In the last several decades, executive pay has risen dramatically compared to pay for typical workers. In 1989, CEOs made about 59 times what the average worker pulled in. In 2015, they made 276 times what a typical worker makes ― about $15 million on average, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute.
The Huffington Post
October 26, 2016
The level of religious activity in a state can have a significant effect on the wage gap between men and women in that state, according to a report released by the Economic Policy Institute last week. Utah, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana — among the most religious states, according to a Gallup poll conducted earlier this year — have some of the highest gender pay-gaps in the US… “When you live in an area that has a bigger focus on religion and traditional gender roles, sometimes there can be biases in place where girls are pushed to pursue the humanities, and boys are taught to pursue math and science,” Elise Gould, the report’s principal author, told Business Insider.
Business Insider
October 25, 2016
Part of the reason the upward climb has stretched on for so long is just that the low-point—the recession—was so low. From the nadir of the Great Recession, employment took longer to hit its pre-recession peak than it did during any of the last three economic recoveries: 11 months after the recession of the early 1980s, 23 months after the one in the 1990s, 39 months in the early aughts, and a lengthy 51 months following the Great Recession, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Atlantic
October 24, 2016
“The idea that he has an obvious lever to get us to anywhere close to that, I don’t see it,” said Josh Bivens, research and policy director for the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “It’s not economically literate.”… But the economies of India and China are significantly different than the United States. Both are emerging economies, and have ample room for improvement as they train up their workforce and take advantage of productivity developments from across the world. “They have a lot of reasons why they can hit very fast productivity growth rates,” Bivens said. “The fact that they’re growing fast is totally a function of the fact that they’re starting at a much lower level.”
The Hill
October 23, 2016
The U.S. and developing economies such as China and India have major structural differences that lead to the differences in GDP growth that Trump mentioned. Economists with viewpoints as diverse as Trump’s adviser Peter Navarro, Heritage Foundation fellow Salim Furth and left-leaning researcher Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute all agree on this core point…Bivens said the U.S. economy is unlikely to grow at a faster annual rate than 2.5 percent over the long run, given existing trends. This would still be faster than growth projections in other major economies such as Germany and Japan, he noted…There isn’t unanimous agreement that Trump’s plan would lead to the type of long-term, sustained growth that Navarro has predicted. Bivens said any reform to tax or trade policy could precipitate a small spike in growth, but the uptick would not be long-lasting. “If we did some policy maneuver to reduce our trade deficit, we’d get a year or two of a percentage point faster growth, and then we’d converge again onto our long-run trend,” Bivens said.
Morning Consult
October 21, 2016
This morning, a new study was released by the Economic Policy Institute that detailed new findings about the gender pay gap. The research was done in an effort to disprove the surprising number of people who don’t actually believe that the gender pay gap is real. (It’s real.) The authors of the report write that a “typical, or median” woman working full-time gets 80 cents for every dollar that a man makes. This is why they say there can be variables to that number.
New York Magazine
October 21, 2016
“The Fed should perhaps hold off on an interest-rate increase because the groups that benefit most late in a recovery are just now starting to see those gains materialize,” said Valerie Wilson, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute think tank. “We need to allow these types of gains to continue as long as possible so people can experience a full recovery.”
Wall Street Journal
October 21, 2016
Take what’s called the prime age employment rate. It’s a very simple measure, telling us how many 25- to 54-year-olds have jobs. But over time it has proved to be an extremely accurate indicator. And it suggests that Massachusetts has made up for all the losses of the Great Recession. Right now, 81.1 percent of 25- to 54-year-olds have jobs, according to calculations from the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that focuses on the needs of low- and middle-income workers. In 2007, before the financial crisis, it was 81.2 percen
The Boston Globe
October 21, 2016
According to the Economic Policy Institute: “In line with the Department of Labor, our estimates suggest that between 694,000 and 1,053,000 employees of federal contractors may directly benefit from additional paid sick leave, including an estimated 450,000 to 775,000 who currently receive no paid sick leave.”
The Hill
October 21, 2016