“This is happening in Seattle anyway, regardless of the minimum wage; we are seeing a shift away from low-wage jobs and to high-wage jobs,” said Ben Zipperer, of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group.
Los Angeles Times
June 26, 2017
And critics of the research pointed out what they saw as serious shortcomings. In particular, to avoid confusing establishments that were subject to the minimum with those that were not, the authors did not include large employers with locations both inside and outside of Seattle in their calculations. Skeptics argued that omission could explain the unusual results. “Like, whoa, what? Where did you get this?” asked Ben Zipperer, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington. “My view of the research is that it seems to work,” he said. “The minimum wage in general seems to do exactly what it’s intended to do, and that’s to raise wages for low-wage workers, with little negative consequence in terms of job loss.” … EPI’s Zipperer argued that was the best explanation, given how pronounced the gains were for workers making more than $19 an hour. “You’re just seeing an independent shift in the Seattle labor market toward higher wage employment,” he said, calling the figures for better-paid workers “a red flag.”
The Washington Post
June 26, 2017
How a Rising Minimum Wage Affects Jobs in Seattle
The New York Times/Noam Scheiber
“The key challenge this study faces is how to separate the normal shift that’s happening in a booming labor market — where low-wage jobs disappear and are replaced by higher-wage jobs — from an actual increase in the minimum wage,” said Ben Zipperer, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “This study exhibits signs that it’s not able to do it.” (Ben quoted throughout)
The New York Times
June 26, 2017
According to L. Josh Bivens, director of research at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute think tank, outside of crises like the Great Recession, concentrated jobs agendas have been out of political and economic vogue for ages. Experts I spoke to agree that Trump’s anti-regulation, anti-tax, anti-globalization, pro-infrastructure, and anti-immigration policies are cumulatively a jobs agenda, of sorts.(Josh quoted throughout)
Vice News
June 23, 2017
Robert Scott, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, said foreign aluminum imports threatened the entire U.S. industry which was hanging on “only by a thread” after a prolonged and steady decline in aluminum prices.
Reuters
June 23, 2017
Robert Scott, senior economist and director of trade and manufacturing policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, said there are a number of good reasons to take a broad approach that affects all sectors of the steel market, including downmarket steel production, to restore a fairly traded market and get rid of the steel glut hurting U.S. producers. Scott said unfairly traded steel imports in 2014 helped to kill 14,000 direct jobs in the U.S. steel industry between January 2015 and December 2016, and that thousands more were eliminated in industries supported by the steel industry. “If we use trade policies to ensure steel is fairly traded, then the prices will tend to gravitate toward a long-run natural market equilibrium. If not, then domestic producers will get put out of business and we will be vulnerable to these import suppliers who will be able to charge whatever they want for steel.” (Rob quoted throughout)
Think Progress
June 21, 2017
Pelosi’s claim that an estimated 1.8 million jobs will be lost through AHCA
The Washington Post/Glenn Kessler
Strikingly, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute in March did its own report on the impact of the AHCA, using a different methodology, and came up with a similar number as the CAP report: 1.8 million jobs lost by 2022. EPI’s report was more hedged, saying it was a “rough estimate of the potential drag on job growth.” The author, Josh Bivens, noted that macroeconomic projections have often been wrong. “Given all of this uncertainty, we present our findings as a drag on potential job growth, rather than as clear predictions of ‘jobs lost.’ ” (Josh quoted throughout)
The Washington Post
June 20, 2017
Book review of The Color of Law.
The New York Times
June 20, 2017
It’s an “unprecedented” action, according to Celine McNicholas, who served as the NLRB’s director of congressional and public affairs and as special counsel during the Obama administration. “Literally the Trump administration’s top attorney has decided to switch sides and argue on behalf of the employer against workers’ rights to collectively act under the National Labor Relations Act,” said McNicholas, who is now labor counsel for the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that describes itself as focused on including the needs of low- and middle-income workers. (Celine quoted throughout)
Bloomberg BNA
June 20, 2017
Trump Administration Sides With Employers Over Workers On Arbitration Agreements
The Huffington Post/Dave Jamieson
Celine McNicholas, a labor lawyer at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said what the White House was doing was extremely rare: flipping the government’s official position in an ongoing Supreme Court case. “This was something folks had been fearing,” McNicholas said. “I do think that the decision to switch sides is a real departure from the standard practice.” She added, “It’s incredibly troubling that an administration that ran [a campaign] on leveling the playing field and giving workers rights is going to literally stand with employers and corporate interests.”
Huffington Post
June 19, 2017