“The vast majority of H-1B workers are brought in because they are cheaper than Americans, not because they hold any specialized skills,” says Ronil Hira, an Economic Policy Institute researcher and associate professor of public policy at Howard University.
WIRED
November 23, 2016
Research the average cost of big-ticket expenses such as child care in your area so you know what to expect, Podnos says. The Economic Policy Institute found that child care for a 4-year-old isn’t cheap anywhere, but the cost varies a lot by location: It costs $344 a month in rural areas of South Carolina and $1,472 a month in Washington, D.C. Find your local average cost using the institute’s Family Budget Calculator.
MarketWatch
November 23, 2016
Josh Bivens, research and policy director at the progressive Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., said a $500 billion fiscal stimulus for infrastructure spending, plus big tax cuts that benefit upper-middle- and upper-income earners, would likely shift growth into high gear in the first year or two of Trump’s presidency. But based on the stated plans of the president-elect and Republican leaders in Congress, Bivens doesn’t believe lower- and middle-income workers would benefit much. “I don’t see a lot of push to raise the minimum wage,” said Bivens. “You’ll see continued attacks on organized labor. And I think unions are really key to supporting wages.”
Marketplace
November 22, 2016
NAFTA’s effect on U.S. jobs is disputed. Critics such as the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute charge that it has led to the loss of some 850,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs, while proponents such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce claim the trade growth has added a net 5 million jobs in the United States.
Reuters
November 22, 2016
Trump isn’t alone in his criticism of trade deals such as NAFTA. He’s joined by some progressive members of Congress such as independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who also railed against NAFTA as a Democratic primary candidate last year. Sanders and Trump have both cited research linking manufacturing job losses to NAFTA, including a 2014 study from the Economic Policy Institute, which found that NAFTA created trade deficits that displaced more than 850,000 U.S. jobs between 1993 and 2013.
ATTN:
November 22, 2016
A filibuster would leave Republicans relying on the appropriations process to halt the reforms, said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, a proponent of the overtime changes. Congress could attach a “rider” to a spending bill that prevents the Labor Department from enforcing the overtime rules. In that case, Eisenbrey said, it would fall to businesses to observe the new rules voluntarily, “and businesses would feel compelled to comply.” “But, eventually,” Eisenbrey adds, “a Trump [Labor Department] will issue a new regulation to reverse it.”
The Huffington Post
November 22, 2016
More education will help close racial wage gaps somewhat, but it will not resolve problems of denied opportunity. In fact, recent studies suggest that income disparities are growing at the very top between blacks and whites. According to an Economic Policy Institute report from September, the difference between what a white college graduate earns and what a black college graduate earns has widened since the 1980s.
The Washington Post
November 19, 2016
Meanwhile, there’s enough of a move toward pay transparency with the proliferation of sites like Glassdoor and PayScale that some companies could be forced to respond to other groups who decide to calculate the numbers for them. The idea that the two numbers should be compared is well-engrained: Management theorist Peter Drucker once espoused a 20-to-1 ratio limit, and some groups or media outlets have already published them. (According to the Economic Policy Institute, the average CEO made 276 times the typical worker in 2015.)
The Washington Post
November 18, 2016
Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, said he expects the rule to not survive for long given the election of a Republican to the presidency. Eisenbrey’s organization supported the rule change.
Associated Press
November 18, 2016
Economic Policy Institute: Unions Are Weak Now: An opponent of right-to-work laws said there seems to be little labor unions can do at this time to block the push for these bills in state legislatures. “The long and short of this is unions are weak right now, and they’re politically weak,” Ross Eisenbrey, vice president at the Economic Policy Institute, told Bloomberg BNA Nov. 9. They aren’t able to counter this trend, he said, “when the politicians become sufficiently Republican, and Republicans have it on their to-do list.”
Bloomberg BNA
November 18, 2016