Media clips

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• Spring Letdown: Hiring Slows In April, Raising New Challenges For Economy

  “We are certainly not seeing rapid wage growth that would really be the red flag of ‘Wow, things are tight. Employers truly on a really widespread basis can’t find the workers that they need,’” Shierholz said.

  NPR May 7, 2021
• The PRO Act: What’s in It and Why Is It a Labor Movement Priority?

  Frustratingly for those who want to organize, some union-busting activities are legal under current federal labor law; others are forbidden, but the penalties are light enough that many employers decide to do it anyway. The Economic Policy Institute estimated in 2019 that 41.5% of employers in all union election campaigns are charged with violating federal labor laws, and RWDSU believes that’s exactly what Amazon did in Bessemer.

  Teen Vogue May 7, 2021
• Many employers want to hire — now. Many workers aren’t ready to go back.

  There’s another mismatch, said Heidi Shierholz at the progressive Economic Policy Institute, between the pay employers are offering and the pay workers are willing to take.

  “If an employer posts a job and then they can’t find the workers that they need, that just means there’s a labor shortage of people who will work at that wage,” she said.

  In a really tight labor market, as Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell recently pointed out, wages would be rising.

  NPR Marketplace May 7, 2021
• One year into the pandemic, millions of jobs are still missing

  The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, said nearly 3 million more jobs would have been added if the current pre-pandemic pace of job creation had continued uninterrupted. Starting from a February 2020 baseline of roughly 152.5 million jobs, the U.S. would have just over 155.1 million jobs as of last month. The actual total is roughly 144.1 million.

  NBC News May 7, 2021
• Biden Repeals Trump Rule Meant To Protect Gig Economy’s ‘Independent Contractor’ Model

  The Economic Policy Institute says misclassification comes at a steep price for governments.

  “The loss of billions of dollars in tax revenue creates a significant financial burden for local, state, and the federal governments, not only due to lost revenue but also because of the added cost of providing social services to uninsured workers,” the left-leaning think tank found in a 2015 analysis of the problem.

  Huffpost May 7, 2021
• Hotels And Restaurants That Survived Pandemic Face New Challenge: Staffing Shortages

  But others are quick to push back on the notion that overly generous benefits are the problem. If people are doing better on unemployment, the argument goes, it only means they were underpaid to start with.

  “I think we should take what [businesses] say with grain of salt,” says Daniel Costa, an immigration researcher at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal-leaning think tank. “Every time you hear ‘I can’t find any workers,’ you should add to the end of that – ‘at the wage I want to pay,’ because you’re talking about very low-wage jobs.”

  NPR All Things Considered May 7, 2021
• Does the US even need a federal minimum wage anymore?

  Still, some see Biden’s executive order as a useful start. “It’s not going to be as impactful as a minimum wage standard that applies to the labor market,” says Ben Zipperer, an economist at EPI. “But in the absence of that happening, I think it makes a lot of sense to push as many levers as possible to raise wages for those at the bottom of the wage distribution.”

  Quartz May 7, 2021
• ‘Job Paradox’ Baffles Economists as U.S. Employers See Shortage

  But fiscal stimulus isn’t the only problem. Many of the unfilled jobs in the restaurant and retail industry underscore the fact that employers aren’t paying adequately or giving workers enough hours, according to Economic Policy Institute’s Heidi Shierholz.

  “Employers are like: ‘Why the hell, if there are so many people who need jobs, can’t I find somebody really awesome, really cheap?’” said Shierholz, who worked as chief economist at the Labor Department under President Barack Obama.

  Bloomberg May 7, 2021
• White House grapples with reports of labor shortage, inflation as recovery picks up steam

  “When you don’t see wages growing … you can be fairly certain that labor shortages, though possibly happening in some places, are not a driving feature of the labor market. And right now, wages are not growing at a rapid pace,” said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. Shierholz said on Twitter that there are 80 percent more unemployed workers than job openings in the leisure and hospitality sector.

  Washington Post May 7, 2021
• As small businesses recover from the pandemic, they face a new obstacle: finding workers

  Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, doesn’t believe there is a widespread labor shortage. For one, wages aren’t rising rapidly, which indicates a tight labor market and job growth is booming, she said in a recent op-ed in the Initiative for Policy Dialogue.

  As for the $300 unemployment benefits keeping low-wage workers away from jobs, she points to research papers that found an extremely limited effect the weekly $600 benefit had last year in discouraging workers.

  Instead, the lack of workers may have to do with the fact that employers aren’t raising wages, she argued.

  “Employers post their too-low wages, can’t find workers to fill jobs at that pay level, and claim they’re facing a labor shortage,” she wrote.” Given the ubiquity of this dynamic, I often suggest that whenever anyone says, ‘I can’t find the workers I need,’ she should really add, ‘at the wages I want to pay.’”

