How Republicans sold you down the river to Wall Street
The Week/Ryan Cooper
An Economic Policy Institute study found that customers got paid only 9 percent of the time in arbitration, while corporations did 93 percent of the time. And when consumers do get paid, they get vastly less than they do in class-action lawsuits.
The Week
October 26, 2017
Quick links: Economic Policy Institute report: Cutting corporate taxes won’t increase wages.
Politico
October 26, 2017
The August action wasn’t Trump’s first attack on the fiduciary rule. During the presidential campaign, one of his advisers, Anthony Scaramucci, likened the rule to the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision, which held that African Americans were not U.S. citizens. Soon after taking office, the Trump administration delayed implementation of the rule for 60 days. But the August action, which put key parts of the regulation on hold until July 2019, is the administration’s biggest step to thwarting the rule yet. The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, has calculated that the delay will cost retirement savers approximately $10.9 billion in higher fees over 30 years.
The Atlantic
October 25, 2017
What’s more, the Economic Policy Institute found that the average consumer who goes to arbitration ends up actually having to pay their bank or lender $7,725 on average in fees. In terms of recovery, the numbers do not favor the consumer in arbitration.
The Hill
October 25, 2017
What’s interesting about that? It’s very similar to what I was told by Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. When I asked Bivens about the idea of leaving the tax rate for those making more than $1 million where it is, he said, “In a vacuum I would probably be pretty happy about it.” But in the context of the Republican plan, Bivens said, “it’s going to be mostly meaningless, because even a lot of income at the current top rate is just going to be reclassified as pass-through income to take advantage of the new loophole they’ve created.” (Josh quoted throughout)
The Washington Post
October 24, 2017
Previously, Florida had been adding about 19,000 jobs a month since January, while Texas added about 24,000 jobs a month since the beginning of 2017. Those states, along with the surrounding regions, are likely to see those numbers rebound in the coming months, as construction workers and temporary openings flood the South. “The rebound will certainly happen by the end of the year and [maybe] in the next few weeks,” said Janelle Jones, an analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. “People are already doing [temporary] and holiday hiring. It’s good for these workers who need jobs immediately, and there are a lot of hours to be had.”
The Wall Street Journal
October 24, 2017
Meanwhile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step into the redistricting fight there. Marni von Wilpert writes for the Economic Policy Institute’s Working Economics Blog that the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Murphy Oil v. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a case which will determine whether workers should have to sign away their rights to sue their employer by signing mandatory employment arbitration agreements. As von Wilpert notes, arbitration is often forced on employees to prevent them from suing their employers in court should they have grievances, which can make obtaining justice iffy at best for women suffering workplace gender discrimination.
Rewire
October 24, 2017
“The well-off is who really benefits. In that sense, it’s a really bad tax break,” said Monique Morrissey, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute who has researched workplace retirement plans.
Politico
October 24, 2017
ALEC decided to make another push on preemption in 2013 and found a warm reception among Republican lawmakers in state legislatures and governorships. “All of a sudden, we saw a slew of states deciding to pass preemption laws [that] looked very similar to its model bill,” says Marni von Wilpert, associate labor counsel at the Economic Policy Institute. Between 2011 and 2013, 105 preemption bills undermining wages were introduced in statehouses, about two-thirds of which were sponsored or co-sponsored by legislators who were affiliated with ALEC. At least 25 states have now instituted laws that usurp city and county power to take action on their own minimum wages. More than half have passed since 2013. Five states joined the list in 2016 alone, with three more this year so far.
In These Times
October 24, 2017
The last time President Donald Trump spoke to the nation about his administration’s plan for infrastructure spending, he ended up defending the honor of violent white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia. Since then, the proposed $1 trillion bill appears to have slipped on his list of priorities: Trump hasn’t tweeted about infrastructure since August. But if and when the topic of America’s crumbling bridges, leaky pipes, and outdated electrical grid comes up again, the need will outstrip whatever resources in whatever bill Congress gets around to passing—even if it’s a trillie. Prioritizing infrastructure projects to be funded turns out to be more art than science. The government could be much better at making these decision, whether it’s at the local, state, or federal level. That’s the conclusion of a new report from the Economic Policy Institute that explores ways for policymakers to tighten up the process. The report’s author, Josh Bivens, who is the organization’s director of research, sees three ways that government is falling down on the job—and one big-picture solution for making infrastructure projects work better for everyone. (whole story)
CityLab
October 24, 2017