Some ground their support for higher teacher pay in education policy. They argue you’ll get the quality of teachers you pay for, and teacher pay lags behind other white-collar professionals. The Economic Policy Institute found that teachers’ weekly wages are 23 percent lower than those of other college graduates. If a teacher can’t earn enough to pay off their student loans, they’ll probably think twice before becoming an educator.
The American Prospect
May 9, 2018
Texas Public Radio
May 9, 2018
President Trump’s administration announced plans in March to hike tariffs on U.S. imports of steel and aluminium to combat what it said was unfair trade practices from China. Many economists have criticized the move, but others say tariffs could be an effective tool for addressing long-simmering problems in the global economy. Here & Now‘s Jeremy Hobson speaks with Robert Scott (@robscott_epi), senior economist and director of trade and manufacturing policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, who says tariffs are long overdue — as long as they’re part of a larger economic strategy.
WBUR
May 8, 2018
The international provisions in the new U.S. tax law fail to live up to Republicans’ promises that the legislation will boost domestic investment and manufacturing, according to a panel of experts speaking Monday at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Contrary to the GOP’s messages around the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, P.L. 115-97, academics who have analyzed the new legislation say lawmakers’ deliberate policy choices actually make the U.S. a less desirable place to invest while encouraging multinational companies to shift… (paywall, appears to be whole story)
Law 360
May 8, 2018
—Report: “State attorneys general can play key roles in protecting workers’ rights,” from the Economic Policy Institute
Politico Pro
May 8, 2018
“Uber and Lyft are kind of the poster children to some extent for this debate,” says Celine McNicholas at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “We become more aware of these issues, and it’s wonderful to have these decisions shine a light on the reality of what folks delivering our FedEx packages and driving us to and from friends’ houses are experiencing. “It’s about giving thought to the economy we’re supporting,” she adds.
The Christian Science Monitor
May 7, 2018
The price tag would jump in recessions as laid-off people flock to the program. That is a feature, not a bug: By automatically injecting public money into the economy, it would prop up spending, private employment and tax revenue, lessening the recession’s severity. And unlike universal basic income, another fashionable idea for reducing inequality in which everyone gets a check regardless of whether they work, a jobs guarantee gets the taxpayer something in return: workers. That, however, is also the problem. Here’s why. According to the Economic Policy Institute, 39% of the workforce, some 54 million people, now earn $15 an hour or less. All would have an incentive to quit and join the federal program. Of course, most wouldn’t because their employers would, grudgingly, raise pay to keep them, then pass the cost on to customers, a de facto inflation tax. Indeed, advocates say the job guarantee accomplishes the same thing as a $15 minimum wage without the job loss.
The Wall Street Journal
May 3, 2018
In the United States, too, many of Chomsky’s worries have become reality. Rob Scott, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), estimates that between 1993 and 2010, 682,900 U.S. jobs have disappeared due to trade with Mexico. An additional 3.4 million jobs—75 percent in manufacturing—were lost due to trade with China between 2001 and 2015. “Trade is the single most important cause of manufacturing job loss,” Scott says. “It is an urban myth that it is caused by improvements in technology. “The growth of trade, particularly imports from low-wage countries, explains 90 percent of the suppression of wages of non-college educated workers since 1995.” (Rob and EPI quoted throughout)
In These Times
May 3, 2018
More than 60 million employees in the U.S. have signed mandatory arbitration agreements. According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, one-third of these affected workers have also signed class action waivers—meaning that not only can they not bring a suit against their employers on their own behalf, they also may not join a class action as part of an aggrieved group. More common in low-wage workplaces, mandatory arbitration clauses and class action waivers have a disproportionately adverse impact on women and minority employees. … If the Court sides broadly with employers in NLRB v. Murphy Oil, the Economic Policy Institute’s Alexander J.S. Colvin warns, “this will signal to businesses that the last potential barrier to their ability to opt out of class actions has been removed.”
City Lab
May 2, 2018