What you need to know about NAFTA as it goes through a quarter-life crisis
The Washington Post/Max Bearak
“Trump is right that the 1994 agreement with Mexico and Canada displaced US jobs — some 850,000, most of which were in manufacturing. But he is wrong in his claim that American workers lost out to Mexican workers because US negotiators were outsmarted,” wrote Jeff Faux, the director of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “The interests of workers were never a priority for either American or Mexican negotiators.” … “I don’t expect much to come out of the whole process. Trump talked up the possibility of walking out of NAFTA, but he was talked out of that,” said Rob Scott, a trade analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. “There are too many connections between the economies to tear it up. They’ll end up nibbling around the edges.”
The Washington Post
August 18, 2017
Dave Cooper, a senior analyst at the Economic Policy Institute (which advocates raising the minimum wage), echoed his strong words on Twitter, and linked to a hefty 471-page analysis on the impacts of minimum wages as a more valuable resource than one-off studies. (tweets included)
Next City
August 18, 2017
The methodological mess-up is likely to provide fodder for County Council members and advocacy groups that support the higher wage. After the study was first released, the liberal-learning Economic Policy Institute called it “absurd junk science,” and Council member Marc Elrich (At-Large) told Bethesda Beat the estimated job loss figure was “laughable.”
WAMU
August 18, 2017
A report from the Economic Policy Institute shows 1.9 million fewer people working in construction and manufacturing, despite the economy adding 8.2 million jobs in the private sector. On the other hand, positions for those without a bachelor’s degree have increased in lower-paying industries such as hospitality, health care, temporary help services and other services.
The Seattle Times
August 17, 2017
Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, said it’s incumbent on business owners without legal residency to prepare for the worst: “If they want their business to survive, they are going to have to put a plan in place.”
The Associated Press
August 17, 2017
Here again, though, the economic evidence tells a different story. In fact, as a recent paper by Lawrence Mishel and Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute puts it, “automation, broadly defined, has actually been slower over the last 10 years or so.” And lately, the pace of microchip advancement has started to lag behind the schedule dictated by Moore’s law. Corporate America, for its part, certainly doesn’t seem to believe in the jobless future. If the rewards of automation were as immense as predicted, companies would be pouring money into new technology. But they’re not. Investments in software and IT grew more slowly over the past decade than the previous one. And capital investment, according to Mishel and Bivens, has grown more slowly since 2002 than in any other postwar period. That’s exactly the opposite of what you’d expect in a rapidly automating world. As for gadgets like Pepper, total spending on all robotics in the US was just $11.3 billion last year. That’s about a sixth of what Americans spend every year on their pets.
WIRED
August 16, 2017
FEATURING HUNTER BLAIR – Right wing economists often decry US corporate tax rates as being among the highest in the world. In fact that is the basis for much of the Republican-led efforts to re-write the US tax code. But although the theoretical tax rate, or what is called the “statutory” tax rate, is 35%, the actual rates that corporations pay vary between 12% and 19%. A new report by the Economic Policy Institute suggests that rather than reducing the statutory tax rates for corporations, the US needs to close the myriad loopholes that enable corporate tax dodgers. (video interview with Hunter)
Rising Up with Sonali
August 16, 2017
The Economic Policy Institute said in 2013 that some 700,000 jobs had been lost as production moved to Mexico – with California, Texas, and Michigan among the worst hit states.
Al Jazeera America
August 16, 2017
There is no doubt Trump’s base is predominantly white and, generally speaking, it is hurting. Take college and jobs, for instance: according to the Economic Policy Institute, the earnings gap between those with and without a college degree is the widest ever recorded.
The Guardian
August 16, 2017
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw 200,000 jobs certified this year,” said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute. The lack of growth in the undocumented immigrant population, coupled with “open questions” about the Trump administration’s enforcement tactics, could cause the program to grow even more, he told Bloomberg BNA Aug. 10. (Daniel quoted throughout)
Bloomberg BNA
August 15, 2017