Media clips
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That brings us back to infrastructure. As Hunter Blair of the Economic Policy Institute writes in a helpful paper, there are really two questions in infrastructure: How to fund it and how to finance it. Funding is where the money actually comes from. Is it taxes? Or do people pay tolls and fees when using the infrastructure?
The Week March 27, 2017 -
Traditional, company-sponsored pension plans have all but disappeared, and nearly half of American families have no retirement savings, according to a 2016 Economic Policy Institute report. People who favor tontines say they could be a boon for older Americans if they are structured, operated and regulated properly.
The New York Times March 24, 2017 -
Public-private partnerships may indeed provide the dollars that fearful politicians are unable to pry from the pockets of their tax-averse constituents. But P3s, as they are known in the infrastructure sector, are more complex than they appear to people who just want to get where they’re going. In a new Economic Policy Institute report, “No Free Bridge,” researcher Hunter Blair shows just why these partnerships are far from a “eureka” moment for America’s infrastructure woes. “The idea that P3s allow infrastructure to be built for free is economic snake oil,” Blair said.
The American Prospect March 24, 2017 -
As many as 40,000 Oregonians would lose their jobs as a result of repeal, as those jobs were created as a result of more people participating in health insurance. That’s according to the Economic Policy Institute, which offers a state-by-state breakdown of the effects of Obamacare repeal.
Huffington Post March 24, 2017 -
Earlier this month, an Economic Policy Institute study showed that African-Americans had made big gains in the unionized sector of the construction industry, that Hispanics dominate the nonunion sector and that nonunion pay is a miserly $35,000 a year on average. The nonunion contractors went on the attack, claiming the study couldn’t be trusted because EPI is a union-affiliated think tank. This week the New York Building Congress issued a parallel study based on different sources that suggests the EPI study is accurate. If the nonunion sector wants to get out from the cloud it is under, it will need to do so with data.
Crain's New York March 24, 2017 -
“I would think a Federal Reserve economist would be wary of these kinds of averages,” Elaine Weiss, national coordinator at Broader Bolder Approach to Education, an education policy group based in Washington, told Kashkari, referring to national statistics he cited in his talk…Weiss shot back that some states such as Massachusetts are achieving excellent results through a combination of policies including investment in education as well as ensuring availability of health insurance for students. “Not only are we capable of having superb schools — and we have them — we can have them at a whole state level and it doesn’t require a miracle,” she said, eliciting applause from the audience and even a high-five from another audience member as she returned to her seat.
Bloomberg March 24, 2017 -
Will it work for software engineers? “I think it’s not only not crazy, it makes a lot of sense,” says Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor think tank in Washington DC. Although labor union membership peaked in 1954 at 35% of US workers, sinking to just 10.7% of the workforce today, there is a bright spot in the data: professional workers.
Quartz March 24, 2017 -
David Cooper, a senior economic analyst for the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that focuses on issues impacting low-income workers, said studies in the last decade have shown that “past increases have had little to no effect on employment.” That has been true when minimum wages are raised statewide or in cities such as San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. In New Mexico, Santa Fe has maintained wages well above the state minimum for more than a decade and has a lower unemployment rate, he said. “There is no evidence of business relocation … to avoid [higher wages] other then anecdotal,” said Cooper, adding that access to customers is a bigger influence than labor costs for industries such as retail, food service, hospitals, child care, hospitality and others.
Baltimore Sun March 24, 2017 -
Heidi Shierholz was the DOL’s chief economist during the time the Obama administration crafted the rule. Acosta’s comments about the department’s authority “demonstrate real radicalism or a lack of understanding about how the Fair Labor Standards Act works,” she said. “What we heard over and over again as we were crafting this rule is that businesses don’t like the duties test,” Shierholz, now a policy director for the Economic Policy Institute, told Bloomberg BNA March 22. “This would put all of the eggs in the duties test basket, which would lead to more litigation and more workers being misclassified as exempt.”
Bloomberg BNA March 24, 2017 -
“I think we can say with a lot of assurance that we have a different mix of employment because of NAFTA,” said Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute. We lost low skilled jobs for non-college educated Americans in rugs or furniture making or brick making. We gained design and business services jobs in autos and aerospace. “That change in the mix of employment has been generally not good for non-college labor in the United States,” Bivens said. Then again, neither has automation, the move to a services-based economy, the decline of labor unions and globalization generally. “NAFTA is just this very visible political symbol that people take as the stand-in for all the pressures globalization put on American workers,” said Bivens, who remains critical of NAFTA and policymakers for failing to protect the workers who lost out as a result of the trade agreement and economic changes that came after it.
Marketplace March 23, 2017