Media clips
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But Lawrence Mishel, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, says such payments, along with extended unemployment insurance, provided laid-off Americans a lifeline and propped up consumer spending and the economy. And Zandi says most of the decline in labor force participation can be traced to retiring Baby Boomers…That criticism amounts to nonsense, Mishel says. If cuts in taxes and regulations “were so successful – given that we’ve been pursuing them since Reagan – why do we have stagnation seemingly for four decades?” he asked. “We don’t remember the Bush years as prosperity years.” They’re also quibbles, Mishell says, in the context of a dramatic labor market turnaround fueled by the stimulus. “To say that these efforts weren’t very positive is ignore a wealth of evidence.”
USA Today January 20, 2017 -
Josh Bivens discuss Obama’s legacy on the economy with CATO’s Daniel Grisworld
C-SPAN January 19, 2017 -
In the long fight to close achievement gaps in America’s public schools, some troubling trends are holding strong. The gap between higher- and lower-income students persists, and race, income, and segregation remain deeply connected when it comes to academic performance. But new research shows that the racial gap, though stubborn, appears to be slowly closing. That’s a finding from a study released Thursday by the Economic Policy Institute that lends hard data to the progress and continued struggles to put students of different demographic groups on equal footing.
The Atlantic January 19, 2017 -
First off, there’s the question of whether widespread harmony in an intellectual field is a good sign or a bad one. “If economists are more in agreement it doesn’t mean they’ve got truth,” Lawrence Michel, the president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, told The Week. “When economists agree, sometimes we should be suspicious.”
The Week January 19, 2017 -
According to a recent Economic Policy Institute report on wage inequality, it was during the period when “Living Single” was on the air that African Americans’ financial prospects were at their sharpest. It’s been downhill ever since. According to the latest State of Working America report, the median black household income fell 10.1 percent between 2007 and 2010, compared to just 5.4 percent for the median white households. Meanwhile, in 2015, black men made 22 percent less than white men with the same education, work experience, and metro status, according to EPI. Black women earned 11.7 percent less than similarly situated white women. If rent continues to outpace income, the share of severely cost burdened renters will increase by 2025, hitting black, Latino, and Asian renters the hardest, according to a recent report from Enterprise Community Partners and the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.
The Atlantic January 19, 2017 -
The gender wage gap, while widely recognized, can feel somewhat intangible. The Economic Policy Institute has created a calculator that crunches the numbers for you. The calculator was released in October with the EPI report titled “What is the gender pay gap and is it real?” (Spoiler: it is.) If you’re a woman, after you input your age, gender, yearly salary and whether or not you have a bachelors’ degree, the calculator produces a message revealing how much more you would likely make if you were male. If you are male, it tells you how much more you likely make than “a comparable woman.” The gap is present even among new college graduates, the EPI reports. (If you’re curious about their methodology, the EPI breaks it down in the endnotes of the report.)
ATTN: January 19, 2017 -
As a veteran fast food leader opposed to wage hikes, Puzder’s beef with Henry and the SEIU seems clear. But he’s handing out the blocks more liberally than that. The cabinet nominee has also blocked the National Employment Law Project, the Economic Policy Institute, MoveOn.org, the Fight for $15, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights — all organizations that advocate on behalf of workers, especially low-wage workers and workers of color. These groups have been critical of his nomination, tweeting at him and about him, and perhaps earning their block along the way. The Economic Policy Institute told BuzzFeed News it was blocked after this tweet
Buzzfeed January 19, 2017 -
“Him being an employer can only lead to complications,” said Lawrence Mishel, the president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research organization that studies labor issues. “It is inherent in owning a business.”
The New York Times January 19, 2017 -
The number of incarcerated people in the U.S. has risen drastically over the past four decades. But this has not occurred equally across the population. African-American men are incarcerated at six times the rate of white men, and 2.5 times the rate of Hispanic men. And because an overwhelming percentage of these men are fathers, mass incarceration is also a chief contributor to the racial achievement gap between black and white students, according to researchers at the Economic Policy Institute. In a recent study, “Mass incarceration and children’s outcomes,” researchers found disproportionate imprisonment rates contribute to race-based inequalities in educational attainment.
Michigan Public Radio January 19, 2017 -
Obama also signed a number of executive orders affecting federal contractors, including setting a $10.10 minimum wage, a guarantee of paid sick leave and protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Another order requires new contractors to disclose any labor law violations. Trump has not indicated his plans for those policies specifically, but he is certain to come under pressure to quickly revoke them — which he may do unilaterally. “Republicans in Congress and the corporate lobbyists have been complaining about these rules for some time,” said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Baltimore Sun January 18, 2017