Interview with Richard Rothstein
The Dallas Morning News
August 23, 2017
“Trump campaigned on the negative impacts of trade and trade deals like NAFTA on working Americans, but here instead he is intervening not to help working people but to help American investors and American multinational companies,” Rob Scott, director of trade and manufacturing at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, told me in an interview in the runup to the investigation announcement. … “If Trump is successful, he will make our trade problems with China worse because what it will do is facilitate foreign investment in China — and foreign investment in China is all about outsourcing production,” Scott says.
VOX
August 22, 2017
The Fight for $15 is a union-led movement to increase the minimum wage. So far, it appears to be working. Since launching in 2012, when hundreds of fast-food workers in New York City walked off the job to protest low wages, at least 21 states, plus Washington D.C., have changed their minimum-wage laws, according to the Economic Policy Institute — and the minimum wage has increased in at least 27 states and D.C.
Mic
August 22, 2017
A black person is far less likely to find a job than a white person with the same education and experience, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Let that sink in. Even with the same qualifications, a white person is deemed “more qualified” or more employable than a black person. (chart included)
The Root
August 22, 2017
Los Angeles Times
August 22, 2017
That’s not to argue that the economy and race relations have no connection. White Americans may well be more comfortable with minority groups’ rising economic status when they themselves have secure jobs and rising incomes. But for nonwhites, a strong economy is not a cure-all. Janelle Jones, an analyst at the Economic Policy Institute’s program studying race and the economy, argues that nationwide averages don’t tell you everything you need to know about the economic experiences of African-Americans and other minority groups. “The idea that the availability of jobs is the way to solve race relations is misguided,” Ms. Jones said, in that a job alone doesn’t assure a stable, prosperous standard of living. “Even if you have jobs available, there’s still discrimination in pay and promotion,” she said. “Being able to have a job that pays well and comes with benefits, to buy a house in a place that isn’t racially segregated, to send your kids to a school that is not racially segregated, these are parts of what makes for a quality economic outcome.”
The New York Times
August 18, 2017
Lighthizer’s figure thus covers the first seven years of NAFTA, but does not include later data that might have been affected by China’s admission to the World Trade Organization. The official said the USTR also turned to a 2010 estimate by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning organization, that estimated job losses of 700,000 due to U.S.-Mexico trade. (EPI actually has an updated 2013 estimate of 851,700 displaced jobs with both Mexico and Canada, but its methodology has been criticized as really meaning jobs changed by trade, not lost.)
The Washington Post
August 18, 2017
What you need to know about NAFTA as it goes through a quarter-life crisis
The Washington Post/Max Bearak
“Trump is right that the 1994 agreement with Mexico and Canada displaced US jobs — some 850,000, most of which were in manufacturing. But he is wrong in his claim that American workers lost out to Mexican workers because US negotiators were outsmarted,” wrote Jeff Faux, the director of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “The interests of workers were never a priority for either American or Mexican negotiators.” … “I don’t expect much to come out of the whole process. Trump talked up the possibility of walking out of NAFTA, but he was talked out of that,” said Rob Scott, a trade analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. “There are too many connections between the economies to tear it up. They’ll end up nibbling around the edges.”
The Washington Post
August 18, 2017
Dave Cooper, a senior analyst at the Economic Policy Institute (which advocates raising the minimum wage), echoed his strong words on Twitter, and linked to a hefty 471-page analysis on the impacts of minimum wages as a more valuable resource than one-off studies. (tweets included)
Next City
August 18, 2017
The methodological mess-up is likely to provide fodder for County Council members and advocacy groups that support the higher wage. After the study was first released, the liberal-learning Economic Policy Institute called it “absurd junk science,” and Council member Marc Elrich (At-Large) told Bethesda Beat the estimated job loss figure was “laughable.”
WAMU
August 18, 2017