ago, a key concern was the level of debt relative to GDP, with 90% to 100% considered a danger zone, now many are less worried about it.
“The economics field has shifted,” says Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist to the secretary of labor during the Obama administration.
The Christian Science Monitor
April 9, 2021
Manchin, the moderate Democratic senator, voted against raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, even though his state is one of the poorest in the nation and data from the Economic Policy Institute shows such an increase would boost the pay of some 250,000 residents by about $4,000 a year.
USA Today
April 9, 2021
The figures highlight the growing CEO pay gap, a problem among many public companies according to some investors and workers and even a few CEOs. In 2019, for example, the average pay ratio among 350 large American companies was 320-to-1, according to research by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C. In 1989, the average was 61-to-1.
NBC News
April 9, 2021
“I would be very surprised — I do not believe that that will be the sum total of what he is talking about on child care,” Elise Gould, an economist studying child care at the Economic Policy Institute, said of the package Biden revealed Wednesday. “But it’s pretty clear that if you’re going to invest in child care, yes, there are physical infrastructure needs — but it is an industry run by people who are providing that care, and we need to be investing in that workforce for the system to be high-quality and sustainable.”
Politico
April 9, 2021
Manchin, the moderate Democratic senator, voted against raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, even though his state is one of the poorest in the nation and data from the Economic Policy Institute shows such an increase would boost the pay of some 250,000 residents by about $4,000 a year.
USA Today
April 9, 2021
Citing a study by the Economic Policy Institute, the Department of Energy further notes that the industry has one of “the highest indirect job employment multipliers, where one direct job leads to an additional 5.43 indirect jobs.” Put differently, for every job generated by the profitable production of oil and natural gas, there will be more than 5 jobs created in related industries. A 2015 study from the German government assessed that the similar economic multiplier from “green energy jobs” is around 2, or less than half the multiplier for the oil and gas industry.
Forbes
April 9, 2021