“It’s astronomical what people need just to make it month to month,” said Heidi Shierholz, a former chief economist at the Department of Labor who and now with the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank, to The Washington Post in December. “Given the high cost of transportation, housing, health care … There is often no wiggle room.”
New York Daily News
March 20, 2019
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.
Truthdig
March 20, 2019
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.”
Deadline Detroit
March 20, 2019
“One reason why we don’t just allow, we have zoning and why some places are zoned for residential areas and some are zoned for hotels and some for businesses it’s the idea that you know sometimes you don’t want to live around businesses and around a bunch of tourists and if Airbnb just comes in and just sort of ignores those zoning distinctions and says nope, if you’re in town in New Orleans for Mardi Gras you don’t have to stay at a hotel, just go stay in a residential neighborhood, that’s maybe not great for the neighbors or the long term residents there,” said Josh Bivens with the Economic Policy Institute.
WKRN
March 20, 2019
Even progressive economists worry about the size of these estimates. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research points out that the federal government workforce, excluding the postal service, is but 2.2 million workers. Economist Josh Bivens, from the Economic Policy Institute, calculates that 10.7 million people is about three times the number of K-12 public school teachers in the United States.
Dollars and Sense
March 20, 2019
Statistics certainly suggest that there’s an underemployment crisis among young people in the United States: The Economic Policy Institute put that rate among recent college graduates at 12.6 percent. Some researchers have suggested that recreational computer use — including increasingly life-consuming video games — accounts for somewhere between 23 and 46 percent of the decrease in young men’s participation in the labor force. (Others regard that finding with skepticism.) One could convincingly argue that NEETdom is a logical response to the fact that the average college graduate in 2016 came out of school about $37,172 in debt — something that may be impossible to pay off with menial labor at, say, a local fast-food place. If you’re slated for a life of crippling debt, and you can get all of your social needs met online, then why even bother working? For his part, Luca thinks: “I refuse to work for $8 at Taco Bell and be another’s lackey when I am my own god.”
The Intelligencer
March 20, 2019
The average cost of infant care in Warren’s home state of Massachusetts is $17,062 for a year, according to the Economic Policy Institute. That’s nearly 20 percent of a typical family’s income and is second only to Washington D.C. The EPI says a family with an infant and 4-year-old could see costs of nearly $30,000 a year – far greater than rent in most cases.
Beacon Hill Patch
March 20, 2019
In 2017, among those 25 and older, only 19.8 percent of Latino men compared to 43.2 percent of white men had at least an associate degree. Not surprisingly, the average hourly wage of Latino men was 32.5 percent below white men’s wage rate. Economic Policy Institute researchers Maria Mora and Alberto Davila reported that including adjustments for differences in educational attainment and age, the wage gap declined to 14.9 percent. This remaining gap is virtually eliminated if we then adjust for lower Latino academic test scores that are linked to weaker schools attended and low-earning occupations entered.
Gotham Gazette
March 20, 2019
Along with her position at Georgetown, Kennedy Townsend is the director of retirement security at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning Washington, D.C., think tank. Kennedy Townsend was the Democratic nominee for governor in Maryland in 2002, narrowly losing the election to Republican Robert Ehrlich.
Observer Reporter
March 20, 2019
The issue driving income inequality in the U.S. has not been a lack of productivity by American workers, a new report from the Economic Policy Institute finds. Instead it is that the lion’s share of gains from increased productivity have gone to a tiny segment of wage earners at the top.
Axios
March 20, 2019