“Republicans know it’s in their interest to weaken the biggest institution that supports Democrats,” said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the pro-union Economic Policy Institute.
Governing
February 13, 2017
The financial disparity between the teaching profession and other similar jobs in the US is well-documented. The gap between public teachers and other public officials ballooned to the largest point ever in 2015, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute. And compared to all college-goers, teachers made 17% less than other similarly educated workers.
Business Insider
February 12, 2017
Let’s walk through the math. Currently, the US employs about 152 million workers (pdf, p.7). Trump’s proposal would therefore up the size of America’s workforce to 177 million, an increase of around 17%. The Congressional Budget Office expects population growth to boost the number of US workers by about 8 million by 2027, argues Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research nonprofit group.
Quartz
February 12, 2017
The southeastern part of the country in particular has struggled. Janelle Jones, an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, points out that the South has a distinct labor market from elsewhere: fewer states with minimum wages above the federal level, a lack of a union presence, austerity at the state level, lower labor-force participation rates and a higher proportion of African-American workers. “It is true that labor market outcomes, particularly unemployment, are always devastatingly worse in black communities, and that may play some part in the slower recovery in that region. But I think it would be a mistake to forget these larger, institutional labor market factors that matter for recovery to all workers, and would disproportionately help black workers in the south because they have so much further to go to see a real, sustained recovery,” she said over email.
Market Watch
February 10, 2017
With an aging population and a growing number of people nearing retirement, it’s scary to think of how little the typical American family has set aside in savings. According to a report last year by the Economic Policy Institute, half of the families with workers in their prime have amassed $17,000 or less in their nest eggs. When their paychecks stop, they’ll have little more than their Social Security benefits to live on, as paltry as they may be…As a consequence, almost half of American families with workers in their prime aren’t covered by a pension or 401(k) plan, the Economic Policy Institute found. In California alone, an estimated 7.5 million workers fall into this category.
Los Angeles Times
February 10, 2017
A report published in July 2016 by the liberal Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found in 2015 CEOs of America’s largest firms made 276 times the pay of their average worker. According to their report CEO pay rose 46.5% between 2009 and 2015 as opposed to worker pay rising 1.3%.
CBS News
February 10, 2017
Of course, $450 billion worth of Japanese investment will probably play well in the White House (and, very likely, on Twitter). But will it actually close the trade deficit and boost American wealth? Not necessarily, says Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning non-profit research group. “This story seems to me to cry out, ‘beware foreign leaders bearing gifts,’” he says.
Quartz
February 10, 2017
The US-Canadian goods trade deficit was only about $15 billion in 2015, but the one between the US and Mexico was a much bigger $50 billion that same year. The main dynamic underlying that trade deficit that Trump is concerned with — and the one that helped him seize the White House — is the migration of US manufacturing jobs to Mexico. The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, estimates that the US has lost some 700,000 jobs to Mexico in the two-plus decades since NAFTA went into effect.
VOX
February 10, 2017
A recent report by the Economic Policy Institute argues that repealing the ACA could leave U.S. taxpayers with a hefty check, and in 2019 alone, reduce job growth by 1.2 million and federal spending by about $103 billion. Researcher Josh Bivens says the move will disproportionately affect low- and middle-income Americans and reduce spending power for the majority of earners in a given state.
Next City
February 10, 2017
The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute said in a new study released a week ago that China’s trade surplus between 2001 and 2015 had cost the U.S. economy 3.4 million jobs, three quarters of them in manufacturing industries. The worst hit was the computer and electronic parts industry, which lost 1.2 million jobs, the study said. “China both subsidizes and dumps massive quantities of exports,” said the study, written by researcher Robert E. Scott. “Specifically it blocks imports, pirates software and technology from foreign producers, manipulates its currency, invests in massive amounts of excess production capacity in a range of basic industries, often through state owned enterprises (investments that lead to dumping), and operates as a refuse lot for carbon and other industrial pollutants.”
Forbes
February 10, 2017