Studies show that every unit of reduction in equality leads to a similar reduction in GDP. Economic Policy Institute research found income inequality slows U.S. economic growth by reducing demand by 2 percent to 4 percent. The Calvert Institute determined that a 1 percent increase in inequality leads to a 1.1 percent per capita GDP loss. Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco researchers calculated that gender and racial gaps created $2.9 trillion in losses to U.S. GDP in 2019. And, Citi research concluded that eliminating racial disparity would add $5 trillion to the U.S. economy over the next five years.
Proxy Preview
March 18, 2022
The failure to adjust the minimum wage for inflation has eroded its value over time. Indeed, the Economic Policy Institute reports that as of 2021, the minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, was 21 percent lower than in 2009 and 34 precent lower than it was at its peak value in 1968. The minimum wage section of the American Rescue Plan Act was dropped before passage, but the proposal renewed the economic and policy debate about the situation of low-wage workers and the projected effects of increasing the minimum wage.
Nonprofit Quarterly
March 18, 2022
Given our current economic trajectory, you may find yourself wondering if your household is even in the middle class. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a nonprofit think tank that focuses on middle-income earners, has two tools that can help answer the question for you.
Fast Company
March 18, 2022
The updated document from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that teachers and school staff, bus drivers, firefighters, police and other local government workers – many of whom are women and/or people of color – benefit from having strong unions that represent them and their interests on the job. In other states that curtail public sector collective bargaining, however, larger wage gaps persist.
Teamsters
March 18, 2022
To compile the list, the researchers employed the “50-30-20” budget formula made popular by Senator Elizabeth Warren, in which 50 percent of income is allocated for unavoidable “needs,” like rent, groceries and utilities; 30 percent goes to “wants,” like eating out, alcohol and entertainment; and 20 percent goes to savings. The median costs of “needs” were culled from census surveys and the Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator; “wants” came from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey; and starter-home prices were derived from Zillow.
The New York Times
March 18, 2022
Still, Summers’s prediction that we’re headed for stagflation does seem pretty nuts. “He’s doing some damage to the history,” Josh Bivens, research director at the Economic Policy Institute, told me. Stagflation was, practically speaking, a one-time event. There was a momentary recurrence during the first half of 2008, when oil prices spiked at the start of the Great Recession, but that “was so short that no one remembers,” Bivens said. (A consumption boom in China coincided briefly with falling Saudi production.) What people remember about the Great Recession isn’t inflation, but years and years of high unemployment and low wages.
The New Republic
March 18, 2022
Governors have certainly made trade-offs during the pandemic between the health of their populations and economic growth, said David Cooper, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Cooper noted that seven of the 10 states with the highest per capita deaths from Covid-19, including Oklahoma, had Republican governors.
The New York Times
March 18, 2022
Union-busting tactics are disturbingly common. The Economic Policy Institute found in 2019 that employers are charged with breaking labor law in 41.5 percent of all union election campaigns — meaning that they illegally intimidate employees through terminations, disciplines, or threats.
Jacobin
March 18, 2022
But the reduction in supply was met with increased demand as Americans started purchasing durable goods to replace the services they used prior to the pandemic, said Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute.
CNET
March 18, 2022
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the cost of a modest but adequate standard of living in the Columbus metropolitan area for a family of one adult and two children is $70,190 a year.[11]
Policy Matters Ohio
March 18, 2022
Features interview with Heidi Shierholz.
Bloomberg TV
March 11, 2022
In a tweet, the president of the Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist to the Labor Secretary under President Obama called it “mindbogglingly fast and sustained growth.”
Reuters
March 11, 2022
“It’s not like everything is totally rosy,” noted Heidi Shierholz, president of the D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute, who also gives the federal relief effort high marks. “We still have a long way to go. So I don’t want to make it seem like I’m trying to convince people who are living in what is a difficult time that everything is great. But our recovery is much faster than what it would be if Congress hadn’t acted.”
Capital and Main
March 11, 2022
Features quote from Asha Banerjee.
USA Today
March 11, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute shares that union workers get an average 11.2% more and gain greater access to health insurance and paid sick leave. Even with many states raising the minimum wage in 2022, and a tight labor market that continues to drive employee wages higher in an effort to find quality workers, employees with unions behind them are likely to garner even higher pay, historically speaking.
GoBankingRates
March 11, 2022
The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal nonpartisan think-tank, has reported that North Carolina teachers earned 25% per week less than “similarly educated peers” before the pandemic. How teacher pay aligns, or doesn’t, with professionals in government and business is a stronger measure than the conventional debate over state salary rankings.
EdNC
March 11, 2022
Pity the CEO. Well, maybe not. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the top executives at the largest 350 firms in the U.S. were paid an average of $24.1 million per year in 2020. That’s about 350 times more than the compensation of the typical worker.
The Week
March 11, 2022
Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Josh Bivens, research director at the Economic Policy Institute, believed wages would get ahead of inflation in 2022. “I thought inflation was going to relent quite a bit through the year,” he said. “That’s probably been delayed pretty considerably.”
Marketplace
March 11, 2022
Heidi Sheirholz, who leads the liberal Economic Policy Institute, said the legislation is “a core reason we’re in such an incredibly strong recovery right now.”
Associated Press
March 11, 2022
For example, according to a 2017 Economic Policy Institute study … (paywall)
Law360
March 11, 2022
In the 2017-18 school year, researchers estimated a shortage of about 110,000 teachers in U.S. schools, according an article published in the Economic Policy Institute. EPI describes itself as a non-profit, nonpartisan think tank that focuses on needs of low and middle income workers in economic policy discussions.
Billings Gazette
March 11, 2022
A 2020 Economic Policy Institute study found that Black workers made up about one in six of all “frontline industry workers,” accounting for 17% of the frontline workforce across all frontline industry categories.
Black Voice News
March 11, 2022
Economist Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute, one of our best labor market analysts, tells us “private sector employment is now only 1% away from pre-pandemic levels.” But she notes we still are “facing a 3.7 million job shortfall” once population growth is taken into account, with Black unemployment double that of whites. So we shouldn’t be slowing the economy yet.
Forbes
March 11, 2022
“We added 678,000 jobs in February, for a total of 7.9 million jobs added since the end of 2020. It’s mindbogglingly fast and sustained growth—well over half a million jobs added per month on average for more than a year.” – Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute.
The Fiscal Times
March 11, 2022
“The white unemployment rate is now lower than the Black unemployment rate has ever been,” said Elise Gould, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
CNBC
March 11, 2022
And while the economy is recovering fast, Economic Policy Institute’s senior economist Elise Gould and President Heidi Shierholz explain in a CNN op-ed that we need to ensure it works for everyone.
AFL-CIO
March 11, 2022
Today, women account for 88.6 percent of home health care workers and 94 percent of child care workers, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, with women of color and immigrant women making up disproportionate shares of both workforces. Wages and job quality remain low, and benefits are scarce. EPI reports that home health care workers and child care workers are far less likely to have employer-sponsored health insurance or retirement coverage than the workforce as a whole.
Washington Center for Equitable Growth
March 11, 2022
“It’s mindbogglingly fast and sustained growth — well over half a million jobs added per month on average for more than a year,” Heidi Shierholz, president at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote on Twitter. More than nine out of every 10 jobs lost during the pandemic recession have been regained, she added.
CNN Business
March 11, 2022