  CNBC May 7, 2021
• Bidenomics Really Is Something New

  For years, the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank close to organized labor (and where Bernstein, Boushey, and Jones each worked for a time) functioned as the locus of Democratic opposition to Clinton’s and Obama’s approach. The skills explanation offered both administrations “an excuse for what was a systematic deploying of policy to disempower workers,” argues Larry Mishel, a senior fellow at EPI who previously served as its president.

  To Mishel and like-minded critics, the skills-gap theory couldn’t account for two key trends: the rising share of income and wealth concentrating in the top 1 percent, and the slowdown in wage growth even among college graduates, who were supposed to benefit from the digital revolution. And for many progressive skeptics, the skills gap also carried an unpleasant whiff of blaming workers for their stagnating wages, with the implication that they could solve their problems if they just devoted themselves to obtaining more education. “The center-left has totally abandoned, and appropriately so, that framework for understanding wage suppression and inequality,” Mishel told me. “What’s replaced it is a greater attention to the increases in employer power.”

  The Atlantic May 7, 2021
• What a Higher Minimum Wage Would Mean for Older Workers

  Many labor and retirement analysts say that raising the minimum wage would be a vital step for advancing the economic security of lower-wage workers in the second half of life.

  It would allow some to retire later, which could then boost their Social Security benefits when they finally claim them, said Ben Zipperer, economist at the progressive nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute.

  Next Avenue May 7, 2021
• Unemployment Benefits Are Not Creating A Worker Shortage

  It’s difficult to square the notion of a shortage of food service workers with the strong job growth in that industry, said Heidi Shierholz, former chief economist at the Labor Department now with the Economic Policy Institute. Dining and drinking establishments added 176,000 jobs in March, the biggest gain in any sector.

  “I’m sure that labor supply is lower than it would be if we didn’t have COVID, but that doesn’t mean there’s a labor shortage,” Shierholz said.

  Huffpost May 7, 2021
• Unemployment remains high, yet many businesses say they can’t find enough workers

  Despite anecdotal evidence from businesses, liberal economists said it’s unlikely the United States is facing a labor shortage. Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, noted that there are still far more unemployed workers than job openings, according to federal government surveys. She said there haven’t been meaningful wage increases, either, which are a hallmark of labor shortages.

  “It’s certainly happening in places,” Shierholz said of businesses having a hard time finding workers. “The real question is not whether it’s happening here or there, but is it a driving force in the labor market? And when you look at the data, it just doesn’t come up.”

  The Philadelphia Inquirer May 7, 2021
• Opinion: Biden isn’t pursuing socialism. He’s just trying to catch up with other wealthy democracies.

  The Economic Policy Institute notes that income inequality in the United States has been worsening for years: “From 1978 to 2018, CEO compensation grew by 1,007.5%. … In contrast, wages for the typical worker grew by just 11.9%.” Our level of income inequality is now closer to that of developing countries in Africa and Latin American than to our European allies.

  The Washington Post May 7, 2021
• Is Unemployment Insurance Behind the Fast-Food Labor Shortage?

  But are unemployment payments the culprit here? “It doesn’t stand up to scrutiny as a real driving factor,” said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute. “There is basically a lever employers can pull if they truly are facing a labor shortage of some kind: They can pay more to either attract new workers into the labor force or poach workers who are already in the labor force.”

  Shierholz noted there have yet to be signs of significant wage growth in the industries where workers are purported to be in severe shortage, and that previous data during the pandemic and the 2008 economic recession demonstrated that expanded unemployment benefits had minimal to no impact on whether workers returned to work.

  The American Prospect May 7, 2021
• Montana to end expanded jobless benefits in June, offer return-to-work bonuses

  “There are lots of anecdotal reports swirling around about employers who can’t find workers,” Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, wrote in a Tuesday op-ed. “But a closer look reveals there may be a lot less to this than meets the eye.”

  Shierholz said that while there may be bona fide labor shortages in some pockets of the country, there are still too few jobs for too many unemployed workers.

  “In the latest data on job openings, there were nearly 40 percent more unemployed workers than job openings overall, and more than 80 percent more unemployed workers than job openings in the leisure and hospitality sector,” she said.

  She added that those businesses should raise wages to attract more workers, particularly because service jobs “are inherently more stressful and potentially dangerous because workers now have to deal with anti-maskers and ongoing health concerns.”

  The Hill May 7, 2021
• CSPAN

  There is not a lot of young people looking to work in agriculture. it is very physically demanding. there is also a study that addresses the question–the cost of the food. The study found increasing wages to farmworkers by 40% would only cost consumers $25 the entire year. That study was done by an agricultural economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

  C-SPAN May 7, 2021
• Biden’s great economic rebalancing

  In 1995, more than a quarter century ago, I published a piece in The New Yorker that ran under the headline “Who Killed the Middle Class?” It was hardly a pathbreaking question. Even then, wage stagnation, rising inequality, and a fixation on cutting taxes and balancing the budget deficit were well-established trends. Among the sources I relied on was “The State of Working America,” a data-rich annual report that was, and still is, published by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank in Washington, D.C. The economist Jared Bernstein, one of the authors of the report, went on to work for Biden in the Obama Administration, and has now joined the Biden Administration, as a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

  The New Yorker May 7, 2021
• Is it over yet? Still no recession end date as U.S. economy hums along

  “I definitely think it’s over,” said Josh Bivens, research director at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank that focuses on labor issues. Even with the existing gap in employment of about 8.5 million jobs missing from before the pandemic, the committee “might even date its end in June or July of last year.”

