However, Elise Gould at The Economic Policy Institute noted that wage growth is “slower than expected in an economy that has had historically low unemployment.”
PayScale
December 9, 2019
MORE JOBS, MODEST WAGES: Employers added an unexpectedly high 266,000 new jobs in November, and earnings were up 3.1 percent over the last 12 months, BLS reported Friday. “But one of the few head-scratchers in this strong jobs picture is why wages aren’t growing as fast as they did in the late 1990s, when yearly wage growth routinely topped 4 percent,” Heather Long reports for The Washington Post. Wage growth peaked in February at 3.4 percent and “has been backsliding this year,” Elise Gould, an economist at The Economic Policy Institute tweeted.
Politico
December 9, 2019
Many hoped this would be the year wages really accelerated. After all, business leaders have been complaining for months they can’t find enough workers — both highly skilled and not — and the natural response to that is usually to bump up pay. But wage growth peaked in February at 3.4 percent and has pulled back since then, puzzling economists. “From late 2017 through late 2018, it looked like wage growth was picking up. That ended. Wage growth has been backsliding this year,” tweeted economist Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Mother Jones
December 9, 2019
Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute writes:
On its face, the pace of job growth in 2019 hasn’t been particularly troubling. The economy continues to move in the right direction—though at a slightly slower pace than the last couple of years—soaking up sidelined workers as the unemployment rate remains at historically low levels. But, when you factor in the preliminary benchmark revisions—which showed a half million fewer jobs created between April 2018 and March 2019—the data indicate weaker employment growth this year than originally reported. The final benchmark revisions won’t be released until the January 2020 employment numbers are released in February, but the preliminary release is troubling. And large downward revisions are sometimes associated with early signs of a recession because it means the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)’s model for predicting the births and deaths of firms is off, often accompanied by a turning point in the economy. These revisions don’t tell us a recession is necessary on the immediate horizon, but they are certainly something to keep in mind as the year winds down.
Daily Kos
December 9, 2019
The evidence shows that wages in states with right-to-work laws are about 3 percent lower (approximately $1,550 a year) than in states that do not have such laws (Elise Gould and Will Kimball, Economic Policy Institute, April 22, 2015).
The Daily Progress
December 6, 2019
There are a few other proposals (here’s a good rundown), but those are the most significant ones. It’s true that it doesn’t contain the kind of wealth tax that Warren and Sanders have proposed. And as Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute pointed out to me, it does accept some features of the Obama-era tax code as the limits of what you can do, like precisely a 39.6 percent top rate (when he could have proposed 40 percent or 50 percent).
But in other ways, Bivens noted, “It’s a far more ambitious plan than anything even the Obama aspirational budgets,” the yearly President’s Budget released by the White House, proposed.
The Washington Post
December 6, 2019
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank, a new consensus has emerged among leading economists that minimum wage increases raise wages without any substantial job loss.
The Conway Daily Sun
December 6, 2019
RELATED: “What to watch on jobs day,” from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute
Politico
December 6, 2019
“Over the last three months, payroll employment growth has averaged 205,000 new jobs, more than enough to keep up with population growth and pull in thousands of workers off the sidelines each month,” according to Elise Gould, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., in a statement.
MultiBriefs: Exclusive
December 6, 2019
‒ Every $1 million spent on construction results in 15 direct and indirect jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute. This means as many as 7,500 jobs could be created throughout the duration of the initiative. For every construction job created, two indirect jobs are created at local retail outlets, restaurants, and businesses in such varied fields as accounting, concrete production, tool manufacturing and more.
FHN
December 6, 2019