The U.S. and Chinese economies posted mixed economic data Friday. Robert Scott, senior international economist at the Economic Policy Institute, joins BNN Bloomberg for a look at what the data says about the trade war between both countries.
Bloomberg
June 17, 2019
Elizabeth Warren released an “American jobs” plan recently. It includes several trade and manufacturing policies intended to benefit American workers and companies. Wall Street responded with righteous indignation, which suggests she may have hit a nerve.
The New York Times
June 17, 2019
Not only is blocking minimum wage increases awful politics, it’s awful policy. The Economic Policy Institute this year estimated that if we increased the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024, about 40 million workers would see a significant pay boost as a result. It’s not just people are the bottom of the wage scale who benefit. Employers often increase wages for many of their workers, in order to maintain a pay premium for more senior or experienced employees. Instead, we all subsidize low wages. A majority of people who aren’t officially disabled or elderly who receive SNAP benefits or Medicaid are in the workforce. A few years back, the Center for American Progress released a study showing that the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would save more than $4 billion annually if the minimum wage went up to $10.10. And a higher minimum wage leads to health-care gains, including a decrease in infant mortality and fewer child-neglect cases.
The Washington Post
June 17, 2019
That’s terrible. The vice president of the Economic Policy Institute said, “The United States is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation days and paid holidays.” We are working ourselves into stress-filled lives filled with sickness and fraying emotions. Most people could use a day off — a “mental health day” as it were.
Daily Herald
June 17, 2019
Wal-Mart alone cost U.S. workers more than 400,000 jobs between 2001 and 2013, according to the Economic Policy Institute. That is a sizable fraction of the 3.2 million jobs that were lost in the U.S. due to trade relations with China.
Counter Punch
June 17, 2019
But how do we maximize those job-generating benefits? Tougher Buy America (not to be confused with Buy American) provisions in infrastructure spending legislation, which likely voters from both parties strongly support, are one way. A more permanent, systemic solution—coupled with Buy America provisions—is slashing the manufacturing trade deficit by two-thirds, according to a new report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Alliance for American Manufacturing
June 17, 2019
Income inequality is higher in states that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 when measured by the average income of the top one percent against the average income of the bottom 99 percent, according to data from a new report by the Economic Policy Institute. For Clinton states, the top incomes were on average 23.6 times the average income for the other 99 percent.
Breitbart
June 17, 2019
In other words, inequality has local officials coming and going. The ranks of the homeless are growing because almost all the gains from America’s growing economy, as the Economic Policy Institute’s Elise Gould testified to Congress this past March, are “going to households at the top.”
Counter Punch
June 17, 2019
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a family in the United States with an annual income of more than $420,000 qualifies as being in the top one percent. Over a working lifetime, assuming 40 working years, this would equate to $16,800,000.
FanSided
June 17, 2019
That’s $4,277 a month, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Costs in this calculation include housing, food, transportation, healthcare, other necessities, and taxes, not including savings or discretionary spending.
Business Insider
June 17, 2019