Last year, the median hourly wage rose 3.1 percent as employers steadily added jobs throughout the economy. In recent months, though, as job growth has slowed, wage growth has fallen to an annual rate of about 2.5 percent. That’s better than nothing, but unless wage gains are strong and sustained, workers will perpetually be making up for ground that has been lost over decades as wages have barely budged while executive pay and shareholder returns have soared. If wage gains reflected decades-long gains in labor productivity — the measure of the economic growth created by workers — an American making around $40,000 today would instead be making about $60,000.
The New York Times
June 14, 2017
The Economic Policy Institute estimates that in its first year, the CPC budget would create 2.4 million jobs for people of all backgrounds in both urban and rural America. The CPC proposes funding these public works with a financial transaction tax on the sale of stocks and bonds.
In These Times
June 14, 2017
Saving for retirement just got easier
The Boston Globe/Sen. Elizabeth Warren
But there is another reason families in the state aren’t saving enough for retirement. According to new research from the Economic Policy Institute, people saving for retirement in Massachusetts are losing $491 million every single year because of financial advisers who give advice that lines their own pockets at the expense of their clients.
The Boston Globe
June 13, 2017
Now, ordinary people might hear “we need more inflation” and think the prices for everything they buy would rise unsustainably. But the Economic Policy Institute’s Josh Bivens explains that inflation typically goes hand in hand with wage growth, rather than eroding living standards. Plus, Social Security benefits are indexed to inflation, so a boost wouldn’t affect them much. Inflation is also good for borrowers; it has the effect of lowering real interest rates, reducing debtors’ effective obligations. “When we run a tighter economy that’s associated with a higher inflation rate, ordinary individuals are unambiguously better off,” said Joseph Stiglitz on the press call.
The Fiscal Times
June 13, 2017
5 harsh job market realities the Class of 2017 faces
The Plain Dealer/Olivera Perkins
You’ll probably have an easier time landing a job than your counterparts who graduated in the years following the Great Recession, which ended in 2009. (It began in 2007. )However, the labor markets for recent high school and college graduates in Ohio and the United States remain weaker today than in 2000 and 2007, according to a recent report on the Class 2017. The report by the Economic Policy Institute, the left-leaning Washington, D.C.-based think tank, says the Class of 2017 faces other harsh realities. They include unemployment rates for workers under 25 that are about double the overall rate, high underemployment, a gender wage gap and employment-related racial disparities. “Overall, the graduating class of 2017 is facing a better labor market than their older brothers and sisters, who graduated four, five or six years ago, but it’s still not a strong labor market for them,” said Elise Gould, the senior EPI economist who co-authored the report with Teresa Kroeger, a research assistant.
The Plain Dealer
June 12, 2017
Women hold most of the US’s student loan debt
The Boston Globe/Deirdre Fernandes
Just out of college, women this year made on average $17.88 an hour compared with the $20.87 that men earned, according the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. While all college graduates are seeing their wages climb again after the 2008 economic crisis, for women, the increase has been much slower and they are still making up lost ground. Male college graduates earn 5.4 percent more than they did in 2000, while women earn 2.2 percent less than they did at the start of this century, according to the economic group. The wage gap has been persistent, even as more women go to college and earn advanced degrees, said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the institute. “It’s hard to not think there’s some discrimination in pay or promotion,” Gould said. “There’s a sizable gap. It’s pretty striking.”
The Boston Globe
June 10, 2017
The Hill
June 9, 2017
“The private sector is not going to build our roads and bridges for free, they expect something in return,” says Hunter Blair, a budget analyst a the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research group.
CNN Money
June 9, 2017
Trump’s job numbers lower than advertised
Politico/Ayanna Runice
“Public-sector jobs would stimulate more private-sector jobs,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. “Local jobs like school teachers — we’re not keeping up with things like enrollment in terms of the number of teachers we have.”
Politico
June 9, 2017
“This signals they want to redo the rule,” Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute said Thursday. “They are hoping to get information that they can use as legal justification for putting out a new rule that will have a lower threshold.” (Heidi and Celine quoted throughout)
The Hill
June 9, 2017