Germany, therefore, has effectively found a way to lower the value of its currency. The result is that “Germany is exporting unemployment to the rest of Europe,” said Robert Scott, senior economist and director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Research at the Economic Policy Institute.
The Washington Post
April 30, 2018
“I don’t think that jobs in the public sector that produce valuable investments should ebb and swell in the way that would be necessary for them to be part of a ‘job guarantee,'” wrote Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, in arguing that a large investment in public sector jobs would be better than an outright jobs guarantee.
The Washington Post
April 30, 2018
A recent paper from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute points out that people often switch jobs in low-wage industries, so even a 3% loss in jobs could just mean that all workers end up with 3% fewer total hours — but if they were paid 10% more for those hours, everybody comes out ahead. … “Employers have the power to set wages,” says Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “And when it’s not completely determined by perfect competition, they are going to set wages too low, and they will always complain that they can’t find enough workers at the going wage.”
CNN Money
April 30, 2018
U.S. gross domestic product grew 2.3 percent in the first quarter of 2018, the government reported today, well below the White House’s target of 3 percent. GDP fell from 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017 but nonetheless exceeded economists‘ expectations. A Bloomberg panel of economists had predicted 2 percent growth. The numbers signal the economy hasn’t been hurt by President Donald Trump‘s tariffs or fluctuations on Wall Street, but has yet to be helped significantly by the passage of the GOP tax bill late last year. The drop-off was largely attributed to a slowdown in consumer spending growth, which fell to 1.1 percent — the lowest since 2013. Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist of Northern Trust, told the New York Times that the overall GDP growth is “moderately encouraging,” but warned the immediate effects of the tax bill would fade down the road. Left-leaning economists cited the slowed growth as evidence that the tax cuts aren‘t working. “The evidence from past tax cuts strongly suggested there would be little-to-no economic payoff in this form,” the Economic Policy Institute said in a written statement. “Today’s GDP data largely confirms this.“
Politico Pro
April 30, 2018
The 2.3 percent increase in the gross domestic product (GDP) over the first three months of 2018 marked the second consecutive quarterly decline and proves President Donald Trump’s tax cuts are a failure, critics charged. “The evidence from past tax cuts strongly suggested there would be little to no economic payoff in this form,” wrote Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute. “Today’s GDP data largely confirms this.”
Lifezette
April 30, 2018
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, 67 percent of private employers within California have forced arbitration. While the practice is mainly associated with large corporations, nearly 50 percent of employers with fewer than 100 employees also have mandatory arbitration policies.
San Francisco Business Times
April 30, 2018
Unfortunately, Democrats do not yet have a proposal that can bring these aspirations to life. One problem to work through is the traditional Democratic question of how to finance their new program. (Republican policy ideas never have this issue —they just put everything on the credit card and stick the next president with the bill.) It’s quite a large expenditure, perhaps half a trillion dollars a year, depending on the exact contours. Progressives have circulated polling showing support for a job guarantee financed by a 5 percent income tax hike on earnings over $200,000 a year, but Josh Bivens at the liberal Economic Policy Institute notes that that would cover less than a fifth of the cost.
New York Magazine
April 26, 2018
Public school teachers across Arizona plan to walk out of their classrooms Thursday to demand higher wages and better funding for schools. The latest economic research suggests teachers have valid reasons to feel left behind. Arizona teachers make just 63 cents on the dollar compared to other workers with college degrees. That’s the largest gap in the nation, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, where Lawrence Mishel is a labor market economist. “Teachers’ wages have really lagged behind that of other workers with similar amounts of experience and education,” says Mishel, “and we find that to be true even when we include the fact that teachers get better benefits.” (whole story)
Public News Service
April 26, 2018
Nationally, teachers today are paid on average $60,483 annually—17 percent lower than America’s typical college graduates, according to a recent survey conducted by the National Education Association. And teachers have lost ground in recent years, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that focuses on lower- and middle-income workers. Its analysis found that while college graduates’ average weekly pay rose by $124 between 1996 and 2015, teachers’ pay declined by $30 over that time when adjusted for inflation.
Education Week
April 26, 2018
But there are additional reasons why officials might scrutinize the company more than others. “They do set the standard in a lot of places,” says David Cooper of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “If Walmart is raising pay, every other employer in the rural area where Walmart dominates is also going to have to respond. It does have outsize significance in that respect.”
Governing
April 26, 2018