NAFTA’s record, based on empirical data, is far from the caricature Trump drew of it, though substantive debate about its effect on inequality and on various sectors of all three countries’ economies continues to rage. A 2012 survey of leading economists conducted by The University of Chicago Booth School of Business found that 85% of them supported the notion that, on average, U.S. citizens benefited from NAFTA. Still, the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank linked to the union umbrella federation AFL-CIO, estimates that nearly 700,000 manufacturing jobs have been “lost or displaced” due to the agreement.
Forward
November 29, 2016
Larry Mishel, president of the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute, said the incoming Congress “appears set on passing draconian economic laws meant to benefit Wall Street and big business at the expense of working families.” Mishel said working Americans need stronger unions and collective bargaining to achieve pay gains.
The Kansas City Star
November 29, 2016
“I think that, at least in this election cycle, the perception has been that working class really refers to white males,” says Valerie Wilson, director of the program on race, ethnicity and economy at the Economic Policy Institute. “But the working class is much more diverse already than it is commonly portrayed in the media or in political discussions.”… As a June 2016 Economic Policy Institute report on the topic by Wilson notes, the wages of all gender, racial and ethnic groups have failed to keep pace with the nation’s economy-wide productivity growth between 1979 and 2014. The hardest-hit workers in this respect have been Latino men, who have seen their hourly wages decrease by an inflation-adjusted 9.8 percent over this period. Second were black men, whose wages have decreased by 7.2 percent. White males, in contrast, have seen their wages decrease by a significantly lower 3.1 percent over the same period.
The Times of Northwest Indiana
November 27, 2016
“We can’t just wave a wand and undo NAFTA, slapping tariffs on Mexican imports will not solve any problems for American workers. Our economy is tightly integrated with that of Mexico and Canada,” said Robert Scott, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
Epoch Times
November 27, 2016
“He did run as an economic populist, and denying millions of workers shorter hours and raises seems to run counter to that,” said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute. “It’s too bad. It’s really too bad that people were going to be getting raises and shorter hours, and this throws it all into confusion at best and maybe undoes it.”… The U.S. Department of Labor estimates it would affect about 4.2 million workers across the country, including 67,000 in South Carolina. But the change could also clarify overtime eligibility for thousands more who might already be entitled to it, argues the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. By that measure, a total of 12.5 million people might be affected, including 219,000 here – almost a third of the state’s salaried workers.
The Post and Courier
November 27, 2016
About 17 percent of U.S. workers have unstable work schedules, according to a 2015 study by the Economic Policy Institute. That’s why many groups see fair scheduling laws as labor’s next big fight. In one bright spot on November 8, voters in San Jose, Calif., passed a labor-backed ballot initiative that will require employers to give more hours to part-time workers before hiring additional employees. Such local initiatives could be one of the few openings for labor under a Donald Trump presidency.
In These Times
November 25, 2016
Clinton’s plan, which ensured no family would spend more than 10% of its income on childcare, would deliver more money to American families. In April, the Economic Policy Institute published a state-by-state estimation of the median annual savings for low- and middle-income families under Clinton’s plan. Households with an infant saved between $350 (in Mississippi) and $8,304 (in Massachusetts). Households with an infant and a 4-year-old fared better yet — $4,289 (in South Dakota) to $21,085 (in Massachusetts) per year.
Mic
November 24, 2016
“The minimum wage is probably the clearest example of a policy where the majority of ordinary working Americans are calling for action and some so-called elites in Washington, specifically Republican members of Congress, are ignoring them,” said David Cooper, senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning Washington think tank. “If Trump really wants to be a champion of the working people, he should press for a raise in the federal minimum wage.”
Boston Globe
November 24, 2016
David Cooper, of the liberal Economic Policy Institute, says historical trends suggest the time has come for a minimum wage increase. “If we had raised the federal minimum wage at the same pace as productivity growth since 1968, the high point of the federal minimum wage in inflation-adjusted terms, it would be over $19 an hour today,” he said. “That means that anyone making less than $19 an hour today is potentially making less than what the economy could have afforded them, if we had adopted different policies over the last 48 years.” If Trump doesn’t act, Cooper said he’s not confident the low wages will be addressed at the state level. “The reality is that without a federal standard, some states simply won’t take action,” he said.
ATTN:
November 24, 2016
One study by the Economic Policy Institute showed that black employees with more experience and education were still paid less than their white counterparts. Another study by the Corporation for Economic Development and the Institute for Policy Studies said if current trends persist, it would take 228 years for black families and 84 years for Latino families to accumulate the same amount of wealth as whites.
CNN Money
November 23, 2016