Other research backs up that disparity. Algernon Austin, director of the race, ethnicity and the economy program at the Economic Policy Institute, last year analyzed 2009 data on teens who were not attending school.
He found that 16- to 19- year-olds from poor families, whose income was below the poverty line, were less likely to be working than teens whose families had more money. That was true regardless of race or ethnicity.
“In terms of need, it is backwards,” he said.
MSNBC
May 7, 2012
The top CEO compensation adds to this picture. Lawrence Mishel and Natalie Sabadish at the Economic Policy Institute show us in detail what’s happened:
Though lower than in other years in the last decade, the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio in 2011 of more than 200-to-1 is far above the ratios prevailing in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and mid-1990s. This illustrates that CEOs have fared far better than the typical worker, the stock market, or the U.S. economy over the last several decades. That begs the question: is there any gauge against which to measure CEO pay that hasn’t been surpassed?
Daily Kos
May 7, 2012
Income inequality has vexed many economists, especially with the growing disparity in wages. Chief executives of the biggest public companies now make 231 times more than typical workers, according to a study released Wednesday by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
“CEOs have fared far better than the typical worker, the stock market and the U.S. economy as a whole since the late-1970s,” said Lawrence Mishel, the institute’s president, in the report. “Compensation growth for executives and for top-tier financial-sector workers has fueled the enormous growth of incomes at the top.”
MSNBC
May 3, 2012
“There is not enough demand,” Krugman said during an appearance at the Economic Policy Institute, where he gave a talk to promote his new book, End This Depression Now. “We focused a lot – too much – on the financial sector’s problems. Yet that is long since gone and we still don’t have a steady recovery. That tells us the crisis was far more about household debt.”
Fiscal Times
May 3, 2012
The average U.S. chief executive earned more than $11 million last year in salary, stock options and other compensation, according to a new analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. That’s about 231 times more, on average, than workers.
That ratio has shrunk a bit since the height of the dot.com bubble, when a ballooning stock market inflated CEO compensation to 411 times that of working stiffs.
Los Angeles Times
May 3, 2012
By now the whole wonky set is familiar with the stylized fact that for thirty years after World War II, productivity gains fed into higher earnings for the media worker. In the past thirty years, that hasn’t been the case. But people rarely dive deep into the question of where the “missing” gains went. A great report that Larry Mishel wrote for the Economic Policy Institute last week does the work and the answer is pretty interesting. Rather than a single cause, there are three separate sources of divergence. One is structural shift in which labor claims a smaller share of national economic output and capital claims a larger share. A second is a shift within the labor share toward greater inequality such that the mean wage rises faster than the median wage. And a third is a very interesting phenomenon that has to do with the existence of different inflation indexes.
Slate
May 2, 2012
The New York Times
May 2, 2012
The 99 percent are extremely productive workers, but aren’t compensated for their productivity. While productivity has been on the rise among workers, average wage and compensation has remained nearly flat. That means while workers are producing more, they’re being compensated the same. This chart from the Economic Policy Institute details the change:
Think Progress
May 2, 2012
Josh Bivens says that the United Kingdom’s double-dip recession is proof austerity doesn’t work.
The New York Times
May 1, 2012