  “The real open question is when we move from ‘recovery’ – getting back to pre-recession levels – and move into ‘expansion’.”

  Reuters May 7, 2021
• Washington must confront the ‘Amazon economy’

  If Amazon has a legacy, it is the growing monopoly of power in the marketplace — all fueled by ever-increasing campaign contributions aiding both e-commerce giants and multinational entities. To balance the equation, Washington must stand up for labor rights, voting equity, government investment, job creation and the importance of small businesses. Otherwise, America’s workers will become increasingly impoverished and disenfranchised.

  The Hill May 7, 2021
• Elise Gould testimony for U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging

  Our second witness is from the Economic Policy Institute. They are an economist who focuses on labor market trends, wages, and poverty in the United States. She has examined how the covid-19 pandemic is affecting the labor force and in particular, older workers. I want to thank her for being with us today and for sharing her expertise with the committee.

  C-SPAN May 7, 2021
• Biden’s first 100 days are a big break with the Reagan legacy. He says jobs and families need an active state.

  Biden’s plans amount to a massive gamble that Democratic efforts to double down on government redistribution of wealth and resources won’t trigger a backlash. Elise Gould, economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said the pandemic revealed “a tale of two economies,” starting with the substantially higher infection and death rates of Black, Latino, and Asian people in the US compared with Whites.

  “Just the sheer numbers of people who have died and gotten seriously ill and seeing the disparities in those numbers — I think makes it difficult not to do something and not to do something big to fix this.”

  Business Insider May 7, 2021
• USTR begins hearings on digital services taxes today

  The U.S. and other market economies should create a “reciprocal” trade remedy program to combat unfair foreign trade practices, Casey said on Friday.

  “We should consider working with allies to create a common defense against illegal subsidies from nonmarket economies like China,” the Senate Finance Committee member said at a virtual event hosted by the Economic Policy Institute. “This could mean establishing reciprocal remedies against trade distortions, such as illegal subsidies. Measures could be limited scope, such as anti-dumping or countervailing duties on goods from these nonmarket economies.”

  Politico Morning Trade May 7, 2021
• Sen. Casey backs stronger trade protections, social programs in global battle with China

  In a virtual talk hosted by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, Mr. Casey reiterated many of his long-standing policy issues — from addressing age discrimination to expanding Medicaid to blocking cheap Chinese imports — framed in the context of legislative action this spring.

  Pittsburgh Post Gazette May 7, 2021
• Pay gap widens between casino CEOs, average casino workers

  According to EPI’s research, CEO compensation jumped 14 percent from 2018 to 2019. Lawrence Mishel, a distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, said the increased CEO pay seen at various casino companies last year was largely due to the stock market’s rapid recovery over the course of the pandemic, since a majority of executive compensation comes from cashing out stock options or stock grants.

  Las Vegas Review-Journal May 7, 2021
• Black Americans are still being left behind in the US job market recovery

  Kyle Moore, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said he’s encouraged by the Fed’s increased focus on unemployment and higher tolerance for inflation. “In the past there have been Fed chairs who have been overly wary of inflation and they’ve often tried to fight it at the expense of employment,” he says. “That has disproportionately fallen on Black workers.”

  Quartz May 7, 2021
• The pandemic stunted America’s youth
  • The unemployment rate is 10.3% among 20- to 24-year-olds, and 13.3% among 18- to 19-year-olds, compared with the 5.3% unemployment among those over 25.

  “We’re still in a huge hole,” says Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute. “We are far from being recovered now.”

  Axios May 7, 2021
• Mothers see signs of economic hope after a year of stress

  “Employers have the ability to set the terms of the contract,” said Elise Gould, senior economist for the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

  “They’re really holding all the cards. They have all the leverage,” Gould said.

  Gould noted that the country was still down 8.4 million jobs in March from its pre-pandemic level in February 2020. The economy had been steadily adding jobs before the virus left millions out of work, she said, so theoretically the jobs shortfall is even higher, perhaps as high as 11 million.

  Detroit Free Press May 7, 2021
• Spring Letdown: Hiring Slows In April, Raising New Challenges For Economy

  “We are certainly not seeing rapid wage growth that would really be the red flag of ‘Wow, things are tight. Employers truly on a really widespread basis can’t find the workers that they need,’” Shierholz said.

  NPR May 7, 2021