A study by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit focused on the needs of low- and middle-income workers, found that “Amazon fulfillment centers do not boost overall employment in the counties where they open—undermining the case for providing large tax breaks and incentives to lure Amazon facilities to a particular place.”
A recent cost-benefit analysis by the Economic Policy Institute has highlighted just how harmful Airbnb can be to local economies. Economists determined that the economic costs from Airbnb are enough to mandate regulations on the company.
We learn much more at the state level. Amazon has played one state against another for tax breaks over the years, most recently negotiating an estimated $3 billion tax credit from the state of New York before residents rebelled—as well they should have. The Economic Policy Institute found that employment levels don’t significantly change in communities with new Amazon warehouses, and a recent study by The Economist concluded that the opening of a fulfillment center in a given community actually depresses warehouse wages. Furthermore, as an indication of the folly of wooing corporations with state subsidies, Upjohn research found that in the great majority of cases incentives are not even a part of a company’s decision to locate in a given area.
The cost of child care varies across the country, but in general, it’s unaffordable — so much so that people who would otherwise want to have kids are abstaining because of the cost. Last July, the New York Times asked approximately 2,000 men and women between the ages of 20 and 45 who have fewer kids than they’d ideally want why that’s the case, and 64 percent laid blame on the exorbitantly high cost of child care. In Kansas, for example, the average one-child family has to spend $11,201 on infant care alone — or more than 11 percent of their income — which is unaffordable for more than 65.5 percent of families in the state, per the Economic Policy Institute.
Average annual child care costs have risen to between $8,000 and $11,000, or at nearly double the pace of overall inflation, said Elise Gould, economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. But some critics on the right argued that Warren’s plan would exacerbate already rising costs and represent an enormous government intrusion in private life in America, while some on the left argue that it does not go far enough.
That percentage varies largely from state to state, of course. Separate data from the Economic Policy Institute shows that child care in Massachusetts and Oklahoma, the state Warren represents in the Senate and the state she grew up in, eats up 19.5% and 13% of a family’s income, respectively.
“How hard? As any parent can tell you, child care is one of the biggest costs a family faces. According to the Economic Policy Institute’s state-by-state tables, in Alabama it’s $5,637 a year for an infant and an only slightly less daunting $4,871 for a 4-year-old. That’s 69 percent of the average rent and 33.7 percent less than the cost of in-state tuition at a four-year college. At the other end of the alphabet, West Virginia parents are worse off: For them, infant care, at $7,926, is 32 percent more than the cost of college. Pick a state at random and the results are no better. New York: $14,144, or double the cost of a year of college. Illinois: $12,964. California: $11,817. No wonder child care is affordable for only a small minority of families, meaning they pay 10 percent or less of their income for it: 17.8 percent of families in Minnesota, 18.7 percent in Massachusetts, 37.7 percent in Georgia. And that’s for just one child. Most families have more.”
The wage gap has been narrowing for women, but it varies widely by race, class, and education level, a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. found.
The Economic Policy Institute today released its annual report on American wages. It shows, in essence, a continuation of wage inequality trends that have been going on for decades: men earn more than women; white people earn more than Latinos or black people, who are perpetually trapped at the bottom of the income scale; and, overwhelmingly, the gains of the entire economy are captured by those at the very top.